Breaking news story from Hadera, Israel: Two IS in Israel operatives carried out a lethal attack on police officers last night, March 27th, in northern Israel.
Optics
Scoped Rifles of Saudi Forces in Yemen Pt.1
The Saudi-led intervention into Yemen has sparked considerable interest concerning the flow of arms into the conflict. One of the areas that illustrates the wide range from which Saudi-led forces source their armaments from is their selection of scoped rifles. The Saudi military’s collection of sniper, designated marksmen’s, and anti-materiel rifles in use in Yemen illustrates the vast assortment of countries from which they source their armaments from. This study draws its data and sources largely from the same extensive private image collection of open-source social media photos and videos taken by soldiers of the Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Saudi National Guard, and the Saudi Border Guard that informed Silah Report’s previous article on Saudi Kalashnikov-pattern self-loading rifles and is thus able to paint a uniquely representative picture of the weapons they use. In the first part of this article we will examine the precision and anti-materiel rifles and scopes which can be identified includng the FN SCAR-H, Canadian LRT-3 and the French PGM Hecate II.
Meprolight Produces New MIL-STD Mepro TIGON Sight
The Israeli company Meprolight released their new red dot/uncooled thermal imaging sight, the TIGON, at Paris’s MILIPOL 2021 exhibition (October 19-22, 2021). The new optic includes a red dot sighting system working in conjunction with the x2 thermal sighting system allowing the user to effectively engage targets out to 150 meters (although 200 meters has been discussed as the true effective range) day or nights.
The NSV and the Legacy of Western Kazakh Machine-Building Company
The NSV heavy machine gun (Utyos/Utes) is one of the most recognized and respected heavy machine guns on the battlefield today. The original NSV was designed by Grigory Nikitin, Yuri Sokolov, and Vladimir Volkov and produced by a few different Soviet satellite states.[i] The most well-known of these NSV manufacturers is the Western Kazakh Machine-Building Company (ZKMK), formerly MetallistJSC, a manufacturing plant in Uralsk, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (modern-day Kazakhstan).[ii] In this article we’ll examine the history of the Kazakh NSV.
Podcast V28: Noori, The Iraqi Gun Engraving Artisan
Welcome to the 28th episode of the Silah Report Podcast, we recently had the pleasure of speaking with Noori, an artisan who runs a business of handcrafting decorations on firearms in Iraq. We have covered Noori’s interesting work in past articles here at Silah Report. To say that the quality of his artwork is incredibly professional and its quality is extremely beautiful would be an understatement. In our interview with him, we enquired in-depth abut Iraqi gun culture, his background, how he entered the field, his business in a war-torn country, the challenges he faced and what does think the future holds for him.
Podcast V27: Gunning in Kurdistan, Kobra Tactical Training
Welcome to the 27th episode of the Silah Report Podcast! We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Hamed, a Kurdish firearm instructor and contractor situated in Erbil. We discussed with him his history as a Kurdish contractor, the environment in Erbil for private security contractors and his project, Kobra Tactical. Through his project, he aims to give Kurdish security forces and shooters a chance to further their small arms marksmanship. He also explained to us the “cultural mindset” of many Kurds and their “resistance to modernization/adoption of better combat tactics”.
V20: Post Shot Show 2020 Episode
In this episode, Miles, Matthew Moss (historian, author and Silah Report’s Editor) and Nate (one of our great patrons) discussed a variety of interesting firearms and equipment they noticed in SHOT Show 2020.
V16: Sniper Rifles and Tactics Against IS in Syria, a SMLE in Afghanistan, and a Counterfeit Revolver in Iran
Our guest speaker and main presenter in this week’s edition of the SR podcast is Ed Nash, author of Desert Sniper. Ed took part in the fighting against the so-called Islamic State when he travelled to Syria to fight with the Syrian Democratic Forces, ending up as a precision rifleman in the campaigns of Hasakah, Shadaddi, and eventually Minbij where he ended his tour. He covers everything from the odd tactics in use with the YPG, types of precision rifles employed, and some of the bits of kit that helped him through the fighting.
V12 Silah Report Podcast: Patreon Questions and Large ISIS Arsenal Captured
In the 12th episode of Silah Report Podcast we were joined by Adham, Vlad, Daniel, Miles, Ataka, MENA, Analyst Mick, and Abdullah Khyber. We answered four questions submitted by Patreon supporters of Silah Report and discussed an ISIS weapons and munitions cache recently captured by Iraqi security forces.
If you’d like to have your questions answered by our panel please support Silah Report on Patreon and submit questions as often as you like!
If you missed last week’s episode, you can find it here.
Tabuk Sniper Added to Country Database
A friend of SR, Mohamed J. Sadek, has been kind enough to contribute to our Country Database in regards to the Tabuk Sniper variant of the Tabuk series of rifles produced during the reign of Saddam Hussein. The page may be viewed here.