[THREAD] On the fascinating reuse of expended munitions by ISIS in #Diyala #Iraq back in early 2015, in a video called "Their Goods were Returned to Them".

I've heard of similar efforts, but it's the first time that I'd seen the process in good detail.

2/ The video starts with a section on the use of Illumination mortar bombs by Iraqi forces- these are, of course used to light up the area at night, to expose enemy movements.

3/ When these come back down (In two sections), they are often in reasonable condition apart from the actual illuminate candle and parachute.

Hence, the tail and midsection unit (Which split in flight to let the parachute drop) can be recovered.

4/ It appears that ISIS came up with an ingenious solution to remanufacture the remnents of 81/82mm and 120mm ILL shells into fully functioning HE Mortar bombs and then use them on Iraqi forces

5/ The process is shown in detail, including the joining and welding of the tail unit and mid section in an improvised workshop. It seems that IS had fair quantities of these available. Seen are 120mm units, that had likely been cleaned.

6/ After that the now reassembled and reinforced shells are filled with HME from a wheelbarrow.

Note the addition of a central “booster charge” (As the craft-produced HME is likely comparatively insensitive)

7/ Cast Aluminium end caps are then added, and then fuzes of the M-6 pattern were added (It’s interesting that ISIS seemed to have access to factory produced fuzes but not the bombs themselves, perhaps captured during an attack), to create a fully functional 120mm HE mortar bomb.

8/ As can be seen, these are Serbian M87s, made in January 2009.

9/ They were likely sold to Iraq as part of the massive $235 million arms deal of 2008-2009, along with the now infamous “less than lethal” 40x46SR grenades that were also misused in a completely different way 5 years later. https://balkaninsight.com/2019/12/13/epic-serbian-arms-deal-led-to-pierced-skulls-in-baghdad/

10/ ISIS then showed video of the improvised HE mortar bombs in use- except the video shows modified 81/82mm rounds being fired from Yugoslavian M69-pattern mortars (Various variations), not the 120mm shown in the video. However, the fuze and end cap appears identical.

11/ They appeared to function correctly.
Regardless of the terrible nature of ISIS, it is extremely interesting to see how what would usually just be the refuse left from the use of battlefield illumination shells was turned into something much more dangerous. There is no…

12/ …reason to think that beyond some range/accuracy issues that they couldn’t function correctly, given IS explosives know how, but their craft-produced nature may lead to premature explosions (No seal between craft-produced cap & explosive filler for example) & other problems

13/ My thanks to @blueboy1969 for help on some design-related aspects.

cc @MENA_Conflict @MSchroeder77 @Brian_Castner @AbraxasSpa @oryxspioenkop @MinsterTX