China Is Muscling India Out of the Maldives
Two helicopters sit between Asia’s two great powers. India is fast approaching a deadline to withdraw HAL Dhruv utility helicopters from the Maldives, which appears to be the result of mounting pressure from China. While the helicopters may seem insignificant, a withdrawal would be another sign of India’s declining influence... Read more
The Russian Military Is Neglecting Its Eastern Flank
Ten years ago, the Russian military embarked on a series of major reforms intended to restructure, modernize and equip its forces for the 21st century. In more recent years, Russia has put those reforms to the test in two conflicts, in both cases successfully. The Russian military of today... Read more
Israel Has a Killer New Torpedo
Submarines and torpedoes are among the most closely-guarded and sensitive topics among navies. True to type, a recent announcement by the Israeli navy about the adoption of a new torpedo came with few details. But it appears to be an interesting torpedo — more advanced, with state-of-the-art technology. The... Read more
Harvey Gann Ran Through a Gauntlet in Germany
On Jan. 30, 1944, a German Me-109 shot down turret gunner Harvey Gann’s B-24 Liberator over northern Italy. Gann was the sole survivor. He spent much of the rest of the war in a series of prisoner-of-war camps, surviving to recount his experiences in the memoir Escape I Must!... Read more
The Double-Barrel Battle Rifle Has Been Done Before
The Israeli company Silver Shadow recently attracted attention for its double-barreled AR-type rifle, the Gilboa DBR Snake. For the most part, it’s an AR, uses AR parts and fires the 5.56-millimeter AR round. Except that it has two separate barrels, two magazines and two ejection ports — with two... Read more
The BPsVI Is Keeping This Cold War Troop Taxi Relevant
The disproportionate destruction that even a low-yield nuclear detonation could inflict on advancing armies made it suicidal for the Soviets to mass ground forces in huge numbers. Instead, the Soviets would have to disperse their armies, but such a tactic would dilute the firepower they could bring to bear.... Read more
We Got a Closer Look at the Flying V-280 Valor
On June 18, 2018, Bell’s V-280 Valor prototype took off for its first public demonstration, six months after its first flight. It’s another, early glimpse at the tiltrotor aircraft that could one day replace a significant portion of the U.S. military’s UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, among other aircraft. The... Read more
Ukraine’s T-84 Tanks Have Problems
Since 2016, a slate of European militaries and the United States have gathered their tanks at Germany’s Grafenwoehr Training Area to put their armored beasts to the test in a variety of tactical exercises. This is the Strong Europe Tank Challenge, and a NATO-oriented — although not exclusive —... Read more
Georgy Zhukov’s Close Call With Stalin’s Killers
Beginning in 1936, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin set about deliberately murdering 700,000 people in the Great Purge, an act of mass killing that “constituted a form of rule” unto itself, as Stalin biographer Stephen Kotkin explained. The armed forces were not spared. The purges swept through the officer corps,... Read more
This Aircraft Carrier Did Not Exist
This story originally appeared on Sept. 22, 2015. One of the strange little stories of World War II involves the aircraft carrier USS Robin, which didn’t really exist. There was a carrier that sailors called the Robin. She and her sailors were underneath U.S. Navy command, took part in American... Read more

Robert Beckhusen

Managing Editor