History

Model 1890 Colt Gatling gun on typical infantry wheeled field carriage. (Courtesy Rock Island Auction Company) State-of-the-Art Weaponary Machine guns...

In the course of decades of research in various military and museum archives, Robert Bruce has acquired a treasure trove...

Visitors to SOFEX and to the KASOTC Warrior Competition in Jordan now have a new place to visit along with...

In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Ministry of Defense noted an increased need for body-armor-defeating weaponry paired with a diminished sound...

History documents many evolutionary and revolutionary advancements in weaponry. The bow over the spear, the cap over the flintlock, the...

ABOVE: Advantages of caseless ammunition; the rounds are lighter in weight and less expensive to manufacture. Disadvantages include a problem...

ABOVE: This launching of even a little grenade from the little FAMAS bullpup features a grinning French soldier enjoying the...

One of the more famous episodes in the history of the USMC occurred with the various Machine Gun Battalions that...

The Sten submachine gun was created out of necessity during World War II by the British, who were standing alone...

ABOVE: A red hot blizzard of small, uniform-sized steel fragments blasts out from detonation of a single M67 grenade during...

ABOVE: 100,000 bears only this stamp and not the usual stack of serial numbers. A ceremony was scheduled for August...

ABOVE: The MkIII Sten was designed to speed production and reduce cost. The integral design proved inferior when tested against...

ABOVE: The seaman’s book of Colonel Niemöller. He travelled to Yokohama aboard the blockade runner “Tannenfels” and covered as a...

ABOVE: A member of the “BGS” (Bundesgrenzschutz = federal border police) armed with a G 1. Note the early training...

In the German armed forces pistols have always been in short supply, even though the serial production of the most...

The Vietnam War witnessed new weapons and munitions on the battlefield, such as U.S. cluster bombs and its small caliber...

ABOVE: Fort Copacabana There is considerable military lineage in this beautiful Brazilian City—invisible to most and yet, clearly present all...

ABOVE: Two 37mm “Pom-Pom” guns- large Maxim water-cooled machine guns with brass jackets, grace the entry to the exhibits. This...

ABOVE: Two combatants sit at rest. The K98k Mauser is above the Springfield M1903A4. Their army’s helmets lie next to...

One of the most prominent and prolific military bullpup-style rifles in history reaches its 10th anniversary in the field in...

ABOVE: A crude Chinese made copy of the Mauser C96 pistol with detachable buttstock. During World War I, the primary...

Modern Malaysia is a beautiful country, rich in agriculture and history, with a growing industrial base. It was born from...

ABOVE: In El Salvador, the AML-90 was relegated to perform security escort to artillery units, with an UR-416 traveling alongside...

ABOVE: April 23, 2006, Staff Sgt. Brad Smith from 3-320th Field Artillery, 101st Airborne Division with his 14.5inch barrel M4,...

ABOVE: Soldiers of the Waffen-SS equipped with an early PzB 38 during exercises. After the annexation of the Sudetenland and...

Introduction At the time of this writing, computers and related information technologies are a part of almost everything we say...

The Evolution of the 9mm AR Carbine Christopher R. Bartocci Features, History, Volume 7, V7N6 ABOVE: The Colt 9mm-pattern carbines...

ABOVE: 1939 Lahti 20mm anti-tank cannon, converted to .50 BMG, mounted on FN30 tripod. Note in the inset, how the...

ABOVE: Third generation model Colt LE1020 successfully passing a mud test in 2008. Although never put into production, the final...

ABOVE: Circa 1950, an Air Force officer with his modernized version of the M2 carbine featured an in-line stock, raised...

ABOVE: Where the Dror springs were made. ‘Israel,’ the boss, stands in the doorway. (Carl E. Ekdahl) For reasons never...

Crowd control actions executed by Turkish police in 2013 have showcased the employment of several less-lethal launchers. Aside from a...

ABOVE: Carl Ekdahl shoulders a Johnson LMG outside the factory. (John Ekdahl) Niagara Falls, N.Y., Monday afternoon, February 24, 1947....

