Warfare

The USS Portland successfully shot a small drone out of the sky.

Earlier this month, a "Twilight"-related tweet caught my eye. It was a simple question posed by author Casey McQuiston: "Did Edward Cullen dodge the draft?" I investigated.

A new recruit of the Chinese Navy almost made a fatal mistake when he failed to throw a grenade far enough away from himself and his instructor.

Noor Khan, a pacifist descendant of Indian Royalty became a famed World War II spy for Britain's Special Operations Executive.

The UH-60 Black Hawk is a helicopter legend and the battle to replace it is heating up.

Jordan Goudreau, a former US Army Green Beret, led a failed coup attempt against Nicolás Maduro in partnership with Venezuela's opposition.

It's an obscure chapter in Cold War history, the time the US's plans to defend the country against Soviet bombers with nuclear missiles went awry.

American mercenaries employed by Silvercorp — founded by ex-Green Beret Jordan Goudreau — tweeted about an alleged coup, and may have brought Airsoft guns in an apparent effort to topple Nicolás Maduro.

Nobody wants a war between the two Koreas but who would win? Both sides have many advantages and disadvantages. A YouTuber crunched the numbers.

Weapons expert Mike Loades tests out an enormous medieval weapon, courtesy of The Smithsonian Channel

The iconic blades of medieval Japan and Europe, compared.

We've seen a lot of Atom Central's restored nuclear test footage, but this 1957 clip from the Plumbbob test escaped our notice — and it's quite something.

The satellite, launched in 1967, has been orbiting the Earth for decades with no one listening.

Even without VR goggles, this is quite something.

The discovery by Yuri Dmitriev, after years of searching, "has clearly made some people very uncomfortable," his daughter says.

The president's off-again, on-again speech in June will bring back cadets who had scattered across the country to help counter the coronavirus.

Aerodynamics is everything.

Just like how Navy planes have vast instrumented ranges for aerial wargames, submarines have one too, and it is arguably even more impressive.

It's an iconic image, but the photo is being taken out of context.

From alcohol to amphetamines, a new book shows intimate links between the policing of substances and the waging of war.

In an email, Navy captain blamed himself for not demanding decisive action sooner for crew with coronavirus. His message was later mischaracterized.

The cannons used by navies in the 1600s might not be a match for modern artillery, but they were still powerful as hell.

The CIA wanted a device similar to the siren the Nazis had used on their legendary Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers — and went to great lengths to get one.

The German army is just having a grand old time at a testing facility in Sweden.

There is no magic in the DPA's mere invocation. The question is what that invocation makes possible and whether it serves the country's complex supply needs.

Even as it's called upon to aid the coronavirus response across the country, the military is struggling to contain the disease among its own personnel.

Hundreds of sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt gave an enthusiastic send off to Captain Brett Crozier after being relieved of duty for too widely disseminating a letter warning that the coronavirus threatened the lives of his crew.

The story behind how Strava's online exercise-tracking map revealed military bases to the public.

Meanwhile, ship crews face a menace that has ravaged navies for centuries.

Maybe not the most practical use for a rocket engine, but maybe one of the best.

Writer Irin Carmin asks her cousin Jack, who spent two years hiding from the Nazis in a Polish farmhouse, for advice on surviving a disaster during the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision was a culmination of two years of research and planning.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by Motherboard lay out the development of "Operation Overmatch."

It's yet another headache plaguing America's newest aircraft carrier.

Renowned scientist and best-selling author Vaclav Smil meticulously charts the single largest cause of non-natural mortality in the 20th century.

A training exercise in 1958 sent the USS Stickleback to the ocean floor.

It may sound like fiction, but on rare occasions, ordinary air bases have extraordinary mystery visitors. It happened to me, twice.

The unique Navy helicopter unit that supported this particular exercise could be on the chopping block next year.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is a technological marvel. It also has toilets designed so incredibly poorly that the entire system needs to be unclogged and flushed out with acid, yes acid, on a regular basis, at the cost of $400,000 a pop.

Accounts from Fort Bliss and Fort Hood describe porous quarantine conditions — as well as Army officials scrambling to do better against a pathogenic enemy they didn't expect.

Eighty years ago, US industry mobilized in a big way during a crisis. We could do it again.

This could be the future of combat aircraft.

This is… a completely voluntary sporting activity? Different (axe) strokes for different folks.

A growing body of evidence suggests that the way in which trauma victims talk about their experiences is as important as whether they talk about it at all.

A British soldier and two Americans serving in Iraq were killed by the rockets fired.

A fascinating history of how the cookiecutter shark had a bad habit of taking a bite out of submarines.

The pilum was ideally designed to take down a charging enemy — or at least take their shield away. Here's how.

At the outbreak of WWII, a private poodle breeder and her dog show pals launch an outlandish scheme to recruit and train thousands of pets for war duty. In the face of military skepticism and confronting the carnage of war a new kind of hero emerges.

The small island of Bornholm gave Stalin a Danish foothold at the end of the Second World War. Why did he give it up?

The Royal Air Force delayed safety warnings about the first transatlantic flight of a new Reaper aircraft in 2018, over fears that they could tip anti-drone protestors to its arrival in the UK.

The only thing better than a flyover? A fly-under (that's what we're going to be calling this).

Want to know what it's like to manage the world's most dangerous weapons? Ask these women who have their hands on the launch buttons of all of the United States' nuclear weapons.

Islamists exploited the United States' political freedoms to attract fighters for the Afghan War in the 1980s.

We trace the intriguing origins of one of the Army's most exotic battle wagons and discern what at least one of them is up to now.

A convoy of 37 allied ships, led by captain Ernest Krause (Tom Hanks) cross the North Atlantic as Nazi U-boats attempt to sink them all. "Greyhound" releases in theaters on June 12.

Deadly assaults against Afghan forces have increased since the US and Taliban signed a deal to end their war. Afghans worry about the ambiguity of the Taliban's promises.

The U.S. Army recently, and apparently inadvertently, offered a look at new concept art and models relating to a massive artillery piece that wouldn't be out of place in the G.I. Joe universe.

Hint: Think less "Star Wars," and more, well, the usual war stuff.

The Defense Department is long overdue for a 21st century overhaul. That would mean budget cuts far beyond what any 2020 candidates are proposing.

Surviving capture wasn't an option. A show trial in North Korea and execution would almost certainly be the punishment — particularly since the guard was absconding with a prisoner.