By Capt. Jason Sweeny Turkish troops loaded onto four U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters Aug. 24 for an aerial insertion outside the town of Miresh, Kosovo. The helicopters, from 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment, Massachusetts Army National Guard, flew in low and landed in a field outside the town. The Turkish infantry soldiers jumped …
Commandos from the 7th Special Operations Kandak (SOK), advised by U.S. Special Operations Forces, raided Taliban compounds in Sangin district, Helmand province August 29, NATO reported. Commandos detained six Taliban fighters, destroyed 50 pounds of homemade explosives,1,000 kg of fertilizer, weapons and ammunition. “The removal of explosives and materials used to make improvised explosive devices …
Arms exporters: The USA extends its lead In 2013–17 the USA accounted for 34 per cent of total arms exports. Its arms exports increased by 25 per cent between 2008–12 and 2013–17. US arms exports in 2013–17 were 58 per cent higher than those of Russia—the second largest arms exporter in that period. The USA supplied major …
Rhodesia Made Their FALs Great With This One Weird Halbek Device! The Halbek Device was a clamp-on muzzle brake designed by two Rhodesians, Douglas Hall and Marthinus Bekker. It was patented in Rhodesia in 1977 and in the US in 1980, and manufactured in small numbers for the Rhodesian military. I have seen these occasionally, …
The General Electric M134 “Minigun” is essentially an electrically-powered Gatling gun – the conceptual operation of the gun is identical to Dr. Gatling’s original creation. What has changed, however, is the chambering (it’s in 7.62 NATO), the power source (an electric motor), and the feed mechanism (belt-feed using M60 links instead of the Gatling’s Accles, …
Enfield L85A1: Perhaps the Worst Modern Military Rifle Forgotten Weapons The L85A1 (part of the SA80 small arms family) was adopted by the British military in 1985 as a new generation of small arms to replace the L1A1 FAL (one quick note, where “A1” indicates a revision in American designations, it is simply the first …
Freeze Fighter: Warmer Wetsuit Increases Navy Dive Time By Warren Duffie Jr., Office of Naval Research To protect Navy divers operating in freezing conditions, the Office of Naval Research here is sponsoring work to design a wetsuit mirroring the insulating properties of animal blubber — allowing divers to swim in frozen waters for longer periods …
