Iran Military Forum

I'll have to be brief because I'm about to leave to cut firewood, but I will say this:

Iran's M109s, as far as I know, only had the M126A1 in their original M109s, but the HM-44 (Iran's 155 mm howitzer cannon) is actually based on the M185 which, again as far as I know, was only installed on later model M109s, from the M109A2, up through the M109A4. South Korea is a possible source for this because we do know that they cooperated with Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and given he similarity between the HM-41 and the H-179, it's reasonable to assume that they also cooperated in the realm of artillery.

There are enough differences however between the HM-41/KH-179 and the M185, including different recoil mechanisms, the presence of a bore-evacuator, and the way the HM-41 barrel is constructed (the shorter barrel of the M114 plus the extension to lengthen it versus the relatively uniform barrel of the M109/Raad-2) to make me want to say that they aren't the same gun.

Do you have any source? HM-41 seems to be emerged after Iran-Iraq war. Sometimes between 1990 and 2000. I say this because I've spoken with war veterans and they said Iran got some artillery from "Korea". I asked which one. Everyone except one of them who didn't know the answer told me "North".

Iran ordered a number of landing ships from South Korea. It's not exactly "overwhelming" cooperation but it did exist to some extend. There are also unconfirmed reports that Iran obtained a number of aircraft, and I think I remember tanks being a possibility as well.

There's also no reason that the HM-41 couldn't have emerged in the 1990s either, I didn't mean to imply otherwise in my original post.

It's merely a possibility though, I don't see any reason why Iran couldn't have embarked on the program on their own since, fundamentally, it's just a longer barrel with a muzzle brake on the end.

Iran did also recieve a number of guns from North Korea including the fearsome 170 mm, self-propelled Koksans.