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…]
The Heckler & Koch G36s for the Latvian National Guard is appearing. As recently as January, the Latvian National Armed Forces (NAF) signed and announced a framework agreement with a purchase contract with Heckler & Koch for G36s rifles. Below: Looks like their [Read More…]
Late last year we reported that the US Marine Corps had begun fielding the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle as the M38, a designated marksman rifle. The M38 is essentially a standard M27 mounting a variable power Leupold TS-30A2 Mark 4 MR/T scope instead of a standard ACOG. [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…]
The US Army’s Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle (NGSAR) program is moving forward with a Prototype Opportunity Notice scheduled for publication later this week. The US Army Contracting Command has issued a draft Prototype Opportunity Notice (PON) for the [Read More…]
Companies in the business are gearing up for this week’s EnforceTac exhibition in Germany. TFB will be heading that way too, of course. FN Herstal are proud to announce that their FCU Mk3 Fire Control Unit has been chosen to the IdZ-ES program. Infanterist der [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 Chinese People’s Liberation Army have all but abandoned the venerable Type 79 Submachine Gun in favour of the newer QCW-05 bullpup personal defence weapon. It seems, however, that the Type 79 remains popular with China’s SWAT teams. Photos of upgraded [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…]
In a show of patriotism Turkey’s state-owned small arms manufacturer MKEK (Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation) has delivered the next batch of new MPT-76 rifles to the Turkish Army ahead of schedule. With staff reportedly working overtime the next [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…]
The top picture is taken by Rune Haarstad / Sjøforsvaret when the naval force SNMG1 NATO enters London, UK, with the frigate Otto Sverdrup. The Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency (NDMA) is the authority for procurement to the armed forces. The general level of activity [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…]
The closest I ever got to the Russian Alpha Team was my coffee mug which I bought on location in Russia. We see each other quite often! I chose the silver logotype, not the golden, and the coffee tastes excellent every time! Below: Russian Alpha Team coffee mug with TFB [Read More…]
Here you can find a nice array of photos (from Bartosz Różański) from the Polish Snipers of the 21:st Brigade. As you can see they are using their new SAKO TRG M10 sniper rifles. As TFB reported before, Poland have bought 150 TRG M10 rifles, which they now seem to [Read More…]
U.S. Marines have participated in the Swedish Basic Winter Warfare Course. These pictures were taken by Staff Sgt. Marcin Platek in January 2018, located in the North of Sweden. The location more exactly is Arvidsjaur, Sweden, where a lot of car manufacturers torture [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…]
“Abraxas Spa” posted this picture on Twitter: “Afghan Commandos in a breaching exercise, with what seems to be DeWalt quick-saws.” The picture can also be found at Resolute Support Mission on Facebook. With a photo like that, a lot of questions [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…]
Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier’s new commanding officer Brigadier General Anthony Potts has gotten to grips with one of PEO Soldier’s most interesting projects, Textron’s Cased Telescoped Light Machine Gun. The Cased Telescoped Light Machine [Read More…]
India’s ongoing troubles adopting a new service rifle are well documented but as a leading defence committee, chaired by defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, announces a major procurement are India’s small arms woes coming to an end? Following numerous [Read More…]
According to the Danish website Krigeren.dk (Translated: The Warrior), the Danish Army is looking for a new handgun. It is mandatory for the new pistol to be Striker Fired. The pistol M/49, which is a SIG Sauer P210, is expected to end its service life with the Danes [Read More…]
A US company called MATBOCK has released a new 40mm grenade launcher sight which automatically estimates the range of the grenade impact depending on the angle of the weapon system. The new sight is called ARD (Aquire Read Deploy). In order to make a shot, the shooter [Read More…]
The US Army Contracting Command is in search of private sector contractors to repair its M107 Long Range Sniper Rifles. A revised sources sought notice was posted earlier this month. The sources sought notice was originally posted over a year ago on 8th February 2017 [Read More…]
Last Thursday, we discussed the US Army’s solicitation for combustible cartridge cases. Today, we’ll take a look at another interesting solicitation published in the same US government program called SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research). This time the [Read More…]