Armament Research Services (ARES) has released its first published Research Note, Research Note No. 6 – An Introduction to Basic AK Type Rifle Identification. ARES Research Notes are short form publications, designed to give brief, accurate information on a single topic or concept. Authored by Jonathan Ferguson and N.R Jenzen-Jones, Research Note No. 6 aims
N.R. Jenzen-Jones Photos of arms destined for Kurdish forces being loaded aboard a Royal Dutch Air Force cargo plane in September include several images showing the markings on packaging material. The photo above shows crates containing DM32 multipurpose projectiles for the Panzerfaust 3 (Pzf 3) rocket-assisted recoilless weapon. The Pzf 3 with the DM32 projectile
Michael Smallwood with Yuri Lyamin A recent photo, above, shows a Syrian government fighter manning a Russian Kord 12.7 x 108 mm heavy machine gun (HMG) in the eastern Jobar district of Damascus city. The belt-fed Kord is chambered for either 12.7 x 108 mm or 12.7 x 99 mm (.50 BMG), and has an
Jonathan Ferguson Untrained observers frequently confuse superficially similar small arms and light weapon (SALW) systems, particularly with the pressure of covering a current conflict. These mistakes can act as a red herring for those seeking to establish the objective reality on the ground, or at worst, incorrectly act as evidence of involvement by external parties.
Impro Guns A self-proclaimed ‘IRA group’ reported to be a merger of various splinter groups including the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), has released pictures of the improvised grenade launcher used in an attack on an armoured Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) vehicle in North Belfast last week. The launcher appears to be quite
Michael Smallwood A press release from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence details the military’s restoration of multiple 2S7 Pion (Пион; ‘peony’) self-propelled artillery systems which have been in storage for over 10 years. The video below shows a Ukrainian military-led team in Rivne working on a 2S7. Interviewed in the video above, Colonel Vadim Rudnitsky suggests
N.R. Jenzen-Jones Recent news reports indicate Russia’s intention to modernise much of its military in the coming years. The commander of Russia’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense (RChBD) troops, Maj. Gen. Eduard Cherkasov, announced a focus on so-called ‘flame weapons’ – incendiary, thermobaric and fuel-air explosive (FAE) weapons – describing a program of modernisation and development. “For the future
ARES is excited to announce the release of our latest Research Report, “Raising Red Flags: An Examination of Arms & Munitions in the Ongoing Conflict in Ukraine, 2014“. The report represents the culmination of months of research, identifying and examining over 100 different weapons systems, more than 60 different munitions, and more than 70 different armoured
Hassan Morajea with Michael Smallwood Pictures supplied to ARES show a Caracal F semi-automatic pistol, produced by Caracal, a United Arab Emirates-based firearms manufacturer. This particular Model F is the personal protection weapon of an owner of a gold jewellery store in Tripoli’s Old City, in Libya. The owner, ‘U‘, says he purchased the pistol a few months
A recent article from VICE News discusses a cluster munition attack in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on October 2, 2014. ARES produced a conflict damage assessment report for VICE News, and investigated munition remnants and munition impact sites from the attack, identifying the munition used as the Russian 9M27K rocket with 9N128K warhead,
