This story originally appeared on April 27, 2015. To be on the receiving end of a flamethrower is surely terrifying, but man-portable versions have their limitations. The big one is that they essentially turn their users into vulnerable, lumbering gas tanks. Besides, the fire-spitting weapons have very short ranges,... Read more
The Double-Barrel Battle Rifle Has Been Done Before
WIB land June 25, 2018
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 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
Ukraine’s T-84 Tanks Have Problems
WIB land June 18, 2018
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
Donetsk separatists are showing off a new rocket launcher. On May 22, 2018, the news outlet Donetsk 24 affiliated with the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic revealed the 217-millimeter Cheburashka multiple-rocket launcher in action near the town of Avdiivka. In the video, the launcher fires rockets which land — slowly... Read more
Chinese Sniper Rifles Have a Troubled History
WIB land June 4, 2018
While the U.S. Army is concerned about next-generation Russian precision rifles and tactics, China has also been making significant advances in the field. In the 1980s, the Chinese used practically the same equipment as the Soviet Union. Nowadays, they use fairly different sets of equipment, including some rifles chambered... Read more
When the DANA began rolling off Czechoslovakian assembly lines in the late 1970s, there wasn’t much else like it. The enormous, 152-millimeter self-propelled howitzer had eight road wheels instead of tracks. Most mobile artillery pieces at that time were tracked, like tanks, and the DANA was the first gun... Read more
The U.S. Army never really liked the M-41 Walker Bulldog. A light tank designed in 1949 and produced between 1951 and 1954 to replace the M-24 Chaffee of World War II fame, the M-41 was too light to handle beefed-up communist armor coming off Soviet assembly lines — namely... Read more
Russia’s unusual thermobaric rocket launcher has proliferated to another country. In use in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Iraq and Syria — the enormous tracked launcher is now in service in Algeria, according to imagery revealed on Algerian television. The TOS-1A Buratino is named after a Tolstoy adaptation of “Pinnochio,” given... Read more
In military terms, a “decapitation” strike refers to the practice of targeting a country’s top leadership in the opening hours of a war — cutting off the head of an enemy army and its political system. Taiwan, situated close to China with its many ways of carrying out such... Read more
