Ordnance of the Week: Iranian Mortars
The reported support by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IR) to Russia’s Ukrainian military efforts, primarily Shahed drones, sheds light on the common practice of arms trading among economic and strategic partners. Tracking, identifying, and attributing arms traffic can be difficult, and this document will provide a brief introduction using a brief case study of projectiles (mortar).
Iranian munitions manufacture can be traced to the period of U.S. support between WWII and the 1979 Islamic Revolution, during which time the then Shah of Iran was provided significant military support and arms sales of US and NATO-designated weapons. Iran is a highly developed country with robust engineering and manufacturing capabilities; and began producing compatible munitions, many sharing model designations with the original. After 1979, Iran began adopting Soviet, Yugoslavian, and Chinese manufactured munitions. This created an Iranian-manufactured munitions order of battle (OOB) of US, NATO, and Soviet-compatible “copy” munitions. These copies proliferate within Iran’s sphere of influence in the region and have been present in various conflicts.
Iranian Copies of US/NATO Mortars
An example is shown here, the Iranian Projectile, 81-mm, HE, mortar, model unknown (early copies were not designated) but looks like the US M43A1B1. The image on the right is of the Iranian Projectile, 81-mm, HE, mortar, M91 a lengthened copy of the earlier mortar with gas bands lower on the projectile.
Early munitions produced before 1979 contain the Shah’s royal crest in yellow ink on a green body with a description and date of manufacture. Later manufactured munitions meant for IR use by national forces have Model designations, lot numbers, manufacture dates, and in some cases factory stamp markings.
Diagram from Iraq Ordnance Identification Guide, US Department of Defense, January 2004
Munition of Iranian manufacture have been encountered with markings that make the country of manufacture unclear, or obscure. These munitions may be in both yellow on green coloring and black on tan. Markings are often limited to munition size, and model; or may mimic other country model designations.
Iranian Copy of German Point Detonating (PD) Fuze
The AZ111-A2 is an excellent representation of the German DA111-A2 as depicted below. Early copies were in Arabic script, with Farsi translation for whole words and exact phonetic copies of the original German for the timing delay switch (not shown). Later versions replaced this with Latin script. These fuzes are used on 60mm, 81mm, and 120mm mortars and are cross compatible with Iraqi, Iranian, German, US, and Yugoslavian mortars of this size.
Below is an Iranian 120mm projectile (mortar) with AZ111-A2 fuze recovered in Ukraine.
Image of 120mm projectile (mortar) from Bomb Techs Without Borders Basic Ammunition Identification Guide for Ukraine
As always, a special thanks goes out to Bulletpicker LLC. There you can find our Basic Ammunition Identification Guide for Ukraine (Ukrainian and English editions) as well as numerous technical and field manuals for conducting ordnance research!
Sources:
(1) Iraq Ordnance Identification Guide, US Department of Defense, January 2004