Thread on then-Jabhat al-Nusra's self-produced 107 mm artillery rocket, the "Faysal-1"

It's featured in the 2013 al-Manarah al-Bayda Foundation video "Stages of Production & Manufacture of a Missile: Faysal-1"

It's old, but impressive, & I haven't seen any detailed breakdowns

The video starts w/ the presenter describing the Faysal-1, crediting previous unnamed Jihadis in its design, & attributing its production to Nusra's "Military Industrialization and Development Corporation"

He describes its role as typical of a 107 mm artillery rocket

He then claims it has the following specs

Calibre: 107 mm
Total Length: 94 cm
Warhead: 2.5 kg
Range: 7km (1km if launching directly at visible targets)

This is followed by a description of the manufacturing process, which he says will omit chemical components for security

First they show nozzle production. He says (correctly) that this process requires a high degree of precision, that they were able to achieve with commercial manufacturing equipment. The video shows a much better equipped workshop than those seen in typical IRAM vids.

The finished product looks to be a relatively high-quality, screw-in nozzle assembly. The angled nozzles (which impart spin for stabilization) are clearly visible in the first picture, & achieving a usable end product like this would be extremely difficult without this machinery

After the nozzle was attached, the rocket body was formed. This appears to be the furthest point in production that was carried out in this workshop.

This workshop looks like it had a fairly high production capacity for what was a largely by-hand (albeit well-equipped) process.

From here, the assembled rockets were shipped off to wherever they would be loaded with propellant grains, warheads, and fuses.

The manufacturing footage is followed by clips of launches across #Syria. Despite the high degree of standardization in the rocket, the launcher appears to be on-site improvisation. This will cause variability in effectiveness, but versatility is part of what makes 107s popular

From the video we get some interesting comparisons to the Type-63, which the Faysal-1 is clearly based on. The Faysal-1 is 10 cm longer & it carries ~1.2 kg more explosives than the Type-63. It is also *claimed* to have a range of 7 km, which is ~1 km shorter than the Type-63

Other points of note-

They compare it to the "Russian" 107 mm but they're mixing it up w/ the Type-63

They claim that the fuse they developed is better bc it can detonate if any part of the rocket impacts, unlike the "Russian" one that only detonates if the fuse impacts

While I'm skeptical of it's claimed performance, this was unquestionably a high quality IRAM. The footage also *suggests* that in 2013, Nusra had a fairly sophisticated operation for producing Faysal-1s, w/ high capacity, standardization, & multiple specialized production sites

Credit to @azelin bc I found the video on @Jihadology_Net

cc @CalibreObscura @AnalystMick @cbtfreelancers @fab_hinz @DuitsyWasHere @Jake_Hanrahan @dex_eve @EllemanIISS @lprubin73 @FoxallResearch