Latest updates from Syria: tank shelling on Homs and new video from Hamah airbase

After publishing the Special feature: all the weapons used by the Syrian regime on Homs, Bjørn Holst Jespersen, a contributor of The Aviationist, has continued to analyse the footage of the Syrian uprising made available on Youtube to update the article he originally posted on his blog that I’ve later edited and updated with the addition of the details I’ve collected about the made-in-Iran drone used by the loyalist forces.

Tank shelling

This video was uploaded on Mar 30 and is said to be from Homs. Bjørn believes the tank has fired one round just before the video starts – and later the footage shows three more rounds being fired.

The tank seems to be a T-72, but the video is a low-resolution one to rule out any other Russian T-model.



Four frames from the video posted above showing smoke after one tank shell fired (sec 0:01) and three more shell being fired (sec 0:13, 0:41, 1:17). Source: hoole19 YouTube channel.

Left: image of a 125 mm tank shell from here. Right: frame from video posted above.

Assuming it’s a T-72 it will most likely have a 125 mm smoothbore main gun, and it could be firing shells like the one in the image above. More examples here.

It is not clear to me what has happened up to this, but during the video there is no sounds of other weapons being fired or any other sign of provokations, which make it look like this shelling is random terror.

New footage from Hamah airbase

Here’s another video showing Hamah airbased, used by the Syrian regime to launch its drones. Although no sign of the “Pahpad” UAV can be seen in the footage, the airbase shows a lonely An-26 cargo and several Mi-8 helicopters, some of those were used to attack the rebels in the last weeks.

In a previous video, several Syrian Air Force Mig-21s in flying conditions could be seen.

Thanks to Fred Enaj for the heads-up

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.