Ernő Lovass & N.R. Jenzen-Jones The 2B9M Vasilek (‘Cornflower’) is a muzzle or breech-loading, long recoil-operated automatic smoothbore medium mortar. It is a modernised, air-cooled version of the 2B9 water-cooled mortar, itself derived from the earlier F-82 automatic mortar. Development of the 2B9 began in the late 1960s, with the Soviet army adopting the weapon in 1970. The modernised 2B29M
Michael Smallwood Update 151009: Further information has come to light, showing that these images were first posted to Facebook on 31 August 2013, and 18 March 2014. The earliest appearance of the weapon appears to be 8 April 2013. The combatant pictured appears to be a Druze militiaman. There are photos of numerous other fighters posing with a
N.R. Jenzen-Jones with Yuri Lyamin Ansar al-Sham (كتائب أنصار الشام; ‘Supporters of the Levant’), an Islamist militant group associated with the Islamic Front in Syria (الجبهة الإسلامية; al-Jabhat al-Islāmiyyah), have uploaded a YouTube video showing combatants firing a 2B9M automatic mortar near Mount Chalma, in Syria’s Kesab district. The 2B9M Vasilek (‘Cornflower’) is a breech-loaded, long recoil-operated
