Cambodian Mine Action Centre

I returned to Cambodia in August of 2012 to work with the Cambodian Mine Action Centre – CMAC to shoot documentary content.

Bomblets

These are ‘bomblets’ or submunitions from a cluster bomb artillery round, they are ‘Anti Material’ in design meaning that they are designed to destroy vehicles, tanks, and armaments.


Looking into the base you see a the copper lining of a ‘shaped charge’. When it hits it’s target the shaped explosive charge will crush and invert the copper cone into a molten ‘slug’ which will punch its way through armor and metal plating destroying the target.

The bomlets are stacked in clusters of seven, one surrounded by six, here on a base plate. The ribbon or ‘drogue’ on top acts like a parachute – orienting the devise so that the base with the copper cone will be facing down when it is initiated.

The clusters of seven are stacked one on top of the other inside the artillery round.


This artillery round holds 56 bomblets. The timed fuze, missing from the top of the round here, will initiate the charge in the yellow tube above and the charge will pull the cluster of bombs from its casing, it then ‘blooms’ into a hail of deadly bomblets.