Author: Braxton Taylor

As a young man I spent a lot of time around older shooters and old lawmen trying to learn as much as I could. One of the things that most of them had in common was how well they took care of their guns. Many of them were shooting guns from the pre-WWII era, but those guns were still in very good shape. When they shot them, they cleaned them and generally wiped them off at night with an oily rag. They generally understood how their guns worked and could replace worn parts when that became necessary. The armed citizen…

HUNTSVILLE, Ala—The Army will pick the winner of its first production contract for high-energy, vehicle-mounted air-defense lasers next year, a milestone in the Pentagon’s decades-long pursuit of practical directed-energy weapons. But their wide adoption will depend on whether commanders and troops can be convinced to forgo today’s interceptor missiles and other options, according to the Army’s critical-technologies chief.In recent years, the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office has developed 17 prototype systems that use directed energy to down incoming drones, rockets, and missiles. Several of these, including 50-kilowatt Raytheon lasers mounted on Stryker vehicles, were sent for testing in…

The Pentagon wants a secure digital space to easily share classified information with allies and partners. But antiquated policies and fluid dynamics of military diplomacy have made that very challenging. “Overall, we’ve done a fairly good job of rolling out cloud capabilities to the [Impact Level] 4 or 5 [unclassified] environment and to the IL 6 [classified] environment,” said John Hale, the Defense Information Systems Agency’s head of product management and development Thursday at Defense One’s Cloud Workshop event. “But where we kind of missed the ball…would be in that coalition world—at the IL 6 level. And so, we’re putting a…

Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle famously led the first U.S. strike against the Japanese homeland during World War II, and Doolittle as a lieutenant general also had a little-known role by happenstance in the last strike in the form of the atomic bombing that destroyed Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945.Doolittle became involved when a distraught Navy Cmdr. Frederick L. “Dick” Ashworth came to his tent on just-liberated Okinawa to give a report on what he then thought was a failed mission to bomb Nagasaki with the second atomic weapon used in warfare, resulting in the bomber missing the target…

A person has been arrested in connection to the death of a Security Forces airman after a firearm discharge at F.E. Warren Air Force Base last month that led to service-wide scrutiny of the Sig Sauer M18 handgun.Airman Brayden Lovan, 21, was killed on July 20 at the Wyoming base while on duty. Air Force Global Strike Command issued an immediate pause and subsequent investigation of the use of 9mm Sig Sauer M18 handguns, and the service as a whole directed a service-wide supplemental inspection of the pistol. The probe into the incident led to Friday’s announcement.”Since then, the investigation…

Could a miniaturized radio component ease political debates over the ownership and use of frequencies held by the Pentagon and coveted by telecommunications companies?For the past three years, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has been developing high-performance, fingertip-sized filters that can block interference from other devices, allowing systems from radars to handheld radios to operate without interruption or vacating a frequency. The endearingly named COFFEE Filter program, which is short for Compact Front-end Filters at the Element-level, narrows the emission and reception bands.“It passes just the wavelength that we want, and it rejects the wavelengths that we don’t want,”  said Todd…

August might as well be “drive around and look at deer” month. The long, warm evenings are the perfect time to hop in the truck, roll the windows down, and start scanning the fields with your hunting buddy or a good dog riding shotgun. Maybe the kids tag along and point out every cow like it might sprout antlers. Either way, you can coast by fields and glass for those velvet antlers in the golden hour.For a lot of folks, driving and glassing is a way to scratch the deer-hunting itch until opening day. But done right, it’s more than…

Many people struggle with pullups at first, but with practice, this exercise can be rewarding and can build upper body pulling and grip strength. Fortunately, you can still build the necessary strength and endurance through a combination of weight exercises and calisthenics.Pullups are also transferable to other skills, such as climbing over walls and fences and using ropes and caving ladders. Below, you’ll find a comprehensive 4-5 set circuit designed to help you progress toward your first or multiple pullups.Pullups require a combination of back, shoulder, arm, grip and core strength, as well as proper technique. If you’re not yet…

Smith & Wesson just dropped its latest, most advanced and most feature-rich 5.56 NATO AR-15 product line under the new Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Axe Series. Axe series carbines and SBRs (short-barreled rifles) all have modern features built around shooting with rifle silencers, which has become extremely popular. The Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Axe series consists of four individual carbines: a 16-inch Performance Center Model, a standard 16-inch Axe model and two factory-standard SBRs with 11.5- and 14.5-inch barrels respectively. The entirety of the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 Axe family uses Smith & Wesson’s fully ambidextrous lower…

New: President Trump has ordered the Pentagon “to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels” both “at sea and on foreign soil,” the New York Times reported Friday, citing officials familiar with the directive. Notable: “[D]irecting the military to crack down on the illicit trade also raises legal issues, including whether it would count as ‘murder’ if U.S. forces acting outside of a congressionally authorized armed conflict were to kill civilians—even criminal suspects—who pose no imminent threat,” four reporters for the Times write. Background: The idea of using the U.S. military against drug cartels “took root among Republicans and…