Barrack buster
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Barrack buster is the colloquial name given to several improvised mortars, developed in the 1990s by the engineering group of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA).
The first barrack buster - known to the British security forces as the Mark 15 mortar - consisted of a 1 meter long metal propane gas cylinder with a diameter of 36 cm that contain around 70 kg home-made explosives and with a trajectory between 75 and 275 m. The cylinder is an adaptation of a commercial 'Kosangas' gas cylinder for heating and cooking gas used in rural areas in Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was first used in an attack on 5 December 1992 against a police station in Ballygawley in Northern Ireland.[1]
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[edit] Provisional IRA:s improvised mortars
The barrack buster belongs to a series of home-made mortars developed since the 1970s. The first such mortar - Mark 1 - was used in an attack in May 1972 and it was soon followed by the first of a series of improved or differentiated versions stretching into the 1990s:
- Mark 1 - 1972
- Mark 2 - 1972 -- Resulted in the first fatality when a British soldier was killed trying to defuse a misfired mortar projectile
- Mark 3 - 1973 -- During an attack on a police station a misfired mortar killed two IRA men (aged 16 and 27) operating the mortar
- Mark 4 - 1974 -- Used only in one known attack on 22 February 1974
- Mark 5 - 1974 -- Never used in any known attack
- Mark 6 - 1974
- Mark 7 - 1976 -- Longer version of Mark 6
- Mark 8 - 1976 -- Longer version of Mark 6
- Mark 9 - 1976
- Mark 10 - 1979 -- Its first use on 19 March 1979 caused the first deliberate victim - a British soldier - from a PIRA mortar attack
- Mark 11 - 1982
- Mark 12 - 1988 -- Not really a mortar but more of a bazooka
- Mark 13 - 1990 -- A spigot mortar
- Mark 14 - 1992
- Mark 15 - 1992 -- First mortar known as "barrack buster".
- Mark 16 - 1993
- Mark 17 - 1998?
- Mark 18 - 1998?
Three Mark 10 mortars using a mixture of ammonium nitrate and nitrobenzene - known as 'Annie' - as warhead were used on 7 February 1991 in an IRA attack on 10 Downing Street in London against British Prime Minister John Major and his War Cabinet during the first Gulf War. In March 1994 the Mark 6 mortar using Semtex warheads was used in three attacks on Heathrow airport.[2]
[edit] Use by other terrorist groups
These mortars have also been appropriated by other political militants using terrorist tactics. These mortars have been used by the Real IRA in the 2000s.[3] Furthermore, what appears to be a similar or identical mortar technology has also been used by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The transfer of this technology to the FARC was a central issue in the arrest in August 2001 and later trial of the so called Colombia Three group of IRA members that were alleged by Colombian authorities to have trained FARC in the manufacture and use of this mortar technology.
[edit] Notes
[edit] Bibliography
- Geraghty, Tony (1998), The Irish War: the Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Smith, Steve (2006),3-2-1 Bomb Gone: Fighting Terrorist Bombers in Northern Ireland, Sutton Publishing.
