Cluster munitions are great against infantry in open field; less so against population centres equipped with advance warning systems. As it stands, they fail to even cause the damage worth offsetting by firing interceptors. The damage these inflict on Israel is not unsustainable, and they don't do much to create deterrence.

Given a choice of conventional 500-800 kg warhead or cluster munitions warhead, I think that the nations in the current conflict would prefer being on the receiving end of cluster munitions (as a less bad option) every time.

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don_esteban 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Depends, blanketing Ben Gurion (or any airbase) with parked aircraft on the tarmac with carpet munition is a really bad day.

But yes, against protected targets cluster munitions do not achieve much.

If you have relatively few low-precision missiles, using single warheads means you are risking achieving NO damage (easier to intercept, a good chance that it will hit nothing), with a cluster munition you are guaranteeing at least some damage.

I think Iranians are mixing both types of warheads.

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varjag 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Russia regularly uses cluster warheads on their ballistic missiles to a devastating effect. It all depends on the type of the target.

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mamonster 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>The damage these inflict on Israel is not unsustainable, and they don't do much to create deterrence.

Has there been a study on this? What is the GDP loss of having however many Israelis go to bunkers due to incoming ballistics instead of working ?

If a trash cluster missile that costs 100k USD to build causes 1mio USD worth of GDP to not be produced (numbers completely made up) then it's very worth it.

	▲	maratc 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		No idea about studies or GDP; just observing that the losses inflicted by Iran on Israel in June 2025 did nothing to deter Israel from going on offence again eight months later.
	▲	mrguyorama 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Ballistic missiles do not cost only 100k USD to build. They are very unlikely to ever be that cheap. Rocketry requires enough precision to not explode on the launcher. Ballistic missiles with conventional munitions are only useful for point targets. Cluster munitions like Iran uses are an admission that they aren't targeting specific systems, aren't expecting to penetrate defenses, or other reasons why they would waste a ballistic missile on the modern equivalent of the Paris Gun. Harassment weapons don't do much. None of the harassment campaigns done by the Nazis for example really amounted to anything. Modern Shaheds can be possibly built at a scale to affect that, but we really haven't seen it happen yet. That would be something like thousands launched in a single wave against a single city or installation. But they still lack the precision and warhead to be targeted meaningfully. You need WW2 industrial scale manufacturing lines worth of Shaheds to get beyond harassment. You need to be producing hundreds a day or more. That kind of industry is nearly impossible to protect from your adversary so unlikely to take shape.