Flechettes

What next, atlatls?

War is hell, as they say. The grunts know this. Watch them carefully piece together a claymore mine (Front Toward Enemy). The brass calls these kind of mines “anti-personnel” weapons. That is, they are weapons meant to tear apart flesh and bone. They aren’t used to knock down planes or un-track a tank.

You could also call the M-16 an anti-personnel weapon. Or grenades. Or artillery. The war business is a bloody endeavor.

The other day, The Washington Post published a story about an attack on Ukraine by the Russian air force. The anti-personnel weapon of choice, dropped on a neighborhood in Bucha, are called flechettes. These are little deadly darts blown toward the ground by an exploding device overhead. They are described as “sharp, finned projectiles” that can seed an area from above with tiny arrows.

(We supposed the things were pronounced “flesh-et,” but we learned it was more French, as in “flay-shet.”)

The Post’s report notes that the darts “are primed to explode over infantry formations and spew projectiles in a conical pattern, with some versions dispersing flechettes across an area three football field wide.”

NB: Infantry formations.

The flechettes used by the Russian military were found among civilian homes last week. Some landed in a woman’s garden.

A report in the British press said flechettes “would serve little tactical purpose in a civilian town” because, for starters, the Ukrainian military doesn’t bunch up in infantry formations in the open.

The leadership is smart. But who says the Russians were shooting at infantry formations?

The war in Ukraine, aka Putin’s War, is a war of terror against a civilian population. Flechettes scattered along the ground are just fine for giving people a message. And nightmares.