Prayers for James Singleton

The Record

The world record for a long-distance bullet kill is held by British sniper Craig Harrison, who used his rifle to hit two Taliban machine gunners at a range of 1.54 miles (8,120ft).

Han Dynasty

During the Han Dynasty, a man named Wei Boyang was the first to write anything about gunpowder. He wrote about a mixture of three powders that would “fly and dance” violently.

Flamethrower History

Contrary to what we had thought, flamethrowers were introduced fairly early on. They were first employed by the Germans at the battle of Hooge on July 30, 1915. Flamethrowers consisted of a backpack with a resevoir of compressed nitrogen and a tank containing about ten pints of "liquid flame", usually a mixture of coal tar and benzine. A hose ran from the fuel tank to a nozzle, on which was an ignition device; on pressing the trigger, gas forced the liquid through the nozzle and at the same time the ignition device fired the liquid. The result was a stream of burning liquid with an effective range of about 45 meters.

Flamethrowers proved to be a terrifyingly effective weapon, and they were quickly adopted by the British, French, and American forces. They had a somewhat shorter range than many of the other weapons of The Great War which, in conjunction with their efficacy, meant that flamethrower operators quickly became targets; no one wanted an enemy flamethrower anywhere near them. It became customary for flamethrower operators to go into combat surrounded by an infantry squad to protect them until they could be usefully deployed.

An advantage of flamethrowers is that they don't require that much skill to operate; anyone who can aim a garden hose can aim a flamethrower, which makes them, oddly enough, a good weapon for novices. Even an untrained combatant can cause massive damage against large numbers of opponents, as long as they can get within range (as a caveat, one should make sure the novices are bright enough to avoid rather literal "friendly fire" casualties, which are somewhat easy to achieve with this weapon.) In addition, their use as a psychological weapon of terror is unparalleled. Katya suspects that flamethrowers might also prove rather effective against creatures which are immune to certain forms of more conventional weaponry.

Glock 17

A "first generation" Glock 17 with the slide locked back displaying its upward barrel tilt

U.S Navy Seals Wielding the MP5

U.S. Navy SEALs armed with MP5s on a training exercise.

MP5 Submachine Gun

The Heckler & Koch MP5 (from German: Maschinenpistole 5, "machine pistol model 5") is a 9mm submachine gun of German design, developed in the 1960s by a team of engineers from the German small arms manufacturer Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K) of Oberndorf am Neckar. There are over 100 variants,  including a semi-automatic version.