240 mm mortar M240

In addition to the standard F-864 high-explosive round used by the M240, a number of specialized munitions exist for the 240 mm mortar using 3M15 rocket motors to extend the range to 20 kilometers. The variants include:

• 3F2 Gagara (high explosive shell)
• 3O8 Nerpa (cluster munition, carries 14 x O-10 HE-FRAG parachute-retarded submunitions)[4]
• 3B11 (nuclear shell)
• Sayda (incendiary)

The Soviet Union also developed laser-guided "Daredevil" rounds for precision strikes against fortifications.[5]

The Syrian Army deployed 240 mm mortars to the frontline in the Yom Kippur War. On the opening day of the war, they struck the Israeli outposts at Tel Fares and Hermon, succeeding in disrupting Israeli intelligence-gathering and communications.[6] The Egyptian Army also used 240 mm mortars in its assault on the fortifications of the Suez canal, favoring the heavy shells for destroying Israeli fortifications.[7]

The 240 mm mortars were greatly feared because their enormous warheads were effective even against targets under cover. The Syrian mortars continued to fire on Hermon after the official end of hostilities, and were nicknamed "Goliaths" by Israelis both because of their size, and also after the codename of a concrete underground bunker one of the batteries was firing from. One source implies that a covert Israeli raid was launched to destroy this position.[8]

The first use in combat by the Soviet Union of 240 mm mortars was in 1985 during the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. A battery from the 1074th artillery battalion of the 108th Motor Rifle Division used 240 mm mortars towed by MT-LB tractors against the Muhajeddin forces of Ahmed Shah Massoud in the Charikorskoy and Panjshir valley, including the first use of specialized laser-guided "Daredevil" rounds. After encountering DShK machine gun fire from one of Massoud's fortress, the 240 mm battery engaged the target and destroyed it in 12–15 minutes with five to six rounds, the mortar's high angle of fire proving effective in circumventing the fortress walls where 122 mm bombardments had failed. Troops reported that the mortar was highly accurate and usually a single hit sufficed to destroy a target; furthermore, the heavy shells were little affected by weather conditions. However, the mortar was vulnerable to jamming if the barrel was dirty or damaged.[9][5]

During the Lebanese Civil War, Syrian Army M240 240 mm mortars and S-23 180 mm guns shelled East Beirut in 1989 as part of an offensive to dislodge Christian Lebanese Army faction leader General Michel Aoun, inflicting over 900 casualties.[10]

The Syrian Army employed towed M240 240 mm mortars in the Syrian Civil War starting in 2012 against the city of Homs, making it the largest mortar weapon employed in contemporary warfare. (Some reports cited the use of 2S4 Tyulpan instead, but their presence has not been confirmed, unlike that of the M240).[11] The use of such heavy weapons in heavy-populated civilian areas was first confirmed from the tail fin of an exploded 240 mm shell in Homs in 2012, raising an outcry from human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch.[12][13] Later, videos documented both 240 mm mortars firing and the shells landing on buildings in Syria.

Reports of M240 mortar use became scarce after 2012, possibly because of depletion of munitions stock, but in 2015 and 2016 the exploded casings of two dozen rocket-assisted 3O8 240 mm shells were identified in the suburbs of Damascus, as well as in East Ghouta and Douma, accompanied by un-exploded O-10 fragmentation cluster munitions, which had never before been confirmed used in combat, causing some to speculate their employment may reflect renewed Russian support.[4]

An unknown amount of M240 mortars were reactivated by Ukraine and used in the Southern Ukraine campaign[14] and in the Donbas region near Marinka.[15]

•  Russia
•  Egypt – (24)
•  Syria – (10)
•  Bulgaria
•  Ukraine[14]

•  Czechoslovakia – only four 2S4 vehicles used since 1985 to 1991.[16]
•  Romania – used in small numbers from 1953 to 1995.[17]
•  Soviet Union – passed on to Russia.
• Lebanese Forces – had one mortar which they seized from the PLO in 1982. They also received three mortars from Iraq in 1988.
• People's Liberation Army (Lebanon) – received a small number of mortars from either Libya or Syria in the 1980s.