The airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has seen the US military using multiple precision-guided munitions (PGMs) with unitary warheads against area targets that would have traditionally been engaged with submunition weapons.
The best example of this was seen in a video that US Central Command (CENTCOM) released showing what appeared to be 13 explosions inside a fenced area it described as an Islamic State vehicle staging site near the Syrian town of Abu Kamal (Al-Bukamal) in the early hours of 23 September.
Briefing reporters later that day, Lieutenant General William Mayville, the Joint Staff's director of operations (J3), described the target as a residential area that was used by the Islamic State as a training and logistics site. He said it was "engaged with multiple GPS-guided munitions launched from F/A-18s from the USS George H W Bush ".
The fenced area is on the western edge of the town and measures approximately 65,000 m 2 . Satellite imagery of the area taken on 25 September shows small craters and scourge marks where 12 munitions appear to have airburst over the target at 65 to 80 m intervals. Around eight destroyed vehicles can be seen in the image.
A larger crater in the southwest corner suggests an additional munition failed to airburst as intended and hit the ground. The CENTCOM video shows this munition did explode.
The resulting crater appears to be too small to have been created by a 500 lb-class bomb such as the GBU-38, suggesting Boeing GBU-39/B Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) were used in the attack. The SDB is the only 250 lb-class guided bomb used by the US military (the SDB II has yet to be cleared for service).
In theory, just one F/A-18 could have dropped all the munitions in the attack as four SDBs can be carried on each of its hardpoints using the BRU-61A carriage system.
The satellite imagery shows that several other targets were also hit in the airstrikes around Al-Bukamal. These included a food storage facility just outside the town, although the grain silos do not appear to have been targeted. The Islamic State has seized such storage facilities and distributed food as a way of bolstering local support.
Two compounds inside the town were also targeted, including one that featured in another CENTCOM video. The video shows vehicles in the compound's courtyard being hit by two munitions. The satellite imagery shows the destroyed vehicles. CENTCOM described the compound as an Islamic State storage site.
The satellite imagery shows that the US Navy jets also targeted the courtyard rather than the buildings at the second compound, although no destroyed vehicles can be seen.
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