ABOVE: Author firing an MD1A1 at Fábrica de Itajubá; the weapon offering a moderate cyclic rate of fire in the...

ABOVE: This particular example of a scoped Argentine rifle shown in a publicity photo has the cocking handle on the...

ABOVE: British Machine Gun Corps shoulder patches as adopted for the 101st Machine Gun Company. This rare and unique patch...

ABOVE: Police Officer and SWAT Sniper Fabian Rivera firing the H&K USP Tactical. Notice the pistol is in full recoil....

ABOVE: Right side view of the Type 11 LMG In preparing research for this article it was found that there...

ABOVE: Salvadorian soldiers parade with M67 RCL. The U.S. supplied some 379 M67 RCLs to El Salvador between 1981 and...

ABOVE: Right side of the Colt LE901 with the Smith Enterprise Vortex flash hider and the folding front sight base....

World War I A.I.F (Australian Imperial Forces) aluminum dog tag. Engraved “92 T. Maxwell, 10 M.G. Coy RC” (Tag #92,...

TOP: German interwar period paperweight or desk ornament. 6-inch long silver German Maxim MG08 with Z.F. 12 optical sight mounted...

ABOVE: Germans with Maxim MG08. Judging from their cloth-covered spiked helmets, this apparently posed photo was taken early in the...

A large group of friends and family gathered today at the front of the old MOD Pattern Room at Enfield...

During its history, Romania was occupied by Turks, Austrians, Greeks and Russians. The principality of Moldavia and Walachia were acquired...

From 1990 to very recently, the ROK (Republic of Korea; or South Korea) army had a tendency to reduce the...

According to company literature, the first Glock pistols imported into the U.S. came in January of 1986. These guns had...

After the end of the Second World War, the United States military, the Army especially, saw its mission as one...

Much has already been written about German military weapons. But still today some real treasures are left to be discovered....

Up until the 1960s all machine guns manufactured in China were of foreign design. The first heavy machine gun to...

The Emerson Electric Company was founded in 1890 in St. Louis, Missouri as the Emerson Electric Manufacturing Company. The company...

The AR-15/M16/M4 series rifle is undoubtedly the most popular rifle in the United State for all military, law enforcement and...

As Latin America’s largest country and with a population of 200 million souls, Brazil faces massive defense problems. Although it...

Alphonse William Vallerand was an American veteran of the Korean War, and a quiet giant in the Class III collector...

The speed at which the United States geared up for World War II in the days after Pearl Harbor must...

In 1939, just a month after the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland in September, the Soviet Red Army invaded Finland....

In 2006, the U.S. Special Operations Command’s Special Operations & Technology (SOST) office tasked the Crane Division, Surface Warfare Center,...

Many years before WWII started, small arms designers of the world noted that in the real world the power of...

In his 1922 book, Story of the North West Frontier Province, author JM Ewart writes: “That gap in the low...

At the beginning of 1938, the Erfurter Maschinenfabrik (ERMA) received an official order for the development a new submachine gun...

Recently there has been an upswing in interest regarding the weapons of North Korea.  This is due not only to...

Col. Lewis was a United States Military Academy (West Point) graduate (1884) and spent twenty-five years in the United States...

One day in November 2010, the battle to get Antonio Ezekiel Cárdenas Guillén, one of the most feared and wanted...

There’s nothing else like it in any of the other branches of America’s Armed Forces.  Its uniquely lethal products, the...

Friends and foes of the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon in the U.S. Marine Corps’ infantry fire teams have been engaged...

This story begins in 1925.  That year the Red Army requested the development of a large caliber machine gun with...

Sweden was not shy in their attempt to modernize their army at the turn of the twentieth century by equipping...

The world’s first real heavy machine gun appeared during World War I, although big-bore machine guns were by no means...

In the 1950s Sierra Bullets introduced its MatchKing, a 168-grain .30 caliber (7.62mm) open tip bullet designed to maximize accuracy. ...

Machine guns today are generally defined as firearms that shoot automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a...

