economist | THE “hell cannons” of Aleppo pack a deadly punch. Cobbled together in
Syria by militant groups fighting to overthrow the autocratic regime of
Bashar al-Assad, they use an explosive charge at the bottom of a pipe
to hurl a propane cylinder crammed with 40kg or more of explosives and
shrapnel. A finned tail welded to the cylinder shields it from the
launch blast and provides stability in flight. The Ahrar al-Sham brigade
reckon the cannons can hit targets 1.5km away. Fuses detonate the
cylinder upon impact or, using a timer, after it punches into a
building. This is all the better to demolish several floors with a
single strike.
The use of improvised weapons in conflict has a long and bloody
history: from the Irish shillelagh, a walking stick that doubles as a
club—especially effective when the knob at the top is loaded with
lead—to the Molotov cocktail, as the glass petrol bombs the Finnish army
hurled at Russian tanks during the second world war came to be known.
The modern equivalents are more high-tech and, like Aleppo’s hell
cannons, far deadlier. This comes from a combination of more
sophisticated and easily available “off-the-shelf” equipment, and the
internet providing a ready medium to spread new weapon-making ideas. The
upshot is a reshuffling of the cards in modern warfare, says Yiftah
Shapir, a weapons expert at Tel Aviv University and a former lieutenant
colonel in Israel’s air force. Any side that begins with a technological
advantage will see it erode quickly as the underdogs improve their
improvisation capabilities.
The ominous consequences have led America’s Defence Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA), an arm of the Pentagon, to try to keep up with
developments by soliciting worldwide for new ways to make weapons using
commercially available materials and technologies. More than 20 experts
are now reviewing hundreds of submissions. To better assess the risks,
some of the most promising designs will be built as prototypes and
tested. This could earn their inventors awards of up to $130,000.
