Infantry Marine, based in the Midwest. Specifically interested in small arms history, development, and usage within the MENA region and Central Asia. To that end, I run Silah Report, a website dedicated to analyzing small arms history and news out of MENA and Central Asia.
Please feel free to get in touch with me about something I can add to a post, an error I’ve made, or if you just want to talk guns. I can be reached at miles@tfb.tv
The Technical Directorate for Military Production (TDMP) is a defense armaments manufacturing arm set up within the Popular Mobilization Forces (الحشد الشعبي) that were established in Iraq during 2014 to combat the growing threat of the so-called Islamic [Read More…]
Osprey Publications has recently come out with a new title in the Weapon Series of books, “The Anti-Tank Rifle”. It is a light history of the anti-tank rifle from the First World War to the beginning of the Cold War. For those not familiar with the Weapon [Read More…]
Program Executive Officer (PEO) Soldier out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia recently tweeted an image depicting U.S. Army Brigadier General Anthony Potts (currently commanding PEO Soldier) on the test range firing a test rifle apart of “emerging technologies for Next [Read More…]
The C96 ‘Broomhandle’ Mauser is certainly one of the most iconic self-loading handguns of the First World War. Osprey Publications has recently published a title about the C96, written by Jonathan Ferguson, Curator of Firearms at the Royal Armouries Museum [Read More…]
Unfortunately, an inevitable result of any large-scale military counter-insurgency operation are unintended, innocent civilian casualties otherwise known as collateral damage. The questions stated to military planners are not “If” but instead “When”. How any [Read More…]
This is Marawan M.’s second guest post for TFB. His first guest post is about the Istanbul Military Museum: Small Arms of the Ottoman Empire if readers are interested in reading more from him. In addition, we previously reported on the Sham R-3, but as promised [Read More…]
This is Marawan Maklad’s third guest post for TFB. His first guest post is about the Istanbul Military Museum: Small Arms of the Ottoman Empire. The Palestinian Hamas movement and its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza surprised many observers [Read More…]
In a recent propaganda video released by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Report Number 190 to be precise), a 7.62x51mm NATO MK 17 SCAR was spotted over the course of the propaganda video. Of course, there is nothing new about this development, we’ve covered [Read More…]
At this year’s Singapore Air Show, S&T Kinetics showed off their latest bullpup rifle, the 5.56x45mm NATO BR18. The BR18 is the latest version of what began as the BMCR, or Bullpup Multirole Combat Rifle which initially debuted at the 2014 Singapore Air Show. [Read More…]
A recently released Marine Corps Times article covers a discussion with a MARSOC spokesman who confirmed in no uncertain terms that the command was not interested in an M27 IAR procurement program. The reasons stated involved the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures [Read More…]
The Surefire MAG5-60 and MAG5-100 magazines were initially released in 2010 and received much interest from all over the shooting community. However, insofar as actually being used by operating forces, it appears that their adoption has been somewhat limited. There is [Read More…]
We previously covered the Marine Corps M27 in last weeks episode and will be really getting into the weeds here in terms of some of the issues and benefits the weapon system afforded to Infantry Marines. Topics such as the choice of magazines for the automatic rifle, why it was so accurate and [Read More…]
A recently published news video from Arizona-based 3TV/Arizona Family Channel concerning domestic violence in the U.S. Army included a photograph of a U.S. Soldier from the 7th Special Forces Group based out of Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The soldier is posing with [Read More…]
The Fiscal Year 2019 Department of Defense Budget Proposal has been submitted to Congress and will take some time before we find out if it is approved or denied. But within it there is a specific budget document titled “Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [Read More…]
We recently wrote about Enhanced Tactical Arms with their new grip design at SHOT 2018. But during the show, we were able to get a behind the scenes look at the small companies efforts to replicate the developmental history of the M4 carbine from the early beginnings [Read More…]
Often completely overshadowed by the larger SHOT Show, the Antique Gun Show is strategically held during the weekend after SHOT Show (although this year it was held the weekend before). Although possibly not the best antique show in the United States, it certainly [Read More…]
The Israeli Dror Light Machine Gun was born during a time of necessity. What would later become the state of Israel was fighting off numerous enemies all around it and needed every weapon system possible. Through this endeavor, a sympathetic employer who formerly worked at Johnson Automatics helped [Read More…]
Kydex, or Boltaron, holsters are all the rage these days. But how are they actually made? With what tools and techniques do these excellent (or sometimes poor) IWB or OWB setups come from? In this episode we look at a local Kydex holster maker and go through all the steps it takes to bring one [Read More…]
Japan was perhaps the least prepared of all the powers during the Second World War to have an issued submachine gun in use by combat troops. Indeed the Japanese Type 100 only saw a production run of at maximum 30,000 weapons. A small fraction of the total amount of the Japanese Imperial Forces [Read More…]
The AMELI light machine gun was Spain’s answer to what the Ministry of Defense needed in a squad automatic weapon, as a base of fire for the Spanish Infantry fire team. It was based on the late war German MG45 design, or as we see here, possibly just another version of the Mauser-CETME Light [Read More…]
Along with our visit to Battlefield Las Vegas where we were able to fire ZMT’s UKM 2000 general purpose machine gun, TFB was also able to get close and personal with the companies anti-material rifle entry. The Tor is a .50 BMG manually operated, magazine fed [Read More…]
At the tail end of SHOT Show, TFB writers Miles and Nathaniel received a very unique and rare opportunity to get hands-on with the Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów (ZMT) UKM 2000 in the United States while at the popular Vegas shooting range, Battlefield Las Vegas. [Read More…]
Now more than a week has passed since SHOT 2018, and we at TFB are finally recuperating from what is most likely the busiest single week that the entire team will have all year. With SHOT Show over, we can finally go back to the boring business of gun writing and video [Read More…]
We previously covered Bad Company Tactical on TFB in SHOT shows past and looked closely at the companies R2S quick detachment system. Initially Bad Company Tactical was focusing their efforts on handgun holster systems, attaching their R2S to the Picatinny rail of a [Read More…]
Dark Storm is continuing down the path of making AR15s available for those in the less fortunate states such as California and New York. To fuel this endeavor the company is working with the California company Bear Flag Defense in introducing the companies polymer [Read More…]
Savage released a significant new product enhancement this year with the Savage Accufit system for the companies Accustock on the 10 commercially available Model 110 bolt action rifles that form one of the flagship product lines. Essentially taking a page out of polymer [Read More…]
The IWI 40x46mm Low-Velocity UBGL/Standalone Grenade Launcher has been around for a few years but this is the first time we were able to actually get our hands on the launcher at TFB. Available for LE/Military customers worldwide, the launcher is designed to lock onto [Read More…]
Originally known for their AR15 magazines with floor plate retainer in the shape of a bright red “2”, the Idaho based company Amend2 has introduced an entire line of Glock magazines as a part of SHOT 2018. The magazines use a glass fiber filled nylon [Read More…]
The Unimag from Ross & Zheng Engineering was created with the intent of having one magazine that was capable of working with the majority of popular cartridges that are chambered in an AR15, STANAG magazine configuration (or with similar dimensions). This means [Read More…]
Beretta’s Intelligent Rail emerged out of a previous U.S. Military solicitation for a “Powered Rail” on rifles and carbines several years ago. One specific contract was the Precision Sniper Rifle competition that SOCOM held, requiring competitors to [Read More…]
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