Improvised artillery in the Syrian Civil War are improvised weapons created and used by factions of the Syrian Civil War, most notably Syrian opposition forces. The weapons include the Hell-Cannon and its variants, the Thunder Cannon and the Mortar Cannon.
The hell cannon (Arabic: مدفع جهنم) is a general name used to describe a class of mortar-like improvised firearms in-use by insurgent forces during the Syrian Civil War, mainly in the Aleppo area. [1] [2] It was first noted in 2013 and a number of home-made cannon variants have appeared in Syria since.
The Jahannam (Hell) cannon was first manufactured in 2012 in the Idlib countryside, by the insurgent group Ahrar al-Shamal Brigade. [3] It was specifically designed for shelling the town of al-Foua. [3] It was manufactured at a plant owned by Abu Adnan al-Idlibi in the town of Binnish. [3] Manufacture of the cannon moved to Aleppo after Khaled Hayani – leader of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) Badr Martyrs' Brigade – appropriated the design. [3] It was first noted by the press in May 2013, by Brown Moses (later founder of Bellingcat). [4]
The Hell cannon and its variants were manufactured by elements of the Free Syrian Army in and around Aleppo in re-purposed manufacturing businesses that had the tools and materials available. [3] As the Islamic State (IS) became more powerful in the region, it negotiated with local arms makers for making the projectiles and a grassroots weapons industry began to emerge. Some of the arms makers moved to al-Bab and Manbij after IS was expelled from Aleppo. [3] The most famous was Abdo al-Hiriatany, nicknamed 'Karo the Armenian'. [3]
According to journalist Basel Dayoub in Al Akhbar :
In Aleppo, the Hell Cannon is associated with one of the most famous fighters in Anadan, named Jamil Kadour, who had close ties with Khaled Hayani. Kadour went from being an auto mechanic to booby-trapping vehicles and repairing weapons, then to manufacturing bombs and cannons. He was killed by IS members and his body was found in a mass grave at the Institute of Electricity near Haritan. An opposition source said Kadour was killed because he refused to work with IS outside Anadan, demanded exorbitant prices for repairing weapons, and equipping the Hell Cannon and preferred to manufacture arms for their arch-enemy, Khaled Hayani. [3]
Although invented in the countryside of the Idlib Governorate, the Hell cannon was primarily used in the Aleppo area during urban warfare of the Battle of Aleppo. [3] The cannons' medium range (about 1.5 kilometers) requires the target to be nearby, but also for the cannon to remain hidden from counter-battery fire due to it being unarmored and its limited ability to fire-and-move. Thus the Hell cannon is vulnerable in the open countryside. In cities, a combination of close quarter fighting and the ability to hide behind walls and buildings gave it an advantage. [3]
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, as of December 2014, hell cannons were "wildly inaccurate" and have killed over 300 civilians, most of them in Aleppo. [5]
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 Hell Cannon loading and firing Archived 2022-05-20 at Ghost Archive |
The cannon barrel is about 3 feet long, mounted on wheels and towed. It is muzzle loaded. An explosive such as ANFO is first dropped into the muzzle and tamped with a wooden stick.
The projectile is a re-purposed gas cylinder filled with explosives and shrapnel (the payload). Welded to the payload is about a 2-foot metal tube (the tail) about the same circumference as the cannon's muzzle. The full length of the tail is inserted into the muzzle, forming a tight seal inside the cannon. The payload remains outside the muzzle but still attached to the tail now inside the cannon. When the cannon is fired, the force of the explosion takes the path of least resistance pushing the projectile towards the target at high velocity. Flight stabilizing fins which are part of the tail ensemble ensure the cylinder doesn't tumble.
The projectile weighs up to about 88 pounds with three quarters of the weight as explosives. [3] The projectile reportedly has a range of 1.5 kilometers. [4]
There were believed to be 20 such cannons around December 2014. [3]
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 Hell Cannon variant.Syrian Islamic Front, Alleppo |
An unnamed variation uses a projectile similar to the hell cannon (a blue gas cylinder) but the tail fins form a flat base. [3] The entire projectile is inserted into a larger diameter cannon, which is the maximum diameter of the projectile.
