The Davidka (Hebrew: דוידקה‎) was a homemade Israeli mortar used in Safed and Jerusalem during the initial stages of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. Its shells were reported to be extremely loud, but otherwise of little value, besides that of using fear tactics against the Arab forces. Due to their extreme noise and horrific explosions, they proved particularly useful in scaring away Arab forces, despite the fact that they were very inaccurate. It is nominally classified as a 3 inch (76.2 mm) mortar, although the shell was considerably larger.