Firearms

Captured Weapons of the Reich: A Photo Essay

Firearms

The Controversial M3 Grease Gun

No one ever used the words “graceful” or “elegant” to describe the M3 submachine gun. Instead, those soldiers, sailors and Marines who carried it called the M3 a “plumber’s nightmare” or “the cake decorator.” Read more

Firearms

The M-16’s Troubled Debut

Marine Private Jim McGarrah arrived at Phu Bai in South Vietnam in late 1967 and was sent to what was euphemistically called “The Rockpile,” a firebase that overlooked the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Vietnam. Read more

Firearms

The Garand ‘Ping’

An iconic infantry weapon of World War II, the M-1 Garand rifle developed a reputation for placing substantial firepower in the hands of a single soldier. Read more

Firearms

Luxembourg’s Hoffman Museum

You won’t find the familiar little triangular signs, “Warnung Minen!” hanging on barbed wire today in Western Europe, with one exception. Read more

Firearms

WWII Weapons Systems: The German Sturmgewehr

With the conflict in Iraq, combat photography is once again prevalent in the media, and it would be impossible to miss images of U.S. Read more

Firearms

The Spencer Carbine

Confederate soldiers bitterly called it “that damned Yankee carbine they load on Sunday, and then fire all week.” Read more

Firearms

Revolutionary War Weapons: The American Long Rifle

By the mid-1700’s, the American long rifle had acquired an almost supernatural reputation. To the British troops who were unfortunate enough to come up against it in combat during the Revolutionary War, the rifle was more an affliction than a weapon. Read more

Firearms

The Modern Grenade: A Brief History

When did humanity begin throwing explosive devices? What are the origins of the modern grenade, and how did explosives evolve?  Read more

Firearms

The Short-range Shotgun

Coming upon the enemy’s rear guard outside the western Kentucky village of Sacramento, four days after Christmas 1861, Confederate Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest ordered his cavalry to advance. Read more

Firearms

The Browning Automatic Rifle

By dawn on June 9, 1944, the men of the Company C, 1st Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, of the 82nd Airborne Division found themselves engaged in a fierce firefight with German troops at the village of Cauquigny just west of the Merderet River in Normandy’s Cotentin Peninsula. Read more

Firearms

America’s trusty M1 Garand rifle was “Woven into the fabric of the nation.”

After the Great War, in which American troops were sent into combat with either the bolt-action M1903 Springfield rifle or the bolt-action British Enfield, planners in the War Department realized that, if the United States were ever drawn in combat again, they would need a far superior weapon. Read more

Firearms

The M79 Grenade Launcher

I fired the M79 grenade launcher in advanced infantry training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1965, and had one on the back seat of my machine-gun jeep during my tour of duty in South Vietnam in 1966-1967 as a member of the U.S. Read more

Firearms

The History of the American Long Rifle

The battle at Kings Mountain in October 1780 was the only clash of the American Revolution in which the entire colonial force was armed with American long rifles. Read more

Firearms

The AK-47 vs. the M16 Rifle During the Vietnam War

During the Vietnam War, two of the most famous firearms of modern times emerged as icons of the latter half of the turbulent 20th century. Read more

Firearms

What Made The Bren Gun One of the Most Iconic British WWII Weapons

While all the combatant nations engaged in World War I fielded machine guns during the conflict, the British Army’s Vickers was arguably the best medium machine gun of the war, while their Lewis gun—an American design but perfected by the English—was the most effective light machine gun. Read more

Firearms

The Weapons at Sannahs Post

In the aftermath of the failed attempt by Dr. Leander Starr Jameson and his 600 horseman to overthrow the Traansvaal Republic’s government in January 1896, the Boers in both republics embarked on a spending spree to arm all able-bodied burghers with state-of-the-art rifles. Read more

Firearms

The Thompson Submachine Gun

In 1939 Time magazine called the Thompson submachine gun “the deadliest weapon, pound for pound, ever devised by man….” Read more