Since WWII...
The success and economy of multiple rocket launchers (MRL) have led them to continue to be developed. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union fielded several models of Katyushas, notably the BM-21 launchers fitting the stereotypical Katyusha mould, and the larger BM-27. Katyushas were exported to Afghanistan, Angola, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, East Germany, Hungary, Iran, North Korea, Poland, Syria, and Vietnam. They were also built in Czechoslovakia, North Korea, and Iran. Israel captured BM-24 MRLs during the Six-Day War (1967), used them in two battalions during the Yom Kippur War (1973) and the 1982 Lebanon War, and later developed the MAR-240 launcher for the same rockets, based on a Sherman tank chassis. Western nations also employ MRLs, but they tend to be more complex and expensive systems, such as the U.S. M270 MLRS. For a more complete list of systems, see artillery rockets, in the list of artillery.
Advances in artillery munitions have been applied to some Katyusha-type multiple launch rocket systems, including bomblet submunitions, remotely-deployed land mines, and chemical warheads.
In recent history, Katyusha rockets have been used by Russian forces during the Second Chechen War and Armenian and Azerbaijani forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Katyushas have also been used outside of Russia and the former Soviet republics, in particular by the Hezbollah Lebanese militia in bombardment of Israel before and especially during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The equipment used included BM-21-derived launchers and, notably, longer-ranged Fajr-3 rockets were directed towards many northern Israeli towns, including Haifa and Nazareth.
