Exotic Anti tank weapon

A CBU-97 is a 1,000 lb. cluster bomb containing 40 hockey puck-shaped "skeets." When a precision guidance tailkit is attached to a CBU-97 it's called a CBU-105. Its 40 skeets can scan a 1,500 foot by 500 foot area using infrared and laser sensors (lidar perhaps?) that look for shapes and heat signatures like Russian armored vehicles or aircraft.

If a skeet spots a target it's been preprogrammed to attack, it fires an explosively formed 2 lb. projectile of copper moving at mach 6. It also forms 16 small copper balls moving equally fast in a circular pattern around the big projectile. You don't want to be anywhere near these things when they hit. They're designed to knock out engines and cause catastrophic spalling and incendiary effects. Nasty, and lethal.

Imagine what a single B-1 bomber carrying 24 x CBU-105s internally can do to an armored division. Each bomb can cover a separate area of about 16 acres, potentially hitting up to 40 targets each. One B-1 could theoretically destroy almost 1,000 vehicles in a 384-acre area if the vehicles were spread out 40 to an acre, which is highly unlikely, of course. But pretty much every target in those 384 acres would be destroyed, or at least rendered unusable and unsalvageable. 

Now imagine what 10 B-1s could do. Or consider what the Air Force's 20 B-2 stealth bombers could do, flying unseen at 50,000 feet, carrying a maximum of 16 CBU-105s each (320 total). An entire Chinese or Russian armored division could be wiped out in minutes, with no B-2s lost or even damaged. 

I don't think the CBU-105 is being produced anymore, because we're unlikely to see mass armor formations in a war with China or Russia. The Chinese and Russians saw what precision guided munitions did to Iraq's army in the Gulf Wars. PGMs are so plentiful now and so much cheaper than the armored vehicles they destroy. I'm not saying tanks are obsolete, because I'm a firm believer in the synergy and power of combined arms ops. But it's suicidal to operate vehicles out in the open against a modern military unless you have sophisticated, expensive antiaircraft, antimissile and antidrone defenses, and know how to use them. It's even better if you have the ability to find the enemy's PGMs and destroy them before he uses them against you.

originally posted by: 2Faced
Good evening!

My son and I are having a little dispute about something I’ve seen years ago. It concerns an anti tank weapon that was capable of targeting and destroying multiple tanks. As far as I can remember, after firing it (can’t remember if it was launched by air or from the ground), it spun vertically above a theater with multiple tanks, and launched individual pods from a spinning apparatus, that looked somewhat like a vertically spinning crankshaft.

Now I am not sure whether it was experimental concept or a demonstration of a weapon that is in use, it was years ago (at least 25yrs) but I am positive I’ve seen it. It could have been in a science program like tomorrows world for instance, I just don’ remember anymore.

Does anyone here perhaps know about such a weapon, and if so, what was it called? Where can I find information about it?

Thanks for taking time to read this!

Tanks became obsolete when drones went hi-tech.

Its now possible to Drone-Swarm 100 Tanks at once and Tag them for destruction from great distances....or simply use the Drones as aerial Limpet mines.

a reply to: 2Faced

Nevermind