Russia Seizes Arsenal Of US Weapons In Georgia - Military

[Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Jezter

I hope there wont come a time to find out who will win....

I'll agree with that..

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by TheLancinator

Don't have to worry about it staying between the US and the USSR (come on, we all know that's what the Russians want again). This has all the makings of WW3.

Amazing isn't it?

Pushes Iraq and al Qaeda back to just how important they are: not very.

[TheLancinator]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Amazing isn't it?

Pushes Iraq and al Qaeda back to just how important they are: not very.

And it's scary as hell if you ask me...

They called WW1 the 'Great War' and the 'War to End All Wars'. Well, with as many countries with nuclear capabilities now, if this thing should escalate, we could actually see The War to End All Wars.

[Nemowork]

Sure?

The Russians are playing power politics in their own back yard, Al-Quaida's killing Americans in your own streets!


(Ok, ^^ that was me being needlessly contrarian )

[Harpoon]

Who's streets?

[Nemowork]

New York? Washington? The last time the US and Russia fought face to face was Korea in the 50's!

[chainsoar]

Hey, now my "perception" is screwed up. Nice. This is why I usually avoid SD and the more serious debates in News & Views.

[Harpoon]

[Nemowork]

Originally Posted by chainsoar

Hey, now my "perception" is screwed up. Nice. This is why I usually avoid SD and the more serious debates in News & Views.

Yeah, im spending way too much time in here being serious, i need to spend more time with pink bits

[Vardar]

Originally Posted by Harpoon

So who's going to win this war between the US and Russia?

Just imagine Obama as the US Commander-in-Chief and then the answer should be very clear.

[TheLancinator]

Originally Posted by Vardar

Just imagine Obama as the US Commander-in-Chief and then the answer should be very clear.

*sigh*

I better download Rosetta Stone for Russian

[Harpoon]

Originally Posted by Vardar

Just imagine Obama as the US Commander-in-Chief and then the answer should be very clear.

ah ha !!! YOU MAY HAVE JUST SOLVED IT.. We are escalating this to make people afraid to VOTE democrat..

[Dragons_Claw]

If the US and Russian I doubt a lot of us would be left to see who won if they forget about MAD

[Harpoon]

Mothers against drunk driving?

[Datto]

Russia Used Cluster Bombs In Georgia
By David Hambling August 15, 2008 | 11:29:00 AMCategories: Ammo and Munitions, Crazy Ivans
Human Rights Watch have found evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs during the fighting in Georgia. According to their report:

Russian aircraft dropped RBK-250 cluster bombs, each containing 30 PTAB 2.5M submunitions, on the town of Ruisi in the Kareli district of Georgia on August 12, 2008. Three civilians were killed and five wounded in the attack. On the same day, a cluster strike in the center of the town of Gori killed at least eight civilians and injured dozens, Human Rights Watch said. Dutch journalist Stan Storimans was among the dead. Israeli journalist Zadok Yehezkeli was seriously wounded and evacuated to Israel for treatment after surgery in Tbilisi. An armored vehicle from the Reuters news agency was perforated with shrapnel from the attack.

What was the Russians target? The weapon is explicitly identified as a PTAB 2.5m which is an anti-tank bomblet. PTAB is short for protivo-tankovaya aviatsionnaya bomba or "anti-tank aircraft bomb." HRW are generally pretty accurate on these things; Janes lists the alternative payloads for the RBK-250 as being "150 AO-1 SCh fragmentation bomblets, or 30 PTAB-2.5." If you wanted to kill civilians then the fragmentation bombs are deadlier and cover a wider area. However, even if the Russians thought there were tanks in the areas they attacked (and there is no evidence for this as far as I know) cluster bombs still leave lethal debris:

Photographic evidence on file with Human Rights Watch shows a civilian in Ruisi holding a PTAB submunition without realizing it could explode at the slightest touch. This incident highlights the dire need to educate immediately the population of Georgia about the dangers of these submunition “duds.”

Human Rights Watch called on Russia to provide precise strike data on its cluster attacks in order to facilitate clean up of the inevitable lingering contamination from cluster bomb submunitions that failed to explode on contact but remain deadly.

HRW notes that the Russians are not the only ones with this weapon in their arsenal:

Human Rights Watch also called on Georgia, which is known to have RBK-500 cluster bombs in its stockpiles, to join the international move to ban the use of cluster munitions and publicly to undertake not to use such weapons in this conflict.

Many nations are renouncing such weapons in accordance with the Convention On Cluster Munitions to be signed this December. The UK agreed to sign up after some fierce debate. Notable abstainers from the Convention include Russia, China, Israel (which used them in 2006) and the US (which has used them in both Iraq and Afghanistan). In July the Pentagon not only re-affirmed its intent to continue using cluster bombs but also insisted that they save lives. We haven’t yet seen reports of Russia using other questionable weapons, such as their arsenal of thermobarics. But there are plenty of accounts of more low-tech atrocities.

Photo: Human Rights Watch

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...-used-c-2.html