How are ball bearings different from a more typical fragmentation weapon?

I don't imagine that they are, though I'd imagine ball bearings are a little larger and heavier than the shrapnel your average modern fragmentation weapon is designed to produce. Claymore's produce a fragment that is similar but closer to bb size IIRC. Modern fragmentation grenades usually rely I think on fine copper wire or tiny steel shards, partly to keep the injury radius below the range which it can be thrown.

The main point is however that Hizbollah is fielding long range unguided dedicated anti-personnel weapons. I'm not an expert, but the sort of damage pattern you are seeing is most similar to a modern AP cluster bomb, though not spread out over as wide of an area because it has just one center.

I wonder how long before Hizbollah starts fielding the next step up in AP weaponry?

They must be packing a few hundred balls per warhead. Is that done manually or automatically?

Not idle speculation, because manual packing takes a long time and autmoated packing takes machines - and both need a facility, that would be a succulent target.

This post could also be cited as an example of concern for the civilians on both sides. Good on Donald.

I can't really blame the Israelis for their targeting; if they don't target the Hizb'allah assets buried among civilians, they don't target much - in fact just infrastructure like roads, bridges, power plants, airports and docks and such. On the other hand, I can't really blame Hizb'allah, either, for locating their assets among civilians: if they didn't do so, the Israelis would have no reason not to destroy everything Hizb'allah has. One or the other side must surrender or be destroyed (Hizb'allah quickly, or Israel slowly).

In the end, the current challenge from the barbarians is that they have pre-modern minds and modern weapons. To end the challenge, we either have to end the supply of modern weapons (which means overthrowing or changing the calculus of Iran, Syria, Russia, China, North Korea and France, at least), or we have to stop being overly picky about civilian casualties (especially when it's so hard to tell what is a civilian, anyway), or we have to surrender to the barbarians. Well, I suppose there is another way. Eventually, the barbarians will get nuclear weapons, and then we have the option of dying in place, rather than surrendering or fighting.

I really hope President Bush's ideas about democratization changing the face of the Middle East work, because none of the alternatives are promising.

As always you guys have some interesting posts.
I don't have the links handy but I remember some of the Lebanonese victims as having a lot of pot marks also. Not that I am an expert at weapons and the damages done, but they seemed strange as compared to any victim I had seen before.

Supposedly they were from the IDF but does any one know why the victims look like they were shot with a shotgun?

It needs be recognized, though, that Lebanese people and property are suffering more than Israelis. There are two main reasons: . . .

You left out the main main reason: Israel's dropping a lot more stuff.

"Supposedly they were from the IDF but does any one know why the victims look like they were shot with a shotgun?"

Spalling.

"How are ball bearings different from a more typical fragmentation weapon?"

Ball bearings are made of high-quality steel, which is expensive to produce and ill-suited for this purpose. Fragmentation weapons are designed to kill people. Ideally, fragmentation weapons either expand on impact (as for example soft lead, such as Napoleon used during his "whiff of grapeshot" days), or further fragment on impact -- thus enlarging the wound cavity, and making both death and incapacitation more likely.

This is the equivalent of loading forks and spoons into you cannon instead. It sort of works, but it is far from ideal to the purpose; and, when you need to eat, you find you have no fork.

By the same token, Hezbollah is firing off expensive bearings that should be used in factories and equipment that Lebanon needs for improving its economy and the lives of its people. Instead, they're being loaded into warheads and launched into Israel.

RE: #5 - Ask Dick Cheney.

Sorry. couldn't resist.

That's not much difrent from pre-fragmented warheads. What makes odious is that they are area rocketing cities.

Or if they were embeded with rat poison (anti coagulant) like some Palestinian terror bombs...

Hezbollah is firing off expensive bearings that should be used in factories and equipment that Lebanon needs for improving its economy and the lives of its people.

"But Syria is not a threat to the United States!" There, I've saved the other side some effort. May they use that effort to improve their lives.

> Not idle speculation, because manual packing takes a long time and autmoated packing takes machines

Why? They're just filling a cavity.

If you're willing to tolerate some load shifting, "packing" is nothing more than a funnel and a shake or two - it can be done very quickly.

If any load shifting is unacceptable, mix in some fine particles (sand will do) and/or some binder like white glue. Again, it's very fast.

Flying pig moment: Human Rights Watch condemns Hezbollah's use of ball-bearings in rockets.

How can the missiles supplied by the American Regime ever manage to compete with the deadly power of the ball bearing stuffed Katusha rockets?The US supplied phosphorous bombs(oh..thats a chemical weapon by the way) and the uranium tipped 'bunker busting'(and family 'busting'-you know the ones that leave radioactive debris for future generations) have no chance against the ball bearing.The US Regime need to investigate this technological miracle - WBBs -Weapons of Ball Bearing.