The Hell Cannon was followed by the Jahim (Hellfire) Cannon in 2013. This model can fire large ordnance such as water heaters or oxygen cylinders weighing as much as 661 pounds. [3] It was first used in Aleppo's Ashrafieh neighborhood and was also used to attack the Citadel of Aleppo. [3]
A quad hell cannon fired four Hell Cannons at once. However, the model was reportedly no longer manufactured after it was bombed by a military helicopter during the battle of Ard al-Hamra. [3] However, an April 2015 video showed a quad hell cannon being used by the Levant Front in the province of Aleppo, in the village of Bashkoy . It was mounted on a front-loading earth mover. [6]
In April 2015, pictorial evidence of the Thunder Cannon became available. [7] The projectile is an empty 100mm shell casing from a T-55 tank that has been re-purposed.
In April 2015, the FSA 16th Division in Aleppo showed a video of them using an improvised cannon that fired a mortar round. [8] A metal tube with one end closed is the cannon barrel. The projectile is a factory-made mortar round. The round is placed into the barrel and it is laid horizontally such as out the opening of a window. On launch, the otherwise unattached barrel flies backwards from the recoil of the mortar.
The FSA Al-Rahman Legion deployed a series of breech-loaded cannons mounted on an hydraulic elevation system on the back of a truck and fires with a pull-string. Albeit described by some Western mass media as a mysterious 19th-century antique cannon, [9] the gun is in reality a modern improvised artillery piece. [10]
In June 2015, a video was posted online showing a large compressed air cannon in Daraa operated by Ahrar al-Sham. [11]
New types of IRAMs including the Volcano IRAM [12] and Elephant Rockets, [13] were used during the Syrian Civil War by rebels and government forces alike. Volcano Rockets were capable of destroying entire housing blocks with a direct hit, and were a decisive factor during the 2013 Second Battle of al-Qusayr. They are standard artillery rockets with a larger warhead, drastically increasing there lethality, however at the expense of decreased range and accuracy. The Volcano Rocket has been in mass production since the around the time of the battle of al Qusayr and were used in nearly every front of the Syrian Civil War. There are three known iterations: 107mm and 122mm were commonly used, and a 220mmn variant that was uncommon. There are other sub-types. The rockets were improvised from 107mm and 122mm Grad Rockets; the 220mm rocket was based on a Syrian produced rocket. [14]
Artillery are ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and led to heavy, fairly immobile siege engines. As technology improved, lighter, more mobile field artillery cannons developed for battlefield use. This development continues today; modern self-propelled artillery vehicles are highly mobile weapons of great versatility generally providing the largest share of an army's total firepower.
A muzzleloader is any firearm in which the user loads the projectile and the propellant charge into the muzzle end of the gun. This is distinct from the modern designs of breech-loading firearms, in which user loads the ammunition into the breech end of the barrel. The term "muzzleloader" applies to both rifled and smoothbore type muzzleloaders, and may also refer to the marksman who specializes in the shooting of such firearms. The firing methods, paraphernalia and mechanism further divide both categories as do caliber.
A recoilless rifle (rifled), recoilless launcher (smoothbore), or simply recoilless gun, sometimes abbreviated to "RR" or "RCL" is a type of lightweight artillery system or man-portable launcher that is designed to eject some form of countermass such as propellant gas from the rear of the weapon at the moment of firing, creating forward thrust that counteracts most of the weapon's recoil. This allows for the elimination of much of the heavy and bulky recoil-counteracting equipment of a conventional cannon as well as a thinner-walled barrel, and thus the launch of a relatively large projectile from a platform that would not be capable of handling the weight or recoil of a conventional gun of the same size. Technically, only devices that use spin-stabilized projectiles fired from a rifled barrel are recoilless rifles, while smoothbore variants are recoilless guns. This distinction is often lost, and both are often called recoilless rifles.
A mortar today is usually a simple, lightweight, man-portable, muzzle-loaded cannon, consisting of a smooth-bore metal tube fixed to a base plate with a lightweight bipod mount and a sight. Mortars are typically used as indirect fire weapons for close fire support with a variety of ammunition. Historically mortars were heavy siege artillery. Mortars launch explosive shells in high-arching ballistic trajectories.
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the (muzzle) end of the barrel.
The M252 81 mm medium weight mortar is a British-designed smooth bore, muzzle-loading, high-angle-of-fire weapon used for long-range indirect fire support to light infantry, air assault, and airborne units across the entire front of a battalion zone of influence. In the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps, it is normally deployed in the mortar platoon of an infantry battalion.
A gun barrel is a crucial part of gun-type weapons such as small firearms, artillery pieces, and air guns. It is the straight shooting tube, usually made of rigid high-strength metal, through which a contained rapid expansion of high-pressure gas(es) is used to propel a projectile out of the front end (muzzle) at a high velocity. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, and the diameter of the bore is called its caliber, usually measured in inches or millimetres.
