There is a comfortable lie sold by war movies and video games that a tank survives incoming fire simply by being an absurdly thick wall of solid steel. You take a hit, the hull rings like a church bell, sparks fly into the dirt, and the crew rolls forward without spilling their coffee. Anyone who...
In the 1970 film Patton, the legendary U.S. Army General George S. Patton is seen arriving in North Africa to command the Second Armor Division. Moroccan troops are lined up holding a unique-looking weapon. It is an anachronism – one of many in the Oscar-winning film – and a reminder that the...
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a Japanese carbine with a bayonet that folds away under the barrel. This is a Arisaka Type 44 cavalry carbine in 6.5 Japanese, made at the Koishikawa arsenal in Tokyo sometime between 1911 and 1933. The “44” is the 44th year of t...
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have a small postwar Walther that gets overlooked next to its bigger siblings. This is a Walther TP in 6.35mm (25 ACP), and this one is dated 1968. A little background on why a Walther pocket pistol from the ’60s comes out of Ulm and not [&...
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to TFB’s Silencer Saturday, brought to you by Yankee Hill Machine, manufacturer of the new Victra 20-gauge shotgun suppressor . This week we are looking at an uncommon but clever method of suppressing firearms. Captive piston ammunition suppre...
The Russo-Japanese War was one of the first major conflicts in which two modern industrial powers employed machine guns extensively against one another. Russian forces primarily used the Maxim machine gun, while the Japanese increasingly used the Hotchkiss machine gun. Both armies initially had r...
The M40 rifle might be the most recognizable of all American sniper rifles. Its birth coincided with a need for a precision instrument in the steamy jungles of Vietnam, and its legacy was built by those who relied on its performance. Its accuracy, reliability, and endurance have given rise to a g...
The U.S. Small Caliber High Velocity concept started in 1950 with a study, then evolved into testing and evaluation. By the late 1950s, they discussed a .22 caliber rifle with respectable accuracy at 300 yards. The Army Infantry Board brought Armalite’s Eugene Stoner, designer of the AR-10,...
The Soviet RPD (Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyaryova) was a pioneering light machine gun that played a short but vital role in early Soviet weapon development and in adopting new intermediate-caliber weapon systems; it was adopted in 1949 alongside the AK and SKS, which significantly influenced the Cold ...
Midwest Industries is most likely known for its various handguards, most notably its AR-15 and AK handguards. Today, with the massive amount of mission diversity that is necessitated by modern warfare, the ability to reliably mount a significant number of various accessories to a handguard is a g...