When a soldier takes a round to the shin or catches a blast that fractures the tibia, the traditional response pulls two to four additional service members off the line to haul a litter, plus a security element to cover them. That's a significant combat power cost for a single casualty. The ...
In 1937, the Curtiss SBC Helldiver entered service, but even at that point, the carrier-based two-seat scout/dive bomber was on the verge of being obsolete. Interestingly, it was also the second aircraft produced by Curtiss-Wright to earn the designation “Helldiver” after the United States Ma...
It’s one of the most memorable monikers for a fighting force around, and its legend stems from a brutal battle fought more than a century ago. The term was reportedly adapted from the German Teufel Hunden, and applied to American Marines following the Battle of Belleau Wood during World Wa...
I recently heard someone say that handguns have no place in military combat. History shows us otherwise. For the tanker, artilleryman, radio operator or medic whose hands are too busy at designated tasks to hold a rifle, the pistol makes enormous sense. Behind the lines when unpleasant surprises ...
The idealized concept immediately took root and blossomed: the Royal Air Force saved Britain from invasion in 1940. The conventional wisdom holds that Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s legendary “few” handed Nazi Germany its first defeat in World War II and paved the road to eventual victo...
The USS Saratoga (CV-3) was one of just three United States Navy aircraft carriers—along with USS Ranger (CV-4) and USS Enterprise (CV-6)—to survive the entirety of the Second World War. Although outdated by 1943, as the newer and more capable Essex-cla...
The M1 Abrams was conceived with a singular, unyielding purpose: the total destruction of enemy armored formations. Over the last four decades, it has become the absolute pinnacle of tank warfare made manifest. Its sheer battlefield dominance has not only won conflicts, but forced militaries acro...
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have an E.A. Prescott Navy Model single action revolver manufactured 1861-1863 and chambered in .38 rimfire. Edwin A. Prescott of Worcester, Massachusetts produced these during the Civil War when demand for revolvers far exceeded Colt and Remington...
In October 1962, the C.I.A. and the U.S.A.F. requested that Lockheed study a high-speed, high-altitude drone concept for reconnaissance flights over particularly hostile territories to avoid endangering aircrews. Created during the height of the Cold War and following the shootdown of a U-2 spy p...