In the early 1960s, the Soviet military found itself at a crossroads. The recently adopted Kalashnikov PK general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) has solved many problems by easing logistics and supporting a single machine gun type. Still, its adoption also revealed new tactical expectations: a single...
Your rifle doesn’t need to be “cool.” It needs to be the same every time, for every officer, under every dumb condition.
This board refreshment initiative began several years ago as part of the Board’s ongoing governance review and succession planning efforts.
Discover the unique story of the Iraqi Tabuk DMR — a 7.62x39mm designated marksman rifle produced at the Al-Qadissiya Establishments, derived from Yugoslav Kalashnikov technology under Saddam Hussein's military buildup.
No other handgun cartridge has experienced quite as many ups, down and reinventions of purpose in so short a time as the 10mm Auto. Generally thought to have been a product of the 1980s, the 10mm’s whole story actually goes back further. A Brief History of the 10mm The mid-twentieth century saw...
In the mid-1950s, the Soviet high command accepted a compromise that would shape frontline infantry small arms for decades: prioritizing platform commonality over dedicated squad-level suppressive fire capability. That decision, formalized with the 1959 adoption of an AK-derived automatic rifle, ...
Photo of the Day captures the Belgian Army’s Special Operations Regiment during Tropical Storm, a recurring multinational exercise conducted in Central Africa in cooperation with Gabonese authorities. Now in its fifth iteration, the exercise is designed to prepare a rapidly deployable task ...
Photo Of The Day, and we go full Special Forces. The story takes us underground, where the 22nd Assault Company of Belgium’s 3 Para transformed Brussels–Schuman metro station into a Close Quarters Battle training environment. Far removed from open terrain, this setting emphasize...
The AKS-74UB is one of the rarer Kalashnikov variants, a suppressed short carbine designed for missions requiring minimal noise and visual signature. Derived from the AKS-74U developed by Mikhail T. Kalashnikov in the 1970s, the AKS-74UB was created by a team of engineers at the Research Institut...
Even positive changes can be hard to accept. Long before the M1 Garand rifle was in widespread service in the US military, it had its share of detractors. A number of these objectors simply disagreed with the Army’s decision to adopt a semi-automatic rifle at all. They argued that the...