Russia - Forgotten Weapons

Book Review: The Bear Went Over the Mountain

October 31, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

I’ve been aware of Lester Grau’s The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan for a long time – I borrowed a copy many years ago – but only recently purchased a […]

2-Gun Action Challenge Match: SVT40 vs M1 Garand

October 21, 2013 Ian McCollum 23

So, after the hype about setting the FG-42 up against the M1 at a practical action match, I unfortunately have to let you down. We had a bit of a mishap right before the match […]

Warsaw Uprising

October 3, 2013 Ian McCollum 36

I normally have a book review on Thursday, but this week I’m pushing it to Friday. I meant to post this yesterday, but lost track of the date – which, 69 years ago, was the […]

Two followups for you today, courtesy of readers who ferreted out some addition material for me – thanks guys! First, my vintage photo of the Soviet marine snipers generated a bunch of discussion of the […]

Vintage Saturday: Join the Army, See the World

September 14, 2013 Ian McCollum 27

German soldier carrying a captured DS-39 machine gun and tripod over a pretty bleak steppe.

Vintage Saturday: Heavy Firepower

September 7, 2013 Ian McCollum 17

Vintage Saturday: Marine Snipers

August 31, 2013 Ian McCollum 27

Soviet marines from the Baltic Fleet ashore at Leningrad, armed with PEM 91/30 sniper rifles.

US Army Tokarev Rifle Manual

August 21, 2013 Ian McCollum 19

One problem I have consistently found with Russian weapons manuals is that they are all written in Russian, which I can’t read. The illustrations are still interesting and useful, but it does make some of […]

Digging for WWII Relics

August 6, 2013 Ian McCollum 45

I expect this is a subject more familiar to our European readers than folks here in the US – the idea is tromping out to the sites of WWII skirmishes or battles with a shovel […]

More 2-Gun Action!

July 29, 2013 Ian McCollum 20

Yep, it’s that time again – we’ve had another 2-Gun Action Challenge Match. I was hoping to take a Ross rifle this month, but it didn’t arrive in time – so instead I used a […]