Russia’s Machine Gun Belts: From Soviet Legacy to Future Warfare

As warfare evolves, the machine gun will always be needed. The technology surrounding it may change, but the basic requirement remains the same. One area where Russia has taken a noticeably different path from many Western countries is machine gun belts. Russian PK and PKM belts can be a headache...

By Lynndon Schooler

M10 Booker: Not Your Daddy’s Light Tank

For more than a century, infantry units have fought under an unforgiving reality: When you’re humping a ruck through non-cooperative terrain and you run face-first into an entrenched bunker, fortified machine-gun nest or enemy light armor, your options for immediate heavy fire support are painf...

By Mason Berryman

What Was the Best Sniper Rifle of WWII?

Editor’s Note: Especially adapted for The Armory Life from The Matchless Enfield .303 No. 4 Mk I (T) Sniper and Britain’s Elite Scout/Snipers Who Dominated WWII Battlefields Book No. 2 Mk II revised and expanded by Jeff John. Available at Amazon.com. I’ve long believed the En...

By Jeff John

M1 Abrams — Best Job I Ever Had

The M1 Abrams was conceived with a singular, unyielding purpose: the total destruction of enemy armored formations. Over the last four decades, it has become the absolute pinnacle of tank warfare made manifest. Its sheer battlefield dominance has not only won conflicts, but forced militaries acro...

By Mason Berryman

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

Hidden in Plain Sight - Russia’s Unidentified LMG

In 2019, the Russian news agency RG.RU  released a photo of several new products from Kalashnikov Concern. The weapons were displayed during a visit by Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, where the diversification and reduction of the military-indu...

By Lynndon Schooler

Curious Relics #128: Nagant 1895 Part I – Belgian Design Russian Hands

Welcome, if you are a newcomer to this fun bi-weekly segment of AllOutdoor.com! The last time around we closed out our four-part run covering the M1 Carbine. Today we are kicking off something completely different and heading back across the Atlantic. Ladies and gentlemen, today we are starting c...

By Sam.S

2015 Russian 6x49 Assault Rifles

In 2015, photographs and videos began circulating of several prototype rifle designs from the mid-2010s, chambered for an obscure experimental round, the 6x49, which was the Soviet Union's unified 6mm cartridge . The photos and videos show new developmental rifles chambered for the Soviet-er...

By Lynndon Schooler

PP-2000 - The Kremlin's PDW

Founded in 1927 after the Russian Civil War, KBP Instrument Design Bureau has since earned numerous state honors, and its factory has accumulated a long list of proven designs, including small arms and a broad portfolio of air-defense systems. Today, as a joint-stock company, KBP, one of Russia&r...

By Lynndon Schooler