The 2 inch medium trench mortar, also known as the 2-inch howitzer, and nicknamed the "toffee apple" or "plum pudding" mortar, was a British smooth bore muzzle loading (SBML) medium trench mortar in use in World War I from mid-1915 to mid-1917. The designation "2-inch" refers to the mortar barrel, into which only the 22 in (560 mm) bomb shaft but not the bomb itself was inserted; the spherical bomb itself was actually 9 in (230 mm) in diameter and weighed 42 lb (19 kg), hence this weapon is more comparable to a standard mortar of approximately 5–6 in (130–150 mm) bore.
A lob bomb is a rocket-fired improvised explosive device made from a large metal canister, which has been used by insurgents as well as the Iraqi military and police during the Iraq War since late 2007, as well as by various forces in other conflicts. The weapon is essentially an airborne version of an improvised explosive device.
Wooden cannons have been manufactured and used in wars in many countries. The wooden parts were invariably strengthened with metal fittings or even rope.
The RL-83 Blindicide is mainly an anti-tank warfare rocket launcher, but other types of rounds can be fired. It was produced by Mecar SA of Belgium and was an improved derivative of the M20A1 bazooka. Its name roughly means "tank killer", derived from the French "véhicule blindé" and the suffix -cide.
The high–low system is a design of cannon and anti-tank warfare launcher using a smaller high-pressure chamber to store propellant. It allows a much larger projectile to be launched without the heavy equipment usually needed for large caliber weapons. When the propellant is ignited, the higher pressure gases are bled out through vents at reduced pressure to a much larger low pressure chamber to push a projectile forward. The high-low system allows the weight of the weapon and its ammunition to be reduced significantly. Production cost and time are drastically lower than for standard cannon or other small-arm weapon systems firing a projectile of the same size and weight. It has a far more efficient use of the propellant, unlike earlier recoilless weapons, where most of the propellant is expended to the rear of the weapon to counter the recoil of the projectile being fired.
The al-Tawhid Brigade, named after Tawhid, the "oneness of God," was an armed Islamist insurgent group involved in the Syrian Civil War.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from May to August 2012. The majority of death tolls reported for each day comes from the Local Coordination Committees, an opposition activist group based in Syria, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, another opposition group based in London.
The Battle of Aleppo was a major military confrontation in Aleppo, the largest city in Syria, between the Syrian opposition against the Syrian government, supported by Hezbollah, Shia militias and Russia, and against the Kurdish-majority People's Protection Units (YPG). The battle began on 19 July 2012 and was part of the ongoing Syrian Civil War. A stalemate that had been in place for four years finally ended in July 2016, when Syrian government troops closed the rebels' last supply line into Aleppo with the support of Russian airstrikes. In response, rebel forces launched unsuccessful counteroffensives in September and October that failed to break the siege; in November, government forces embarked on a decisive campaign that resulted in the recapture of all of Aleppo by December 2016. The Syrian government victory was widely seen as a turning point in Syria's civil war.
A barrel bomb is an improvised unguided bomb, sometimes described as a flying IED. They are typically made from a large barrel-shaped metal container that has been filled with high explosives, possibly shrapnel, oil or chemicals as well, and then dropped from a helicopter or aeroplane. Due to the large amount of explosives, their poor accuracy, and indiscriminate use in populated civilian areas, the resulting detonations have been devastating. Critics have characterised them as weapons of terror and illegal under international conventions.
The following is a timeline of the Syrian Civil War from August to December 2015. Information about aggregated casualty counts is found at Casualties of the Syrian Civil War.
The 23rd Division or 16th Infantry Division was a Syrian rebel group affiliated with the Free Syrian Army. Formed in September 2013, the group was active mainly in the city Aleppo and its surroundings. After rebel lines in Aleppo collapsed due to advances by the Syrian Army during the Battle of Aleppo in mid-2016, the 16th Division suffered heavy casualties and was dissolved. Remnants of the group then formed the 23rd Division. The Syrian National Army faction of the group in northern Aleppo was disbanded after its leadership was attacked by the Levant Front in August 2020, with its other members were transferred to other groups under the SNA's 3rd Legion.
The northern al-Bab offensive was a military offensive and part of the third phase of Operation Euphrates Shield launched by the Turkish Armed Forces and factions from the Free Syrian Army and allied groups, with the goal of capturing the city of al-Bab located north of Aleppo from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
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