I was on this hill as a battery commander with six 88-millimeter antitank guns, and the Americans kept sending tanks down the road and we kept knocking them out. Finally, we ran out of ammunition and the Americans didn’t run out of tanks. [Nazi Artillery Commander, Battle of Salerno] At the start of World War…
Category: Warfare
Brush-Up On Your History: The Legacy of the “Sisters-In-Arms”; History’s Famous Female Fighting Units
“There have been a number of women’s brigades that have served in wartime. Here are a few of them.” IT WAS 100 years ago this week that a coalition of armed republican factions seized the city of Dublin and proclaimed Ireland’s independence from Great Britain. The disturbance, which began on April 24, 1916, would go…
Military Weapons From The Past: WWII German Spreewerke VG-2
Five different companies in Germany produced designs for the last-ditch Volkssturm bolt action rifles, and they were designated VG-1 through VG-5. The VG-2 was developed by the Spreewerke company, and differed from the others in its use of a sheet metal stamped receiver (and consequently a pretty distinctive look). In total, somewhere between 16 and…
World War II History: 10 Tales from the Real Life “Inglorious Basterds”
Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film Inglourious Basterds tells the story of a group of Jewish commandos who go around killing Nazi officers for revenge. While the movie is obviously fictional, there were groups of Jewish commandos who operated during and after World War II against the Nazis. Their exploits are not as bloody as the Tarantino…
This Norwegian Mercenary Instagrams His War on ISIS
A veteran of the war in Afghanistan is using social media to document and fund his one-man fight against ISIS. A millennial soldier of fortune who goes by the name ‘Mike’ is waging an independently funded war against the Islamic State. While his real identity remains anonymous, the Norwegian fighter came to Norway as an…
Modern Crime: Illegal Online Arms Trade in North Africa Skyrocketing
An online marketplace for illicit weapons is thriving in the Middle East and North Africa, according to a study released today that found sales of heavy machine guns, rocket and grenade launchers, and anti-aircraft guns on private Facebook groups in Libya. During his 40-year reign, colonel Muammar Gaddafi stockpiled an estimated $30 billion worth of weapons. At the time,…
Future of Warfare: First Recorded Use of “Explosive” Drone?
First there was IED’s, then VBIEDS, then Drones, then Drones Armed with Firearms, now we have “Explosive” Drones. Although the title of the article uses the word “Suicide” Drone, I see that as a misnomer; who is committing Suicide? If they are using the word as you would in describing a “Suicide Bomber”, the Operator…
Crusader Corner: ISIS Uses Mustard Gas in Syria
Islamic State militants attacked Syrian army troops with mustard gas in an offensive against a Syrian military airport in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor that borders Iraq, state media said on late Monday. Syrian state media did not disclose how many casualties were sustained in the latest drive by the hardline fundamentalist Sunni militants…
World War Two History: The Secret Speeches Ike Never Had To Give
Despite the seeming inevitability of an Allied triumph, the success of the cross-channel invasion in 1944 seemed like anything but a foregone conclusion.” “SOLDIERS, SAILORS AND AIRMEN of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon…
Bad-Ass Files: Alvin C. York, All-American Bad-Ass
This guy holds a special place in my heart. When I was a kid,growing up in the eighties, I watched the 1941 black-and-white epic, “Sgt. York” with Gary Cooper with my Dad. I always remember the part where York uses a turkey mouth call to get as a group of German soldiers hiding in a fox…