Mike Perry

On April 30, 1980, 6 men approached the Iranian Embassy at Princes Gate, in South Kensington, London. They were Arabs, members of a little known dissident group called the Democratic Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Arabistan, an oil-rich area of Iran that had ruled itself autonomously until 1925. Their goals were to reestablish independence […]

“Sniper’s Honor” is a fairly new release, and should provide an exciting journey for Swagger fans, old and new.

(In Part One of the Last Stand At Lang Vei, the story ended just as the NVA began their secondary assault against the camp. This week the story is carried to its conclusion from that point using a narrative interweaved with after action reports written by Lieutenant Colonel Shungel and Captain Willoughby.) The tanks roared […]

The PT-76 was an amphibious tank design developed by the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Armed with a relatively small (for the era) 76 mm gun and intended to spearhead river crossings, it took up station with several units occupying the Warsaw Pact countries for a potential thrust into western Europe. Yet, against NATO […]

After Great Britain was driven from continental Europe in disgrace, it realized that the offensive capabilities it wanted to employ against Germany must be tried elsewhere. Thus, after winning the battle of Britain, it shifted its main weight of forces to fight in the deserts of North Africa. The ensuing struggle eventually caused some cheer […]

The story of Italy’s Decima MAS (Decima Mezzi d’Assalto, or 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla), is a peculiar tale regarding Axis Special Forces in World War II. On one hand they were the best combat frogmen produced by any nation during the conflict. On the other, the courage and innovation they brought to the history of […]

During WWII, Italian frogmen successfully penetrated the harbor in Alexandria, Egypt riding manned torpedoes and damaging two Royal Navy battleships, HMS Valiant and HMS Queen Elizabeth, using nothing more than handheld devices called limpet mines. After, an impressed and worried Winston Churchill ordered a similar capability to be developed as soon as possible. Unbeknownst to […]

The Ruhr valley has long served as a primary base of heavy industry for the German nation. In World War II, for example, the region processed millions of tons of raw materials to make the steel used to conquer its neighbors. The area teemed with factories running round the clock, along with a canal and […]

Using side-firing weapons on aircraft can be traced back to 1927, when a concept was demonstrated by fixing a .30 caliber machine gun to the side of a biplane and flying a simple maneuver known as a pylon turn. Named after the air racing term, it involved positioning an aircraft in a gentle bank and […]

Oil is the lifeblood of nations. No substance has ever proven more beneficial to the world when it comes to sustaining day to day livelihoods and moving vast quantities of commerce across the globe. It’s the one thing people, regardless of background, have to agree on if they want to be truthful. Oil is what […]

Few technologies played as vital a role in World War II as radar. From its famous early days as giant girdered masts dotting the eastern coastline of Great Britain, relaying information on inbound German aircraft, to tiny antennae on fighters seeking out bombers in the dead of night, it proved itself among the supreme innovations […]

Team Room: You’ve been reading Mike Perry’s excellent SOF history posts on SOFREP since he wrote about the British SAS and the Iranian Embassy siege. Mike’s first book, Hammer of the Gods, is available now on Amazon. Recently, Mike has been pounding the keys on his next book, A Touch of War, and asked us […]