What are Cluster Munitions?

About Cluster Munitions:

• Cluster munitions, or cluster bombs, are weapons which, as the name suggests, deliver clusters of smaller explosive submunitions onto a target.
• Depending on the model, the number of submunitions can vary from several to more than 600.
• Cluster munitions can be delivered by aircraft, artillery, and missiles.
• Most submunitions are intended to explode on impact. The vast majority are free-falling, meaning that they are not individually guided towards a target.
• However, many submunitions fail to explode on initial impact, leaving duds that act like landmines, posing a threat to civilians for years and even decades.
• They were developed in World War II and are part of many governments’ weapons stockpiles.
• Their main purpose was to destroy multiple military targets dispersed over a wide area, such as tank or infantry formations, and to kill or injure combatants.
• The Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) prohibits under any circumstances the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, and transfer of cluster munitions, as well as the assistance or encouragement of anyone to engage in prohibited activities. 
  • More than 120 states have joined the Convention. Notable exceptions include the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, India, and China.

Q1: What are ballistic missiles?

A ballistic missile is a rocket-propelled, self-guided strategic-weapons system that follows a ballistic trajectory to deliver a payload from its launch site to a predetermined target. They are powered initially by a rocket or series of rockets in stages, but then follow an unpowered trajectory that arches upwards before descending to reach its intended target. They can carry conventional high explosives as well as chemical, biological, or nuclear munitions.

News: Russian ballistic missile kills 11, injures 84 in northern Ukraine