The Czech arms industry made a great impact in 20th century weaponry history with a large range of remarkable products....

The focus of our visit to MARSOC‘s Schoolhouse was Special Operations Training Branch, currently housed in an orderly formation of...

Collectors and historians are familiar with the Russian “Tractor Cap” or “Snow Cap” Maxim machine gun. It was a modification...

The end of the first decade of the new millennium saw Czechs and Slovaks as the Last of Mohicans in...

SADJ has brought a number of articles on the RPG-7 and its technology and history to our readers.  We’ve covered...

The Japanese had a unique system of naming and numbering their weapons using two basic methods.  One method referred to...

Captain Herbert W. McBride of the 21st Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, wrote in his excellent book A Rifleman Went to...

Italy was the first country in the world to officially adopt the Maxim machine gun after the La Spezia trial...

Entering NATO made the Polish Army face an uneasy choice of new armament, poised to function under totally different strategic,...

Much has been written about the sad state of affairs concerning the history of early machine gun development and acceptance...

As discussed in previous articles on the subject, Soviet Army Spetsnaz troops and specialized KGB personnel (which acted both in...

In the early 1970s, most submachine guns still in use with the armies of the world were replaced by assault...

Over the last 15 or so years, the sniper rifle in both concept and rifle has changed.  It was not...

When I answered the phone, I could sense the frustration in his voice. The caller was a friend of mine...

On April 11, 2010, I traveled to Harrodsburg, KY where I met with my good friend, Howard “Buddy” Howells.  Buddy...

“Utterly useless!”  So wrote a frustrated U.S. Army Captain in a letter to the Chief of Ordnance of the United...

Hiram Maxim was born in the United States in 1840.  His genius lay in his ability to grasp the complexities...

The Mitrailleuse Saint Etienne Mle 1907 is one of those rare classic machine guns that was a complex mechanical nightmare...

The Blyskawica (‘Lightning’, pronounced bwiskavitsa, with ‘wi’ to be read like in ‘wisdom’) was designed and manufactured fully clandestine, for...

Until recently, the field of 40mm grenade launchers was almost exclusively dominated by the M203.  With the recent adoption of...

Andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose of Charlottenburg, Germany was a well known and respected inventor and arms designer working out of the...

On April 19, 1879 Carl Gustave Swebilius was born in Vingaker, Sweden, one of five children of the town watch...

By the summer of 1918 he was nearing his 65th birthday and might have been thinking about retirement, or at...

The Hotchkiss Model 1914 was the standard French Army heavy machine gun during World War I.  It was also the...

Identifying all magazines, for all AK variants, would be of such a large magnitude that it would be completely impractical...

While the insignia of US Infantry is crossed rifles, its spirit is the spirit of the bayonet.  Every American infantryman,...

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders are an infantry regiment of the British Army with a rich history.  It is one...

Located in the heart of Warsaw, Poland, the Museum of the Polish Army holds some 300,000 historical treasures dating from...

Not long after John Browning invented the world’s first gas operated fully automatic machine gun, the Model 1895 Automatic Gun,...

The Soviet era design referred to generically now as the RPG-7 was the fruit of decades of design development in...

Little is known in the Western world of the Soviet silent pistols utilizing special silent ammunition. The package consists of...

The late 1980s and early 1990s were a time of change for Poland; shaking-off the results of 45 years of...

History 2004 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the U.S. Maxim Machine Gun, Caliber .30, Model of...

Going Ballistic, an Australian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary from 2000, has a collection of fascinating interviews with O’Dwyer himself and...

Skarżysko-Kamienna is a relatively young city receiving its city charter in 1923, yet a settlement has existed in the Kamienna...

Developed in the aftermath of WWII and fielded in 1957, the light and handy 7.62mm NATO caliber M60 General Purpose...

During the 1920s China was embroiled in a civil war between the Chinese Communists led by Mao Tse-tung and the...

Argentina was an early user of the Maxim and began by ordering 50 Maxims from the Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and...

It’s been a wild ride being a part of the U.S. firearms industry over the last forty years. I have...