If you grew up watching 1980s action movies, you were sold a lie about the M60 machine gun. Rambo convinced an entire generation of future infantrymen that the M60 was the closest we’d get to a magic wand of destruction, and we couldn’t wait to get our grubby little hands on one.
They made it look like it could be fired one-handed, shirtless, while screaming and throwing your emotional baggage at the enemy; don’t forget the belt of ammo draped casually over an oiled-up bicep. You didn’t even need cover or concealment, just grip it and rip it, son.

Space Force Tech Sgt. Garry Springle said he would not be alive were it not for a smartwatch that the service issued him for an ongoing fitness study it’s conducting. 
Not long after starting the study, Springle noticed the smartwatch consistently told him he was falling short of the Space Force’s fitness standards. Specifically, the watch was saying he was not meeting his required intensity minutes — a measure of heartbeats during exercise. 
In order to meet the intensity requirement, Springle needed to get his heart rate up to 70% of the maximum rate for his age.

Jackson Barracks, headquarters of the Louisiana National Guard, will be the home of a new Air National Guard unit tasked with providing cyber capabilities, the Air Force announced Wednesday.
The new squadron will be supported by converting manpower from the 122th Air Support Operations Squadron at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana — which is slated to be deactivated as part of budget divestments in ANG tactical air control part (TACP) missions. The cyber operations unit is expected to reach full operational capability in spring 2030, according to the service.

Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy

For three straight years, Navy nose tackle Landon Robinson has been a “freak.”
The hulking, 6-foot, 287-pound senior on the U.S. Naval Academy’s football team was ranked No. 13 this season on The Athletic’s annual Freak List, a roll call of college football’s biggest, strongest players. That spot was a jump from 48th in 2024 for Robinson, and it’s not hard to see why: though short for a Division I lineman, the Ohio native is the strongest player on Navy’s team with powerlifts last summer of 465 pounds on bench, a 665-pound squat, and 350-pound power clean.

The Royal Navy has lost another warship after H

College football used to be about the game. There, I said it. Young men lined up to play for Army or Navy (see Pete Dawkins or Roger Staubach) before NIL deals or the transfer portal. Bowl games/postseason games used to mean more, too.
Related: The worst and best college football traditions in America
In 1941, Willamette College of Oregon and San Jose State embarked aboard the S.S. Lurline to play a pair of charity games in Hawaii. Scheduled for Dec. 13 and 16, the games were going to benefit the Honolulu Police Department.

Two Army drill sergeants at a Missouri base have been charged with sexually assaulting trainees and conspiring to cover it up, officials told Task & Purpose.
Staff Sgt. Michael Serrano, 34, and Sgt. 1st Class Brian Sullivan, 38, were drill sergeants assigned to Company A for the 3rd Chemical Brigade at Fort Leonard Wood, when the alleged crimes took place, according to Michelle McCaskill, a spokesperson for the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, which is prosecuting the case.

Yes, this is happening.

Paradigm Shift Technologies and Perfect Bore Defence have formed a partnership to set up a barrel coating facility in the UK.

This video describes the military situation in

NSPA awarded Rheinmetall UK a contract to deliver the Trailblazer Driver Vision for the upgrade of the UK’s M270 A2 MLRS platforms.

L3Harris Technologies has secured a contract worth up to $200m to supply GMLRS Insensitive Munition (IM) propulsion units.

For the last 20 years, the M4 Carbine has been the Honda Civic of the U.S. military. It was lightweight, easy to maneuver, and you could find parts or ammo literally anywhere on the planet. It was the ultimate weapon for a force designed with speed and volume of fire in mind. But that era just slammed into the brick wall of time.
The Army’s new replacement, the XM7 Next Generation Squad Weapon, is not a Civic. It is a main battle tank you have to carry in your hands. If you listen to the grumbling in the barracks, the reviews aren’t great.

Global Defense News
The U.S.

T&P
Rob Evans, creator of the Hots & Cots app, has built a new website that allows veterans to review the quality of care at Department of Veterans Affairs medical facilities.

Ethan M.

Kapil Kajal, Interesting Engineering
The 24-foot vessel has a range of roughly 1,000 nautical miles, a 1,000-pound payload capacity, and is capable of speeds above 35 knots.

Sandboxx News
there have been a lot of revolutions in firearms technology.

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a two-part series exploring additive manufacturing.The Pentagon has poured unprecedented funds into additive manufacturing as a potential game-changer for defense production. For example, in fiscal year 2024, the Department of Defense allocated roughly $800 million for additive, which was a 166% increase from the prior year. By FY2026, projects involving 3D printing will swell to an estimated $3.3 billion, based on the budget request.

This video describes the military situation in

What happens when the United States tries to build a missile shield so ambitious that Russia and China start dreaming up weapons that no defense can stop? Two demonstrations of Russian weapons pageantry this fall offered a clear, if unsettling, glimpse of that future as President Vladimir Putin proudly showcased systems built to sidestep American defenses.On Oct. 26, Putin claimed the successful test of the Burevestnik long-range, nuclear-powered cruise missile.

The deployment of British paratroopers in Ukraine to support the ongoing war effort against Russia has been confirmed for the first time by the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, after Lance Corporal George Hooley of the Parachute Regiment was killed in action on December 9. The Ministry observed that the 28-year-old was killed in a “tragic accident” while observing Ukrainian forces test new armaments, making him the first British military serviceman confirmed to have been killed in the conflict.

Who wins in the latest chapter between these tw

Can UKAF finish off a spectacular 2025 with a w

The Russian Aerospace Forces have received a new batch of Su-34M strike fighters, following sustained efforts to expand production rates to over double peacetime levels.State defence conglomerate Rostec reported that the state run United Aircraft Corporation “has manufactured and delivered a new batch of Su-34 fighter-bombers to the Russian Defence Ministry. The aircraft have completed a series of required ground and flight factory tests and have been handed over to the customer.

