#Thailand

Photo Of The Day and we’re taken into action around the exercise called Hanuman Guardian 22: Air Assault Training. I love this drone-styled image of an M240B machine gun crew from the Alpha Company, 29th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division. They’re engaging simulated targets during an air assault, in March 2022, in Fort Thanarat, Thailand. If I was gunning the M240B I’d be hoping for more ammunition and waves of simulated targets. If I was carrying or cleaning it, I’d be hoping I was on R&R…

TFB’s Photo Of The Day takes you to Thailand today. We’re looking at Royal Thai Army Soldiers with IWI Tavors from Israel. They’re setting up a defense perimeter after conducting a Strategic Airborne Operation together with U.S. Army paratroopers with the 82nd Airborne Division. This was during Exercise Cobra Gold 2023, near the Thanarat Drop Zone, Kingdom of Thailand, on March 2, 2023.

Photo Of The Day: These daily articles bring together some of the most eye-catching and visually appealing images on the planet. You won’t find a lot of pictures of sunsets, flowers or tourist landmarks here, instead the photo selection spans from soldiering, firearms, special units, snipers and the odd knife or two. Today we have a Fire Bomb from an Infinity Open Racegun from the recent IPSC World Shoot 2022 in Pattaya, Thailand. The caliber is .38 Super Comp (the official THAIARMS ammo). I found these magnificent pictures in my stream, and the photographer Supoj Chumsana was kind to let TFB share them.

Today’s Photo comes courtesy of the U.S. Army Pacific Public Affairs Office and takes us to Camp Barommatrailokkanat in Thailand.

For this episode, we go to Northern Thailand where we take a look at some of the shooting ranges in Chiang Mai. Specifically, we were able to sit down some of the shooters, owners, and instructors at a range called “Shooting Adventure Chiang Mai” and “Range 333” where we quizzed them on such topics of what firearms were popular, prices of guns in Thailand, what kind of shooting sports were practiced, and the sort of training that is available. Unlike the United States there is a strong shooting tourism industry in Thailand that supports tourists from all over Asia where their own countries laws make it impossible to own and even much less fire a firearm on a controlled range.

Wedged in between the streets of the busiest and biggest city in Thailand is the gun market district in Bangkok. Here you have dozens of stores that selling everything ranging from the cheapest Chinese tactical garbage to high-end side by side shotguns or semiautomatic race guns that Thais compete in IPSC and IDPA competitions with throughout the entire country. Although many of the stores are quite camera shy for some reason, we were able to get in touch with one of them that allowed us to film some of their wares that were on display. We looked at some of the handguns, shotguns, and precision rifles that were for sale at a very steep price for the average Thai citizen. In addition we were also able to combine this footage with actual competitions and shooting activities that we were able to join in on while in Thailand.

Continuing the TFB tradition of covering lesser known character markings and how they can be interpreted by collectors and researchers, this article will take a look at the role of Thai numerals in marking historic small arms previously in use by Royal Thai Forces, in addition to decoding commercial imports in use by both civilians and Law Enforcement.

According to TASS news agency, Mikhail Petukhov, the deputy director of a Russian government organization called “ Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation“, has announced about a contract signed by Russia and Thailand. The subject of the contract is the procurement of AK rifles for the Royal Thai Armed Forces.

This mystery shotgun with a custom speedloading mechanism was around Shotgun World Shoot in Italy. I never got to see the owner shoot or do any reloads, but I heard he is very fast in “Option 3” (empty start) and in reloading.

Thailand has had 18 military coups since they abolished the absolute monarchy in 1932, one every 4.5 years on average. This time around (the last Thai coup was in 2006) there are a lot more Tavor TAR-21 carbines deployed. The Royal Thai Army is slowly replacing some of their aging stockpile of M16 rifles and M4 carbines with Tavors. They have ordered a total of 106,203 carbines with 58,000 currently in service, which probably makes this coup the largest military deployment of Tavor rifles outside of Israeli conflicts.

Thailand has just finished celebrating the Songkran festival. This centuries old festival began with the tradition of sprinkling blessed water upon elders and family members to bring them good luck. Today its celebrated with a country wide water fight. A reader emailed us photos he took yesterday. I especially like the photo of the bar with plastic covering the walls and the cashier.

The Daily Mail (UK) published a photo purportedly of an unarmed Thai policeman with a police dog that is packing a Glock pistol in a holster strapped to its side.

The Thai supreme court has denied the United States request to extradite arms dealer Viktor Bout, better known as the Lord of War and the Merchant of Death.