no one is disputing the efficacy of cluster munitions, Tom. no one is disputing that Russia is already using them.

that’s not the salient part of the discussion. nor the salient part of the Ukrainian conflict.

In regards to munitions storage, I have fired off 50+ year old ammo, that was barely adequately stored, and still have all my digits and eyes. I have my own storage of bang bang stuff, that is 15+ years old, meticulously stored, and still goes bang. Granted this is all small arms munitions, but through various jobs I have had over the years, I have seen how the U.S. Military stores it’s munitions. I would say, they do a pretty good job on the safety side of things, and it still goes bang. Just my 2 pennies.

No, ICM – Improved Conventional Munitions – are still effective. Indeed, the Russians use them, too, and in no small quantity, either. They tend to use fewer per carrier, and of larger size, than we do. ISTR that the bomblets for their largest MLRS are about the size and weight of a mortar shell of between 60 and 81mm.

The first ICM was probably either a catapult/onager-fired bee hive or a leather bag filled with rocks with the same launcher. More modernly, the Brit 25 pounder was the first to use bomblets. They are more effective because so much of an explosion is wasted on overkill at center of the burst. The bomblets spread out the area while drenching it in fast moving shards and bits of wire.

There are different types. Some are oriented at armor, like the US Rockeye. (Rockeye may be obsolete by now.) I assure you, having seen it with my own two little eyes, that Rockeye will do a damn-damn on tanks, APCs, SPGs, and fortifications with overhead cover. I have in mind, particularly, an Iraqi 2S1 I entered and nosed around in 1991. There was a pile of ash on the TC’s seat, and two smaller piles of ash on the floor. Voila: the TC! One of the Rockeyes that had burnt through the top of the hull had set off the propellant, as they very often do. Might have killed the TC, too; hard to say.

Some, are oriented on personnel. Of those, one version would hit the ground, bounce up a meter and a half or so, then go boom. The boom would send, again, a deluge, of metal pieces flying all around and down into trenches.

Some are dual purpose, the DPICM you mentioned, being a shaped charge contained inside a serrated cylinder. The shaped charge will burn through top armor while the explosion breaks the cylinder up into, again, a cloud of small, fast-moving shards. You don’t use them in light quantity, you drench the target with them enough to hit every armored vehicle many times.

There were also some nerve gas delivering bomblets, though those, AFAIK, are out of our inventory.

ICM is between roughly 5 and roughly 20 times more effective than regular HE. This is why the Russians use it, too, especially in their larger MLRS, Like BM-9 (this shows up under different nomenclature) and BM-27. Note that those are is intended primarily to fire ICM, not thermobarics, though they can fire the latter. Why? Because thermobarics are not a panacea and are, in fact, fairly ineffective against troops well dug in and against armored vehicles.

Storage. Yes, it will degrade the ICM and DPICM a_little_bit…probably…maybe. But we go to extraordinary lengths and extraordinary expense to both package and store our munitions for a very, very long shelf life. Don’t expect much degradation.