The UK has signed the Agreement on Defence Export Controls which will make it easier to grant export licences with France, Germany and Spain.

The Welsh Guards have honoured a regimental tra

A keel laying ceremony for the latest Type 31 f

The conferenced version of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Pentagon to brief lawmakers on operations since 2004 involving any unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) intercepts conducted by the integrated military commands that share leadership and a focus on defending North America.
This mandate marks one of three provisions associated with UAP — or the modern term for UFOs and other mysterious transmedium objects — that made it into the annual defense policy legislation.
It also comes as North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S.

We can build bigger ships now than we’ve

The United States Navy is the most powerful in history. For decades, it has dominated the seas, and at the heart of that domination, at least through World War II, was the battleship. But today, the U.S. Navy’s only battleships are floating museums, and its largest warships, aircraft carriers, have few guns on their decks. So what happened? How did the once-prolific warship fade into history and why hasn’t it been reinvented?
The short answer is that modern warfare killed the battleship concept.

This video describes the military situation in

In December 1944, the United States was still very much in the middle of World War II. The June 6 landings in Normandy were fresh in the minds of troops on the ground and Americans back home, but setbacks throughout Europe and bloody battles in the Pacific Theater left a nation fatigued by the strains of war.
As the casualty counts increased and the war waged on, the air in America felt heavy. But for a moment in December, there was one thing taking everyone’s mind off the fighting: the Army-Navy game.
Army was ranked #1 and Navy, #2.

In 2018, Andrew Grotto wrote, “Cyber Security Derailed? Recommendations for Smarter Investments in Infrastructure,” where he argued that as the United States modernizes its infrastructure and transportation networks, cybersecurity measures to protect them must be front and center. Seven years later, amidst a changing security landscape, we asked Andrew to revisit his argument.Image: Ben Schumin via Wikimedia CommonsIn your article, “Cyber Security Derailed? Recommendations for Smarter Investments in Infrastructure,” published in 2018, you argued that the U.S.

Army prosecutors preferred charges against an OB-GYN doctor at a Fort Hood, Texas, hospital for recording patients, officials said.
There are 44 victims in this case, Army officials said Tuesday. The Office of Special Trial Counsel preferred four charges and 61 specifications against Maj. Blaine McGraw, 47, an OB-GYN doctor assigned to the Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood.

The Black Seminoles emerged as one of the most remarkable Afro-Indigenous communities in North American history. Their story is one of survival, adaptation, and unity forged during some of the most turbulent chapters of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These men, women, and families were originally Africans who escaped from slavery in Georgia and the Carolinas and found refuge among the Seminole Indians of Florida. Over time, the shared experience of resisting oppression shaped a powerful cultural bond. Their unity was not simply a matter of coexistence.

The final draft of the annual defense policy bill tasks the Pentagon with conducting a psychological study on troops and Defense Department civilians who use or support unmanned aircraft systems in combat.
The study would assess the prevalence of post traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, burnout, moral injury — a term that gained popularity during the Global War on Terror used to describe a distressing ethical contradiction in the aftermath of a traumatic event — and other mental health conditions among drone operators and analysts.

For military families, the promise of comprehensive reproductive healthcare has long felt like a mirage, always visible on the horizon but forever dissolving as you approach. For the past year, beneficiaries have been led to believe that relief is finally inbound. The Fiscal Year 2026 National Defense Authorization Act included bipartisan language that would have required Tricare to cover In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) for all active-duty service members, finally modernizing a benefit stuck in the Cold War era for decades.
But as the final conference report dropped on Dec.

Heads up, Letter Senders! With Christmas and New Year’s quickly approaching, we want to make sure you’re aware of upcoming base mailroom closures and the shipping deadlines for Sandboxx Letters. Below, you’ll find the recommended send-by dates for each base to help ensure your letter arrives in time for the holidays.
Please remember that holiday mail processing can be unpredictable. Staff shortages, increased mailroom volume, and other unexpected delays may occur, so we strongly recommend sending your letters as early as possible.

AI and ML applications has intensified thermal demands, but active cooling will protect defence computing platforms.

DALO has agreed with KNDS Deutschland for the delivery of three Leguan bridge-laying systems mounted on a Tatra 10×10 wheeled chassis.

Anduril UK and GKN Aerospace are set to work together on the British Army’s Project NYX and the UK MoD’s ACP programme.

L Todd Wood and Pete Blaber give the latest information on Ukraine. The propaganda continues to keep the killing going.
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When we spent the long winters away from our loved ones, we saw dark days and anxious winds. But here today, looking ahead to the holiday season, we don’t see the chilling dark. We don’t see the stress. We see you.
We see men and women who have stood on that wall. We see people who have woken up, day after day, far from home, doing the hard work so the rest of the world can sleep in. You have lived the long days. You have weathered the storms. You have endured the repetition. And no matter what happens tomorrow, or the rest of your life, we are happy now… because we have this list.

C.

DefOne
Appropriators and other lawmakers have pushed for the Navy’s next-gen fighter, but the latest NDAA offers only enough to keep the nascent program warm..

Sam LaGrone, USNI News
The Navy’s four public shipyards and two unidentified private shipyards are working with Palantir for a program the service is calling “Ship OS”

The WarZone
Loitering munitions are already revolutionizing the battlefield, and the U.S. Army is finally testing launching them from its main battle tank.

Jangoulun Singsit, Airforce Technology
The demonstration involved the MQ-28 Ghost Bat operating with a RAAF E-7A Wedgetail and an F/A-18F Super Hornet to destroy a fighter-class target…