#Soldier

Coke’s slogan is “Taste the Feeling”, but maybe in the Ukraine it should be “the Army’s Rust Remover!” instead. “We use Coca-Cola when the gun is rusty. Coca-Cola takes rust away” says Ukrainian Ground Forces machine gunner Oleg Yuzkovich about his trusty PKM machine gun, in an interview with 5 Kanal (Channel 5 Ukraine, embedded below.

OK, who would win in a race: A soldier, a firefighter, or a knight? What, you’ve never asked yourself that? Well, for those of you who did, you finally have your answer thanks to a video released by Daniel Jaquet of the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance (Center for Higher Studies of the Renaissance):

In the rush to augment the infantry’s firepower with new advanced small arms technologies, we may be on the precipice of crippling their ability to fight wars. The push to equip the infantryman with more powerful rifles and machine guns risks reducing his mobility to critical levels, and “locking out” his capacity to carry powerful supporting arms. Although more potent basic infantry weapons are undeniably desirable, current attitudes towards their purpose – exemplified by the concept of “overmatch” – may compound problems that already have reached crisis levels.

The US Army is currently testing a new full body orthopedic “exosuit” designed to reduce soldier fatigue and injury, according to a press release made by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) last week.

In January of 2001, the US Army introduced a new slogan to replace the classic “Be All You Can Be” which young men had recruited under for over two decades. The branch’s new slogan was “An Army of One”, signalling a brand new take on a force that wanted desperately to reinvent itself. Those behind the slogan sought to re-humanize the Army, atomize it, bring it down to its individual components, i.e., the people who filled its ranks. It would be, they hoped, the slogan of a new Army that through the strength of its individuals helped make the world a better place. Over the next 5 years, however, it became the slogan under which men and women all over the world would sign up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq as part of what became known as the Global War on Terror.

A concept for an advanced suit of powered personal armor was unveiled late last month at the Moscow Prototyping Center, sporting hexagonal modular armor panels, full face helmet with mocked up information display, and a bullpup rifle. The suit, revealed to the internet via a YouTube video from Russian government funded RT-subsidiary Ruptly, was more conceptual mockup than prototype, evidenced by its engraved polymer “display” insert, stylized armor, and non-functional gun and mechanism. The Ruptly video is embedded below:

The US Military is looking into lighter weight armor for the infantry. Both the Army and the Marine Corps are looking into reducing the weight of the personal protective equipment (PPE, read “helmet and body armor”) carried by the infantrymen of both services. Although armor protection has increased greatly since the beginning of the 2000s, it has been recognized that this may negatively affect the infantry via reductions in mobility and agility, as well as increasing the rate of injuries.  Defense-Aerospace.com, citing the GAO, reports:

Much of the recent discourse regarding the future of infantry combat has centered around the long engagement distances encountered during the Afghan campaign, and the rise of designated marksmen as key elements in the infantry squad. However, arguably more important than the long-range ambushes of the Taliban were the urban engagements in both that campaign and the operations in Iraq. It seems the highest echelons of the US Army agree, as Chief of Staff General Mark Milley commented recently about the future urbanization of the battlefield (via Military.com):

Let’s take a brief tangent. While my job is to write about firearms for you guys, I have many other interests; one of them is Medieval history. It’s a pretty cool thing to be interested in these days, as YouTube is practically bursting with awesome channels that go into an incredible amount of depth and detail on Medieval-related topics, including everything from swords, to armor, to clothing, and everything else.

On May 24 1945, in oppressive Philippine heat, an American soldier sat behind a Browning 1917 water-cooled machine gun – smiling . That soldier, along with the rest of the US Army’s 38th Division “Cyclones”, for the months and years prior had seen some of the most brutal warfare in Pacific theater. On this day, he and all of those other men, had once again fought for their lives and a country’s freedom – The battle for Woodpecker Ridge was one in a series of intense firefights culminating in the capture and control of key dams just outside of Manilla. Another harsh day, yet this soldier sat there smiling.