Cluster shell acquired by Finland banned in Norway

Self-destruct mechanism said to be unreliable

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A type of cluster weapon that the Finnish Defence Forces has in its arsenal has been banned by Norway as unreliable.
      "It is the same type of shell that Norway has in its arsenal, and which it has banned from use", says Ove Dullum, a leading researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.
     
Norway banned the use of the DM 662 cargo shells that contain DM 1385 bomblets at the end of last year, after concluding that the self-destruct mechanism of the bomblets does not work as well as it should. Tests showed that more of the bomblets were left unexploded in terrain than had been expected.
      Initial research by the Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) organisation found that between 10 and 20 per cent of the explosive charges turn out to be duds.
      The organisation is investigating how many Israeli cluster bombs were left unexploded in the south of Lebanon after last summer's conflict there.
      NPA says that Israel dropped cluster bombs with M 85 bomblets, which are basically of the same type as the munitions acquired by Finland and Norway.
      Tests by the Norwegian Defence Forces found that just over one percent of the bomblets were duds. About 9,400 were tested.
     
Test firings by the Finnish Defence Forces showed that 0.2 per cent of the munitions were left unexploded. Major Mika Tauru of the Defence Staff could not say how extensive the tests were.
      Grethe Øster, an NPA advisor specialised in cluster munitions, is astounded at the Finnish test results. She says that it is impossible for any munitions to be that reliable.
     
Tauru says that Finland has been buying cluster munitions since the late 1990s, and that the military uses them about two times a year in exercises at the Rovajärvi firing range in the north of Finland. He says that no problems have emerged.
      If the failure rate is 15 per cent, seven of the 49 bomblets in a single artillery shell would remain unexploded in the terrain. Such bombs can explode when a person steps on them, for instance.
      Eero Ojala, a retired Finnish army engineer captain working in South Lebanon in an NPA research group, says that dozens, and even hundreds of cluster bombs that have a self-destruct mechanism are found in the area every day.
      Ojala explains the differing views of the reliability of the weapons by noting that the conditions prevailing in the tests differ from those in which the bombs are used.
      "For instance, in the Norwegian tests, the shells were fired from a hard base, which means that they explode more reliably than in the uneven terrain of South Lebanon, for example", Ojala says.
      He believes that in a Finnish coniferous forest where the ground is soft, the shells would be even less reliable than in Lebanon.
      The NPA study will be ready at the end of June. The organisation wants to ban the use of cluster munitions around the world.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Brigadier General Räty: Finland will not get cluster bombs that linger in terrain (23.2.2007)

Links:
  Norwegian Defence Forces website: Facts about Norway´s cargo ammunition

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