Brown Moses Blog: taftanaz

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Friday, 18 January 2013

More Information On The Equipment Looted From Taftanaz Air Base

Since the opposition capture of Taftanaz air base I've been trying to gather information on exactly what equipment was captured at the air base. This video from Ahrar al-Sham, a loose collection of Islamist and Salafist opposition groups, showing the attack on the base provides some more information

Two sections are of particular interesting, first of all at this point in the video we see what looks like at least a dozen UB-16-57UMP S-5 rocket pods stacked up in a warehouse

S-5 rocket pods featured heavily in the Libyan Civil War, frequently welded to the back of trucks and used as rocket artillery. So far in Syria there's only been a few rare examples, including one welded to the back of a military truck in Taftanaz air base and used by the defenders, shown at the bottom of my earlier post on Taftanaz air base.

Of course, rocket launchers aren't much use without rockets, so later on in the video we see another warehouse filled with crates. Unfortunately we don't get a good look at the crate marking, and only a brief look at a couple of rockets stacked on one of the crates, but what we do get a good look at this

What we have here is the warehouse stock list, titled "Aerial Munitions Available in Storage # 6". The three columns with text in are, from left to right, the available stock, the description, and a sequential number. The description includes Cyrillic descriptions of the items, and the list states the following items are in stock (thanks to Omar for translation)

1 - 3743 - S-5KO unguided rocket
2 - 3228 - S-5KP unguided rocket
3 - 3669 - V-5K fuze for armoured piercing rocket
4 - 115 - V-5M1 fuze for armoured piercing rocket
5 - 722 - Flare - Red Star
6 - 469 - Flare - White Star
7 - 680 - Flare - Green Star
8 - 564 - Flare - Yellow Star
9 - 949 - PPZ Fire suppressing round

The S-5KO and S-5KP are both types of rockets for the previously shown UB-16-57UMP rocket pods, and the V-5K and V-5KM1 are fuzes for S-5 rockets, more details of which can be found here. While it's hard to know how up to date the warehouse stock list is does seem to indicate that the piles of crates in that warehouse do still contains various types of S-5 rockets, maybe thousands of them, so I fully expect members of Ahrar al-Sha, Jabhat al-Nusra, and other groups involved with the attack to be welding rocket pods to the back of truck and using them as artillery in the future.

Sunday, 13 January 2013

DIY Barrel Bombs (ADIEDs) Filmed In Storage At Taftanaz Air Base

As I wrote earlier this week footage has been emerging from the recently overrun Air Base near Taftanaz, and footage has now been posted that appears to show the DIY barrel bombs (ADIEDs) that have been dropped across Syria

In total there appears to be 10 ADIEDs (Air delivered improvised explosive devices), which appear to be of a similar style to some of the ADIEDs shown in videos on my Youtube ADIED playlist, for example

It also appears one of the Hip helicopters has had a trolley installed, presumably to make it easier to push the ADIEDs out of the helicopter

So with this find we now have evidence of ADIEDs in Syrian air bases, evidence of them being dropped, and plenty of UXO evidence. All that's needed now is footage of them actually being built for their entire life-cycle to be on record.

Related Articles
Clear Evidence Of DIY Barrel Bombs Being Used By The Syrian Air Force
Collected ODAB Thermobaric Bomb Evidence
A Beginner's Guide To Identifying UXO In Syria
The Mystery Of The Syrian Barrel Bombs
New Bomb Identified In Syria
The Weapons Of The Syrian Air Force

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

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

Saturday, 3 November 2012

Improving Syrian Oppositon Armaments Demonstrated During The Taftanaz Airbase Attack

Early this morning Syrian opposition fighters began a co-ordinated assault on Taftanaz air base in the Idlib Governorate, used as a base for a significant number of Syrian Air Force helicopters operating in the surrounding area. Al Jazeera's Andrew Simmons reported on the fighting

One of the interesting aspects of the operation was the use of a variety of much heavier weapons than we've generally seen used in the conflict so far. To start with we have videos of the common ZU-23-2 auto-cannons and KPV heavy machine guns being used as anti-aircraft weapons

Not so unusual, nor is this mortar being used to attack the air base

But what we also see are at least one Type-63 multiple rocket launcher being deployed, firing a volley of five 107mm rockets with a range of up to 8km in this video

We also see the increasingly common DIY rockets being fired at the airport

But what's very interesting is the use at least one T-55 tank in the operation

So far in the conflict we've only seen a handful of occasions where tanks and other armoured vehicles have been used in combat, no doubt because of the risk of using them without air cover, so it's interesting to see a T-55 being used in an attack where the Syrian Air Force wouldn't have that far to travel to find an attacking tank. Maybe this suggests the opposition are becoming more confident in using anti-aircraft weapons to defend their more vulnerable weapons.

In conclusion we see that the following weapons were used in the attack:

ZU-23-2 auto-cannon
KPV heavy machine gun
Type-63 multiple rocket launcher
T-55 tank
DIY rockets
Mortars

Quite a variety of weapons, and seems to demonstrate how the opposition are becoming increasingly well armed as the conflict continues.

The Free Syrian Army's DIY Rocket Workshop

The Latest Weapons Of The Free Syrian Army

A Rough Guide To Syria's Tanks

The FSA Captures An Unusual Weapon

You can contact the author on Twitter @brown_moses or by email at brownmoses@gmail.com

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

New Cluster Bomb Videos October 17th

[Videos for October 16th]

To start with here's two pictures demonstrating extremely irresponsible behaviour with unexploded cluster bomblets, both showing AO1-Sch bomblets being held by children

[source]


[source]

On the opposite end of the UXO handling spectrum we have this video from al-Qusayr, Homs, showing PTAB 2.5m bomblets buried in the ground marked with circles of rocks as a warning to others, an effect unfortunately ruined by the handling of one of the bomblets at the end of the video

In Armanaz, Idlib, we have a series of videos, first two showing holes left by detonating bomblets, then one showing unexploded bomblets lodged in the ground, and finally one showing the tail end of a canister

In Maarrat al-Numan, Idlib, we have this photo of AO1-Sch bomblets, including the markings "55 107 77", which if I believe shows the factory it was manufactured in, the batch, and the year of manufacture, which is an interesting consideration when looking at these bomblets

[source]

Also from the same area we have 3 PTAB 2.5m cluster bomblets

In Ketian, Idlib, we have this canister tail

And we also have these two videos from unspecified locations in Idlib, one showing a tail section, another a bomblet lodged in the ground

In Taftanaz, Idlib, we have a unexploded AO1-Sch collection including one with the markings "55 78 74", and a photo gallery of the same bomblets, including one with the markings "55 107 77", seen on the bomblet in Maarrat al-Numan, Idlib