War

How do you learn to fly a kamikaze drone? In Russia, one answer lies inside a secretive training program run by Octagon, a drone school linked to remnants of the Wagner Group. Though Wagner technically no longer exists, Octagon claimed to continue running combat drone courses in Russia, even after Wagner …

In a span of weeks, Sergeant Roy Elderkin converted a group of polo players, Foreign Legionnaires, soldiers, and civilians into highly effective mounted infantry.  by Gatimu Juma The shooting started at 20 yards. Six mounted infantry from a new unit, Grey’s Scouts, were riding through thick Rhodesian thornbush when the …

In January 1943, Soviet infantry crossed the frozen Neva River under direct fire to reopen a land corridor into the starving city. by A.R. Fomenko VIENNA BUREAU – The soldiers lay motionless in the snow at the edge of the ice, their weapons beside them. The men of the Soviet 136th …

by Susan Katz Keating America’s fight in Southeast Asia began before our country knew that a war was unfolding, on a single night when two men were the first to die by enemy fire in Vietnam. It happened on July 8, 1959, in Bien Hoa, some 20 miles outside Saigon. …

The ANZAC landing on April 25, 1915, marked the opening of the Gallipoli campaign in World War I. by Jose Campos Bullets snapped off the shale walls of Shrapnel Gully. Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, stretcher bearer with the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance, led his donkey along the narrow track. A …

A classified outpost near Khe Sanh was overrun in the fog. Special Forces Staff Sergeant Jon Cavaiani stayed behind to direct the evacuation and defend Hickory Hill. by Jose Campos He lay beneath a dead man, covered in blood.  Around him, enemy soldiers worked their way through the wreckage of …

What began as a routine track near the Mozambique border turned into a sustained engagement on broken ground where visibility collapsed and distance closed quickly. by Talor Sanders  Dawn broke over the Honde Valley under a gray sky, mist clinging to the ridges along the Mozambique border. For the Rhodesian …

The degree of hazard depends on the type of weapon, height of the burst, distance from the detonation, hardness of the target, and explosive yield of the weapon.  by Susan Katz Keating Russian President Vladimir Putin again raised the specter of nuclear war when he announced that a conventional attack …

by Susan Katz Keating The Asgard came in low, riding heavier than it should have for a vessel of its size. Below deck, rifles were stacked four feet high. The ship sailed into Dublin Bay, through one of the most consequential gun-running lanes in modern military history.  THE ARMS SITUATION …

by Susan Katz Keating“We weren’t Special Forces or Airborne. We were mostly just a bunch of draftee grunts who turned out to be damn good soldiers.” The soldiers proceeded cautiously through the jungle highlands west of Pleiku, near the Cambodian border, on the morning of May 18, 1967. The men …