Brown Moses Blog: RBK cluster bomb

Friday, 11 January 2013

Highlights From The Video Tour Of Taftanaz Air Base

Today it's been reported that a major helicopter base near Taftanaz, southwest of Aleppo, was overrun by the Syrian opposition and as with all overrun bases in Syria a series of videos have been posted online showing both the battle and the aftermath. Among those videos is this lengthy 34 minute tour of the air base

As it's rather long I thought I'd pick out a few interesting highlights from the video. First we have this brief shot of the building that the remnants of the forces defending the base retreated to, before being hit by artillery/tank fire, as shown in this video. This screenshot shows the damage done to the building

This next section shows a Hip helicopter armed with UB-16-57UMP launchers loaded with S-5 rockets, with rockets waiting to be loaded in the background

This would seem to suggest that this aircraft was in use, not just rusting on the tarmac. Later on we have this shot of a badly damaged Hind helicopter armed with a pair of what I believe are UPK-23 gunpods, and a pair of OFAB 100-120 high explosive fragmentation bombs. There's also a number of bombs on the ground surrounding the aircraft

So this appears to be another aircraft that was in active service when it was destroyed. What interesting about the OFAB bomb is Jabhat al-Nusra, one of the group apparently involved in the attack, has used unexploded bombs in VBIED attacks, so I'm very curious in the number of bombs that were captured in the air base attack, as it's likely they'll be parts of future VBIEDs.

Another example of a Hip armed with loaded UB-16-57UMP launchers is shown, and then we have this very interesting example of an RBK cluster bomb tail unit, something that's always left over when a RBK cluster bomb is used

Although it's hard to be 100% sure this might indicate that the Syrian Air Force dropped cluster bombs on it's own air base during the battle, something that could be confirmed with UXO evidence.

Another video tour was posted on Bambuser, which at the 22:14 mark shows a military truck mounted with a UB-16-57UMP launcher. This seems to show that the Syrian forces at that base were building their own DIY rocket launchers to defend the base

At 16:18 in the Bambuser video we also see this cluster bomb on the ground next to a damaged helicopter

Thursday, 27 December 2012

A Collection Of Some Unusual Syria Videos From The Past Week

Now I'm back from my Christmas break I'd thought I'd take a quick look at some of the more unusual videos sent to me by various people over the last week or so. First of all we have a reappearance of another air dropped sea mine that made a much derided appearance earlier in December:

This video was posted online with claims that this was an Israeli provided weapon used by Assad's forces, proving Israeli support for the Syrian government. Rather being Israeli in origin Nic R. Jenzen-Jones of the excellent Rogue Adventurer blog noted that it was a Bulgarian ZH-40 propelling charge, and the star was likely a factory mark

The below video had people scratching their heads, and after some research I managed to identify this as the tail end of a AT-2 Swatter/3M11 Fleyta anti-tank missile, capable of being launched from the ground and from aircraft. While it's impossible to draw reliable conclusion from one example, it is interesting to see this missile around the same time the Syrian opposition is beginning to use heavy armour more widely

This next video shows the first example of the AT-5 Spandrel/9M113 Konkurs wire-guided anti-tank missile I've seen in the conflict. The AT-5 is an 1960's predecessor to the more commonly spotted AT-13 Saxhorn-2/9K115-2 Metis-M, numerous examples of which have been recorded in the hands of the Syrian opposition

I also received a number of queries about this video, which with the help of Nic R. Jenzen-Jones and others I've managed to identify as part of a cluster bomb, with the red markings possibly indicating it's from an incendiary cluster bomb