A few weeks ago while doing some research in the UK’s Imperial War Museum online archive I came across a couple of intriguing photos that sent me down a rabbit hole. The STEN gun is undeniably one of the iconic weapons of World War Two but most of its variants [Read More…]
Midway USA recently announced that they’ve purchased a large lot of M1 Carbines, which is great news for people that are still looking to get their hands on a genuine World War 2 production model. Some of you may recall that last year, a batch from Ethiopia was in [Read More…]
The Johnson rifle has one of the most recognisable profiles of any World War Two rifle. It’s undoubtedly one of the 20th century’s most interesting military rifles, in terms of both design and history. I recently had the chance to take a look at an early [Read More…]
The M1 Carbine was in service for three decades with the United States military (and others) and served in quite a few wars. After the retirement of the M1 Carbine, it was still in use by police departments around the world. The M1 Carbine gets mixed reviews online, [Read More…]
The Japanese 7.7mm Type 99 took after its predecessor the 6.5mm Type 96, both machine guns forming the basis of mobile fire support during the Second World War. Type 99 was a magazine fed, gas operated, light machine gun with a removable barrel that began production in 1941 and continuing until the [Read More…]
The Bren light machine gun was one of the more robust and successful light machine gun designs to see service in the Second World War among the Allied forces. During the war, it was even produced full scale not only in Britain but also in Canada and Australia where it saw extensive service with the [Read More…]
Everyone knows about the Soviet “burp gun” – PPSh-41. But its predecessor, PPD 34, is much less known, both in Russia and internationally. There are many reasons for that – one of them is the fact that very few of those guns are still existing [Read More…]
At the beginning of this year, we talked about WW2 guns that were extremely well preserved in a swamp. These guns were found by a Russian archaeological team called “Yuri Gagarin” which publishes on its YouTube channel videos of excavations of WW2 relics from [Read More…]
The Netherlands’ National Military Museum has unveiled a new display including the pistol carried by Adolf Hitler’s right hand man in the Netherlands during World War Two. The pistol was owned by Arthur Seyss-Inquart, an Austrian Nazi politician who was [Read More…]
What would it be like to try and attempt to shoot historical small arms in some of the ways that they were actually used in the past? We try and do that in this episode with German small arms in a small team setting, assaulting an objective across open terrain using a base of fire […] [Read More…]
Kalashnikov Gun Magazine has published another interesting article telling about Sergei Simonov’s 7.62x54mmR SKS-31 rifle that preceded the SKS that we know today. The purpose of KGM’s article was not only to tell about this rather unknown rifle but also to [Read More…]
During the interwar years, Springfield Armory shrunk drastically. To the extreme point of going from five thousand full-time employees to two hundred. One of the ways that Springfield Armory dealt with this was to commit to producing rifles for the National Matches at Camp Perry, Ohio. At first the [Read More…]
Back in January at SHOT show 2018 Adam had the chance to put some of Winchester’s new commemorative .30-06 ammunition down range through a World War Two vintage M1 Garand. On the 3rd July, Winchester announced that their new Victory Series ammunition had begun [Read More…]
Viewers of TFB TV will be especially aware of a number of episodes that I completed with a local reenactor that represents elements of the 82nd Airborne Division all over the Midwest. To date we’ve filmed episodes about the BAR in the First World War, the M1A1 [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…]
Norway’s Svalbard Arctic Seed Vault, located deep inside the Arctic Circle, on the island of Spitsbergen maintains a high level of security. It is defended by armed guards equipped with 80 year old rifles. Built into the Norwegian island’s permafrost the [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…]
Russian archaeological team called “Yuri Gagarin” publishes on its YouTube channel videos of excavations of WW2 relics from the battlefields of the war. In several recent videos, they show how they retrieve many really well-preserved firearms and other items [Read More…]
Rock Island Auction Company have uploaded a great little video taking a look at the surprisingly impressive range of cutaway training models they have available in their next regional auction. The cutaway guns range from the US Army’s oversized demonstration [Read More…]
2018 is set to see the return of Fabryka Broni Łucznik-Radom (FB Radom)’s iconic pistol, the wz.35 VIS, widely known simply as the Radom. Milmag reports that the pistol will return to production next year and hopefully be available in the in the second half of [Read More…]
Indy Neidell, the host of “The Great War” YouTube channel, has announced about his plans to start a new project similar to The Great War but telling about the WW2 in the same week by week fashion. This time they are planning to make it a much larger project [Read More…]
Back in September TFB reported that Poland had officially renamed its new MSBS 5.56x45mm infantry rifle the ‘Grot’. The move to rename the MSBS came as Poland increased its orders for the new rifle. The significance of the new name has a great deal of [Read More…]
The latest edition of Larry Vickers’ series of coffee table reference books, the Vickers Guides, has been released. The fourth book in the series which has already featured editions looking at the AR-15 and 1911 – while the new book will focus on [Read More…]
The roller-locked* Heckler & Koch G3 rifles and MP5 submachine guns have become iconic weapons of the Cold War era, being used in conflicts everywhere from civil wars in Africa, to hostage rescues and counter terror operations in Europe, to anti-cartel operations in [Read More…]
Every day we literally lose hundreds of veterans around the world from the Second World War. This makes sitting down and discussing an in-depth subject such as what B17 Flying Fortress’s were armed with against the German fighters that tried to shoot them down so much more valuable when we [Read More…]
While exploring the Springfield Armory Museum’s online archive I stumbled across an interesting experimental modification made to an M1918A2 BAR. The archival entries don’t offer much information but the photographs show an experimental kit developed to enable [Read More…]
It’s a blunder so bad it makes you look twice: On the new sculpture dedicated to Russia’s most famous small arms designer, there is an unintentional homage to a weapon of Russia’s hated adversaries during the Great Patriotic War. Behind the tasteful [Read More…]
Dusty Faces, or ‘Verstaubt sind die Gesichter‘ in the original German, is a new webseries from the German indie production company ParaLight Worx dramatises the experience of German soldiers’ during World War Two. In the video’s [Read More…]
With the soldier’s load growing beyond the bounds of reason, and the Army set to replace the M4 Carbine in some units with the new Interim Combat Service Rifle, questions have arisen about how the soldier’s burden has changed over time. In the comments [Read More…]
PPSh-41 submachine gun was the main SMG of the Soviet Union during the WW2. It was cheap to make and was deployed in large numbers. It was also chambered in 7.62x25mm Tokarev, which means it shared the same ammunition as the handgun and the same caliber/bore as pretty [Read More…]