Photo Of The Day – Learning how to shoot a handgun and a rifle is fundamental to soldiering, and here we have the M17 pistol and the M4 rifles in action. Above you see New York Army National Guard Sgt. Trudy S. Sharpe from the 104th Military Police Battalion [Read More…]
Welcome to another Photo Of The Day! The M4 carbine on full-auto, as Coronel Fidel Castro of the Fuerza Aérea del Perú receives a weapons demonstration from U.S. special forces teams. The location is Lima, Perú (2023), and the event was during Resolute Sentinel 23. [Read More…]
The hungriest beast of them all on this blog is our Photo Of The Day. It consumes hundreds of images every month, and it has been doing so for over 9 years. Today we have U.S. Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 6, during a Chemical, Biological, Radiological and [Read More…]
Our Photo Of The Day can be chosen for a variety of reasons. It may be because of its aesthetic qualities, its newsworthiness, its emotional impact, or its technical excellence. Above you see a U.S. Marine, a rifleman with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st [Read More…]
Photo Of The Day – A Marine assigned to the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) fires an M4A1 carbine during in a live-fire small arms exercise in the hangar bay of the forward-deployed amphibious assault carrier USS America (LHA 6), in the Philippine Sea. USS [Read More…]
“The M4A1 Carbine is a lightweight, 5.56 millimeter, magazine fed, gas operated, air cooled, shoulder fired weapon.” For many years, US Army Infantrymen have had this phrase, or a slight variation of it, drilled into their heads until they could recite it [Read More…]
With the recent release of the US Army’s FY2020 Budget Justification Books, we’ve seen some more exciting developments like procurement projection figures for the Next Generation Squad Weapon and the desire to replace the M2010 sniper rifle with [Read More…]
The United States Army held their annual seven-day Small Arms Championships, also known as “All Army”. The event was held at Fort Benning, Georgia and included teams and individual shooters from all four components of the Army. The competition has 11 [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…]
Until now, the US Army’s 7.62mm XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round has been a mystery. The round, which was rumored to be the basis for the now-cancelled Interim Combat Service Rifle (ICSR) program, is supposed to allow existing weapons in the 7.62x51mm [Read More…]
At an AUSA breakfast conference yesterday, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley gave us a hint at exactly what the US Army’s next rifle could look like, and the focus was on extended range capability. The rifle, Milley said, will give a 10x improvement in [Read More…]
The Commandant of the United States Marine Corps (CMC) has stated his approval for an overhaul of the front-line infantry Marine’s gear – including the fielding of the Heckler & Koch M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle as a standard issue rifle, to replace the [Read More…]
The United States Marine Corps has finally officially announced its adoption of the 5.56mm M855A1 EPR round, developed in the late 2000s by the US Army, marking an important step towards ammunition commonality between the two services. Until now, the USMC has officially [Read More…]
The United States Special Operations Command (US SOCOM) is looking for a new variable-power rifle optic to allow users to engage targets out to 600 meters, while still preserving close-in capability. The solicitation, released last week on Fed Biz Opps, announces a [Read More…]
Working under contract from the Army’s Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM), AimLock, a subsidiary of Rocky Mountain Scientific Laboratory, developed an actively stabilized weapons chassis for AR-15 rifles. AimLock has been in the news before [Read More…]
We have already seen the 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype brought out by Textron for the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, but TFB also got an up close and personal look at Textron’s cased telescoped machine guns. Textron has two different cased [Read More…]
In examining the future of infantry capability, we must not only be aware of potential technological solutions, but of the need to re-think and re-work what it means to train and prepare troops for future battlefields. At the core of this is the simple matter of man and [Read More…]
The US Army’s new centralized procurement organization has been named: In his address at the Eisenhower Luncheon at the 2017 Association of the United States Army, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley announced the creation of a Futures and Modernization [Read More…]
US Army, what on earth are you doing? The US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley promised that the new Next Generation Individual/Squad Weapon (NGSW/NGIW) program will give a “10 times improvement” in individual small arms capability “over any [Read More…]
At the 2017 Association of the US Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting, Textron System displayed for the very first time their firing 6.5mm CT Carbine prototype. Previously, only non-firing mockups had been shown to the public, but after successful tests this summer the real [Read More…]
With the recent push for small arms ammunition with increased range, power and capability, are military customers in danger of being taken for a ride by industry marketeers working to sell rifles in new calibers? Is the primary driving force behind new infantry [Read More…]
The US Army is seeking 12,600 Magpul PMag Gen M3 magazines, or equivalents, from commercial vendors, according to a recently updated listing on FedBizOpps, posted in early August. This announcement was updated soon after the news that Army TACOM had authorized the [Read More…]
The US Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) has just authorized the purchase of Magpul PMag Gen M3 polymer magazines through requisition by unit commanders, marking a major step in the use of PMag magazines in Army service. Although a previous [Read More…]
After being cancelled in mid-2016, could the M4 Carbine upgrade program still be alive? That is the suggestion from a line in the US Army’s justification for its research budget in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, which references an “M4A2 Plus [Read More…]
The United States Marine Corps is looking for new advanced optics for rifles and IARs that are capable of switching between a low magnification mode and a high (6-8x) magnification mode, according to a recent request for information (RFI) released through FedBizOpps at [Read More…]
With the termination of the Interim Combat Service Rifle, the CSASS program on hold, and the XM25 CDTE dead and buried, many are wondering: When will the Army get its act together on small arms? Given the long history of Army program failures, though, maybe a better [Read More…]
We have just seen the cancellation of the Interim Combat Service Rifle, which gives me a good springboard to talk about marketing. Specifically, we will be discussing a kind of undercover word-of-mouth marketing that I’ve encountered a number of times over the [Read More…]
The US Army’s program to field a new standard-issue 7.62mm caliber rifle is dead in the water, it seems. Multiple anonymous sources have informed TFB that the Interim Combat Service Rifle program has been cancelled as part of a massive review of US Army small [Read More…]
The US Air Force’s recent decision to adopt the Magpul PMag Gen M3 was based on Army testing conducted in 2015, according to a spokesperson for the Air Force. In a communication with Military.com writer Matthew Cox, Vicki Stein of the Air Force Installation and [Read More…]
The United States Air Force has become the second US military service to adopt the Magpul PMag as their standard rifle magazine. According to the document USAF AUTHORIZED SMALL ARMS and LIGHT WEAPONS (SA/LW) ACCESSORIES (as of 28 July 17) the Magpul PMag Gen M3 [Read More…]