Mikoyan MiG-29: The Reactive Fulcrum?

Military aircraft design of the Cold War era could be described as akin to physics, or, more specifically, to Newton’s Third Law of motion, which states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” From lessons learned in the Vietnam War, the United States Air Force determi...

By Peter Suciu •

Curtiss P-36 Hawk: Hero Plane of Pearl Harbor?

At the National Museum of the United States Air Force, many visitors will see an unfamiliar aircraft at the entrance to the WWII gallery. The museum’s display of the gleaming silver fighter coded “86” on the fuselage, features a pilot boarding the plane in his pajamas, with an M1911 pistol ...

By Tom Laemlein •

Army Testing Shorter, Lighter XM8 Carbine (Revised)

The XM8 ships with a 25-round magazine. Twenty-round mags from the M7 remain compatible. That directly addresses one of the louder complaints in Army Capt. Braden Trent's May 2025 assessment of the M7, which called the 20-round capacity a liability. As TFB covered when the Army type-classifi...

By Josh C •

Brewster F2A Buffalo: WWII’s Forgotten Fighter

The air war during World War II saw the transition from the last of the biplane fighters to the beginning of the jet age. A myriad of aircraft were in action around the globe; some have become enduring icons while others faded into obscurity. The Brewster F2A Buffalo can legitimately claim member...

By Tom Laemlein •

Chesty Puller: Most Decorated U.S. Marine in History

Lieutenant General Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller is the most decorated Marine in U.S. history and has been awarded the nation’s second-highest military award for valor six times, with five Navy Crosses and one Distinguished Service Cross. He fought guerrillas in the Haitian and Nicaraguan �...

By Friedrich Seiltgen •

American Bombers in World War II

American bombers in World War II represented the most significant leap in strategic air power the world had ever seen. Between 1941 and 1945, the United States Army Air Force (U.S.A.A.F.) deployed an unprecedented array of bombing aircraft across both European and Pacific theaters. From light att...

By Richard Johnson •

The Lost Art? How to Read a Map

It was Thanksgiving weekend. James Kim and wife, Kati, with their young daughters Sabine and Penelope, were motoring on their trip home to San Francisco on I-5, then turned toward Gold Beach on Oregon’s southern coast. The road James took began to climb. There was no traffic, and soon no cell s...

By Wayne van Zwoll •

6mm ARC Basics – What you Need to Know to Get Started

With the rise of 6mm ARC, we’ve been asked many questions on what it takes to get started shooting and if the round is perhaps overhyped. To learn more, we reached out to Eric Lee, owner of Sgt of Arms, who is building high-quality, competition-winning ARs, many of which are chambered in 6mm ARC.

By James Burton •

M21 Sniper Rifle — A Short History

The renowned M14 service rifle has a complex history: it was the U.S. military’s shortest-lived service rifle yet one of the longest in service. While its time as a standard-issue rifle for G.I.s was brief, its power and performance have ensured its continued use as a sniper and Designated Mark...

By Cory Ross •

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15: First Soviet Swept-Wing Fighter

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 entered the Cold War as a swept-wing jet fighter that stunned Western planners and demonstrated its lethality in the skies over Korea. In this article, Peter Suciu examines how its advanced aerodynamics, heavy cannon armament, and combat performance against American ai...

By Peter Suciu •
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