The Civilian Marksmanship Program has an absolute unicorn up for auction, a true Mark 13 Mod 3 sniper rifle. This .300 Win Mag looks like it could tell some GWOT war stories if it could talk. It’s not every day that a gun like this is available to the public, so [Read More…]
RFID (Radio-Frequency Identification) is a technology that practically permeates our modern lives. Everything from your passport, your keyfob at work, tags on the back of your equipment, and even your dog or cat probably has an RFID tag in it that contains important [Read More…]
Are you both a swimming and a firearms enthusiast? Maybe a Navy SEAL? Do you live in a pineapple under the sea? Ever been scuba diving and find yourself squaring off with an unruly cuttlefish at eighty feet sub-surface? Of course you have – we’ve all been [Read More…]
Americans seem to make sport of almost anything, and today’s example is no exception. Several sportsmen made lemonade out of lemons when it came to the invasive species of fish dubbed Flying Carp that’s been plaguing southern boaters since the 1970s, and [Read More…]
U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs announced on the 22nd May that the USS Portland (LPD 27) had successfully disabled an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using an experimental Solid State Laser. The Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator (LWSD) MK 2 MOD 0 [Read More…]
An Instagram account and an Iranian defense media site have brought to light some new photographs of the Iranian MASAF (اسلحه مصاف) M4 clone that we first reported on in 2016. Along with some detailed photos of the clone are some other small arms on display, [Read More…]
I absolutely love this picture! I’m not a boat guy and you might ask what is this photo doing on a Firearms’s Blog? In case you didn’t see it yet, there’s a machine gun in the front, sorry, bow. The boat is a Smuggler 28 Patrol at Base East [Read More…]
The Austrian fantastic plastic handgun Glock has won a contract to supply pistols to the Philippine Department of National Defense, which will supply the new handguns to the Philippine armed forces. The contract award is for the supply of 74,861 Glock 17 Gen 4 handguns, [Read More…]
Alliant Techsystems’ (ATK) spinoff company Vista Outdoor has won a contract worth $52 million for Mk. 311 Mod 3 frangible ammunition to supply the US Army, with a completion date of June 22, 2022, according to the June Department of Defense contracts press [Read More…]
Earlier this month, TFB relayed a report first posted on Military.com’s KitUp! site about the 3 major non-Army services – Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force – all accepting the M17 as their next service handgun. However, thanks to the hard work of [Read More…]
The US Army’s M17 Modular Handgun System, derived from the SIG P320 handgun, has crossed one of the final hurdles on the track to full replacement of previous service handguns (including chiefly the Beretta M9). The United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force [Read More…]
The SIG Sauer P226 Mark 25 handgun was adopted by Naval Special Warfare Command after an initial solicitation by NSWC Crane. The handgun was and is still in use by a number of Sailors within this contingent, however the actual SEALs have and still are issued the standard Sig P226, rather than the [Read More…]
War History Online posted this photo on their Facebook page. 26-inch thick armor from Japanese Yamato class battleship, pierced by a US Navy 16-inch gun. The armor is on display at the US Navy Museum. I found this Ballistic Test Report which I believe to be about this [Read More…]
The Navy’s USS Boxer has a Phalanx Close In Weapon System (CIWS). It is nicknamed R2-D2 for its similar dome shaped top and automatic nature. Actually if you watch the video below, the supports are somewhat shaped like R2-D2 legs. Watch the tower pivot and spin. [Read More…]
The Type 4 (sometimes also called the Type 5) was a clone of the US M1 Garand rifle developed by the Japanese Navy towards the very end of World War II. It’s a fascinating rifle for its combination of American engineering and Japanese style. Forgotten Weapons [Read More…]
The subject of the 6mm Lee Navy, the US military’s shortest-serving cartridge, and also its first metric rifle cartridge, was raised in the comments section of the most recent installment of my series on the Lightweight Rifle Program of 1945-1957. There was some [Read More…]
Odds are I’m not the only one here who has experimented with a number of (legal) homemade creations. My list runs the gamut from the unique (trebuchet) to the expected (potato gun) but there’s one weapon one should only take on with at least a decent working [Read More…]
The Navy is testing an electromagnetic rail gun that can hurl a 23lb projectile over Mach 7. More information can be found here. Here is a test video of the gun and what the projectile can do.
At DSA ’12 Walther was exhibiting their Walther PPQ NAVY 9mm pistol. The NAVY version is designed for use in situations where the pistol may become immersed and/or fired in water. A hole and guides in the striker channel, allowing water to be drained or pushed [Read More…]
This video shows an Hellenic Navy Rheinmetall Mk20 with S20 Naval Gun Mount firing in slow motion. Note how the barrel appears to recoil. At first glance it appears that the gun utilizes a short recoil action like the Rheinmetall MG3 and the MG42. It is actually gas [Read More…]
From the Navy press release ( 5/29/2010 )… WASHINGTON (NNS) — Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren, for the second time successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative [Read More…]
From the press release … BAE Systems, along with partner General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products, delivered to the U.S. Navy the first automated magazine for the 155-mm Advanced Gun System (AGS) being developed for the DDG 1000 (Zumwalt) Destroyer [Read More…]
Metal Storm seems to have survived the … uuuggghhh … storm. This video shot by the US Navy (who funds Metal Storm research) shows a Metal Storm FireStorm 40mm grenade launcher mounted on a iRobot 710 Warrior unmanned ground vehicle. The four barreled [Read More…]
This US Navy training video at GENE SLOVERS US NAVY PAGES website shows how the 1950s mechanical fire control computers worked. It is explained simply enough for a layman to understand. I found it fascinating to watch. It is crazy to think that the ballistic software on [Read More…]
The Metal Storm MAUL has finally be unveiled and it is awesome. Previously only computer rendered images of the weapon were publicly available. The light 2.75 lbs 12 gauge shotgun has no moving parts and comes in a pistol and a rifle under-barrel configuration. Five [Read More…]
DOD Buzz has some thoughts on the weapon platform used by the SEAL Snipers who took out the pirates: And let’s not get carried away with the sea state, says DT contributor Joe Buff. A multi-thousand ton destroyer is a pretty stable platform in any but the most [Read More…]
The captain held in a lifeboat by pirates off the coast of Somalia has been rescued by the US Navy after snipers took out his captors. CNN reports: U.S. Navy snipers fatally shot three pirates holding an American cargo-ship captain hostage after seeing that one of the [Read More…]
The Marines are back doing what they do best – kicking pirates ass. Marine Scout Snipers are being deployed to provide protection for counter-piracy teams in and around the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Navy.mil reports: The nine-member [Read More…]
The Royal Navy HMS Cumberland (Type 22 frigate) took on a pirate dhow on the high seas. No prize for guessing who won that fight! The Times has the story Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the [Read More…]
About 6 months ago Metal Storm was awarded AU$1.4 million in development contracts from the US Navy to develop a 12 guage (.729″ caliber, not the 12 gauge shotgun cartridge) multishot weapon that mounts under an M16 and M4. The MAUL has no moving parts and weights [Read More…]
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