IWA OutdoorClassics is a massive yearly exhibition in Nuremberg, Germany that focuses on the latest gear for hunters, recreational shooters, law enforcement officers and soldiers….
For a compact assassination pistol, the Soviet PSS with its companion SP4 silent ammunition is a hard combination to beat. While the PSS resembles a somewhat large conventional blowback pistol, it is definitely unique. The weapon is 6.7 inches long and weighs 30 ounces. Its size is comparable to a SIG P226 pistol, but the specialized ammunition delivers a close range lethal projectile with almost no sound signature….
The famous MAG-58 General Purpose Machine Gun has its roots in John Browning’s 1918 Browning Automatic Rifle: the BAR. FN Herstal’s relationship with Browning is well-known and it’s no surprise that the excellent BAR operating system would evolve in their hands. The FN Model D BAR added features such as a quick-change barrel, but the core operating system was alive and well throughout the evolution. Put simply….
The International Air and Defense Fair (FIDAE) that takes place in Chile every two years rebounded from the quake that shook the region in 2010 with the exhibition in 2012 proving to be 25% larger than the previous event. Two years ago, FIDAE took place against all odds and only a few days after the country was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes and tsunamis in history. The exhibition took place as a showpiece to demonstrate that Chile had fortitude and organizational skills to allow the show to go on, as relief assistance was taking place in parallel to….
Early boxes of Open Tip Match were marked ‘NOT FOR COMBAT USE’ as noted in the original box (top row, both sides) and bottom left….
“…that’s going to require us to replace an awful lot of gear that’s been used very hard over the last ten years or so. We know what we need and we‘re going to work with you to get it.” – Lieutenant General Richard P. Mills, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Mills, the three-star general who heads the Corps’ concepts and capability command, was offering a glimmer of hope to a large audience of high level defense industry representatives attending the exclusive, invitation-only Report to Industry briefing at the 2011 Modern Day Marine (MDM) Expo….
The 10th International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) was sponsored by the Turkish Armed Forces Foundation under the auspices of the Ministry of National Defence on 10-13 May, 2011. The show was held at the Tuyap Fair, Convention and Congress Center in Büyükçekmece-İstanbul, Turkey, and had record turnouts. The majority in attendance was Turkish military and procurement, and the foreigners were typically influential buyers and end users from over 104 countries. There were 633 exhibiting companies from over 45 different countries. This, the 10th IDEF, shows remarkable growth from the already well attended earlier shows….
The fifth bi-annual PARTNER Serbia show was held over the course of four sunny days in Belgrade, Serbia in late June 2011. The show has grown considerably since the first show, as well as from the previous one in 2009 (reported on in SADJ Volume 3, Number 1), having now moved into the largest of the exhibition halls in Belgrade Fair. Expectations are that the 2013 show will have grown significantly from 2011, both in vendors and attendees. YugoImport is the co-promoter of the show and the various factories they represent take up a significant portion of the floor space….
The City of Split, Croatia, was an excellent choice for a show in the region. The April weather is wonderful, the sights are breathtaking, the people are hospitable and the accommodations and expenses are very reasonable. Split is located on the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea, and the Croatian heritage is influenced heavily by millennia of interaction with Italy, just across the Sea. Split is also centrally located to many of the regional military groups, making it readily accessible and providing a good flow of attendees….
LAAD Brazil has grown in leaps and bounds over the last decade and today it is a formidable contender as a top Latin American military trade show. We find it second only in size to the FIDAE show in Chile but that’s not a fair comparison, as FIDAE has a massive airshow attached. Attendees and the 600+ exhibitors alike were pleased with the large turnout (24,000 people and delegations from 53 countries) that….
Urban warfare, snipers and insurgents are hiding in buildings and they will try to do devastating attacks on soldiers and the insurgents are protected by the building they are firing from. When the soldiers are approaching the buildings, it is a good chance that some of them will be killed. What they need is a weapon that can level the playing field – the shoulder mounted assault weapon. As western armies are seeking lighter equipment for their dismounted infantry….
By the time you read this, the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System with its uncannily accurate airburst ammo will undoubtedly have drawn its first blood in Afghanistan. This sci-fi looking individual armament, initially the “grenade gun” upper half of the ill-fated Objective Individual Combat Weapon, has been in combat operational test mode for several months now with selected elements of US Special Operations Command….
The International Defence Exhibition and Conference (IDEX) of 2011 is a biannual show that has reached its 10th anniversary with this event. It is a mature show with well developed habits and procedures for the exhibitors and attendees. Having established itself as a benchmark show much like Eurosatory, Milipol, DSA or AUSA, IDEX attracts a rich diversity of attendees from around the world. The show itself is centered in Abu Dhabi, the capitol city of the United Arab Emirates….
French soldiers watch U.S. Marines prepare to fire FAMAS F1 rifles at a target during a joint operation exercise with U.S. Sailors and French soldiers…
With the addition of Romania to the European Union in 2007, the EU stretched from the North Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic…
The phone call from Carl Bertil Johansson in early summer 2009 came out of the blue. The founder of the Swedish company CBJ Tech had…
Freshly loaded .50 BMG rounds. Each color used to seal the primers represents a separate loading machine, allowing defective rounds to be tracked back to…
Dr. Philip H. Dater takes aim with the SSP-1M 4-barrel underwater pistol. The sound signature was recorded as 160.1 dB average in open air. (Dan…
A lot of readers and deployed troops have asked us about the “Potato Masher” type hand thrown grenade that has been used in Iraq more and…
Sliding a Sloboda manufactured M91 Anti-Personnel barrel launched rifle grenade onto the end of Zastava’s M70 AK Variant. We thought it appropriate to focus and…
Sectioned IMI 40mm LV HEAB round. Note the secondary HE/fragmentation element in the base, to provide a spherical fragmentation pattern. The US Army’s programmes for…
Metal Storm is a radically different concept for weapons and ammunition, the brainchild of a self-educated Australian inventor with brilliant intuition for practical applications in engineering, physics and electronics. Following its genesis in the early 1990s, this novel electronic ballistics technology has suffered from what might charitably be termed unrealistic expectations. Early claims of a rate of fire capability at 1 million rounds per minute inspired some fanciful applications ranging from covert wrist guns to missile defense….
There has long been a requirement for a personal defence weapon, or PDW, for soldiers whose primary duty does not involve carrying a rifle. They need something much smaller, lighter and handier which does not burden them or distract them from their main task. Originally, the main priority was for officers, who were almost invariably given revolvers or pistols; but handguns also found a place with cavalry and, later on, with soldiers such as gunners who might come under infantry attack or with tank crews whose space was at a minimum….
