The United Nations this week released its investigation into the reported chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21. The U.N. says that, yes, chemical weapons were used in Syria, and its report provides details about how these weapons were deployed. The U.N. team found evidence of several different rockets that were used in the attack.
This is the story of one of them.
What It Is
The investigators discovered a small crater in a porch in a Damascus suburb called Moadamiyah; inside the crater was a rocket motor. The warhead it carried was never found. The U.N. report shows photos of a 140-mm rocket with Cyrillic writing stenciled on the outside. The 10 nozzles seen at the base of the munitions base tell the U.N. investigators that it is a M14 artillery rocket, built in Soviet-era Russia.
Multiple rocket launch systems (MRLS) are legendary pieces of Russian military equipment, as iconic in their own way as a T-72 battle tank or MiG jet warplane. An MRLS is a simple concept: transform any vehicle into a portable firepower platform by affixing multiple rocket-launch tubes to it. The design has its roots in the World War II–era Katyusha—a family of trucks, tractors, and riverboats that brought heavy firepower to stem and reverse the Nazi advance into Russia. The old trucks are still revered in Russia. At a military display at an arms show outside Moscow, they generated a standing ovation and cheers from the ticket-paying crowd.
The Soviets first fielded the 140-mm BM-14 in 1952. It featured 16 launch tubes mounted on a truck with a 6x6-foot chassis. The Soviets made new versions of the MRLS, with better vehicles hauling longer-range rockets. The BM-14 was partially replaced by 122-mm BM-21 starting in 1957. The Soviets exported both the BM-14 and BM-21 to Syria, but the rocket found in Damascus is a 140-mm. That means the BM-14 is the likely vehicle that shot the rockets.
Where It Came From
When did this outmoded piece of hardware reach Syria? The transfer occurred before weapons-monitoring organizations such as SIPRI created their useful databases, so there are no clues there. But there is a rich history of arms deals between Syria and Russia, so options abound. From 1955 to 1960 the Soviet Union supplied $200 million in weapons to Syria to counter the U.S. courtship of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. (Sound familiar?) In 1972, after a Syrian Air Force commander seized control of the country in a coup, the Soviet Union supplied $135 million in arms and became Syria's main arms supplier. The influx of weapons has left Syria with more than 500 MLRS, including the old, reliable BM-14.
What It's For
The BM-14 is the farthest thing from a precision weapon. It is made for saturation bombing: a strategic attack on an entire area, such as a city block or large section of battlefield. The weapon has 16 high rockets, each loaded with a 17.5-pound explosive warhead, so indiscriminately pounding any area is as terrorizing as it is damaging.
And the BM-14 does not simply shoot explosives—it can distribute chemicals. Sometimes those chemicals produce smoke. Other times they deliver nerve gas. According to the book Red Steel: Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of the Cold War, by Russell Phillips, smoke and chemical warheads were introduced to the BM-14 in 1955.
Both the USSR and the United States produced sarin gas (the agent used in the August attack) for military purposes. The United States ended production in 1956, just when the Soviet Union started passing chemical-weapon-capable artillery around the world. It is estimated that 96 percent of the U.S. sarin supply has been destroyed. But, as the Syrian attack shows, more has been created around the world.
The U.N. report says the rocket it found in Moadamiyah was armed with "an original or improvised warhead (not found at the impact site)." The sarin warheads used in Syria this year are vintage, but the chemicals themselves are newer than the rockets that fired them. According to the Congressional Research Service, Damascus has sought a self-sufficient chemical weapons program since the 1980s. "Declassified U.S. documents indicate that the Soviet Union supplied Syria with chemical agents, delivery systems, and training related to chemical weapons use," the report reads. "Syria is likely to have procured equipment and precursor chemicals from private companies in Western Europe."
The chemical attack on August 21 came as part of a rocket barrage, as could be expected from a saturation-bombardment weapon. The M14 found by the U.N. team careened from the northwest and clipped an apartment building. That's when the warhead detached, spreading sarin droplets that vaporized quickly. It is odorless and slightly heavier than air, so the gas was able to creep downward into buildings and blanket victims. Within seconds of exposure, the symptoms manifest: shortness of breath, blurred vision, vomiting, eye inflammation, and seizures. U.N. blood and urine samples confirmed that the gas was sarin. A horrible but hardly new weapon of war has resurfaced.