# Air/ Ground Munitions



## Cloud Cover (23 May 2005)

CBU-97 and CBU-105, Textron Systems' Sensor Fuzed Weapon (SFW), a 1,000-pound class weapon, dispersing BLU-108 submuntion and Smart Skeet warheads.

This smart area weapon [SMAW] is one of the leading infantry support air/ground weapons of the future. I do not believe it is in Canada's inventory [yet], but it should and probably will be. At 1000 lbs, a CF-18 or almost any other high flying aircraft with hard points or a bomb bay can drop it. 

In addition to the precision and lethality of this system, it is also a "clean" submunition. In other words the weapon does not leave UXO's. The bomb was trialled in Iraq in 2003, and one or two of the weapons accounted for over 2 dozen MBT or APC kills in a single pass. 

The manufacturer is Textron Systems. Their website has a few details, some excellent animations and some pilot testimonial video.
I haven't got permission from Textron to deep link to the weapon, but if you go to their website at systems.textron.com and look up Precision Strike at the top bar, the first system is the SFW. 

An awesome and scary weapon, the possession of which would hopefully force a potential adversary to think long and hard about engaging in armed conflict any opposing force with the means to deliver the weapon.  

Cheers.

* edit: I see Spr. Earl  picked up on this before: http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/17649/post-83620 [Boom!]

I also think this article is worth a read as well, since it details many unintended and deleterious problems of these types of weapons, although the Smart Skeet is supposed to resolve many of the UXO issues: go to w3, then mennonitecc.ca/clusterbomb/drop_today/. Please, do not post derogatory comments aimed at this group. Thanks.


----------

