Patrick Senft Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, munitions containing chemical payloads have frequently been documented on the battlefields of that country. Most of these weapons are hand-grenade-type munitions delivering an irritant agent—i.e., a payload generally regarded as less-lethal. Such munitions have generally been used to dislodge enemy forces from entrenched fighting positions,
Trevor Ball & N.R. Jenzen-Jones Editor’s Note: This blog post is linked to entries in the Open-source Munitions Portal (OSMP), a joint project between ARES and Airwars, available at https://osmp.ngo/. OSMP Entry Nos. 456, 496, 497, 498, 618, 619, 620, 623, 625, 688, 689, 690, 695, 723, 728, 735, 751, etc. An Introduction to the MK 80
Trevor Ball & N.R. Jenzen-Jones Editor’s Note: This blog post is linked to entries in the Open-source Munitions Portal (OSMP), a joint project between ARES and Airwars, available at https://osmp.ngo/. OSMP Entry Nos. 513, 514, 548, 549, 579 The use of smoke munitions in modern conflict continues to be misunderstood by non-specialist observers. In extreme circumstances, this
N.R. Jenzen-Jones & Trevor Ball Editor’s Note: This blog post is linked to entries in the Open-source Munitions Portal (OSMP), a joint project between ARES and Airwars, available at https://osmp.ngo/. The use of the Small Diameter Bomb (known in U.S. service and elsewhere as the GBU-39) is increasingly being reported upon in the context of
Armament Research Services (ARES) is excited to announce the release of Research Report No. 12, Digital Bazaar: The Online Trade of Arms & Munitions in Opposition-controlled Syria. The release of Research Report 12 marks the completion of a project which began with Research Note No. 11, ‘Analysing the Online Arms Trade in Opposition-controlled Syria’, and
Patrick Senft Images shared to social media indicate that the Russian PTKM-1R (ПТКМ-1Р) top-attack anti-vehicle landmine was recently employed in Ukraine. This munition is not known to have been previously employed on operations. It was shown for the first time outside Russia by Rosoboronexport JSC in November and December last year, when it was displayed
N.R. Jenzen-Jones & Patrick Senft Editor’s Note: This article is based primarily on previous ARES articles documenting the use of the N235 submunition in Ukraine in 2022 and 2014, and the 9M27K cargo rocket in Ukraine in 2014. A number of submunitions resembling the Soviet/Russian 9N210 and 9N235 models have been documented during the course
Armament Research Services (ARES) is pleased to announce the release of Special Report 4, Munitions Employing Sensor-fuzed Submunitions: Do they Comply with the Convention on Cluster Munitions?. Special Report 4 critically evaluates the definition of “cluster munition” established by the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), in order to assess the convention’s applicability to cargo munitions
The Ordnance Society has recently announced an exciting new project to identify and track extant breech-loading and quick-firing artillery in the United Kingdom. This ‘National Artillery Survey’ aims to establish and maintain a database of these guns in museums, private collections, or on public display. At present, no such national summary of such guns exists.
Research Note 11, Analysing the Online Arms Trade in Opposition-controlled Syria, provides ‘first-look’ analysis of more than 800 trades of small arms, light weapons, munitions, and blank-firing weapons conducted during a three-month period between 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021. This short note is intended as the first step in an ongoing hybrid publications
