Archipelago Endeavor is an annual, bilateral integrated field-training exercise, conducted to promote interoperability, strengthen partnerships, and enhance strategic and tactical cooperation between U.S. and Swedish Marines. This is TFB’s Photo Of The Day, and we take a closer look at the US and Swedish Marine snipers working together and their firearms. The Swedish Ak5 is clearly visible (FN FNC). Can you identify the sniper rifles?

Subject: Photo Of The Day – Indigo Defender 21

Guns sure are great! But they’re also supremely dangerous and that’s why it’s important to always be properly trained and to have the correct safety gear available to you whenever possible. One of the best investments you can make for yourself or for a friend is with firearms training classes. Whether that means it’s your first basic pistol or carbine course or a more advanced counter-sniper course, training often pays back in dividends more than any other firearms-related purchase out there. Safety gear, like hearing protection is another area of purchasing that can both enhance your training and pay off further down the road (you know, when you still have your hearing). So if you don’t want to have your grandchildren screaming in your ear next year to tell you what they want from Santa for Christmas, maybe it’s time to invest in a new pair of hearing protection. Today we’ll be covering some basic training and safety gear to keep you on target and out of harm’s way. Just ask this guy how important training at home is (profanity warning):

Bringing steel targets to the range is often cumbersome especially if you have a small vehicle. Well, last Saturday I was co-hosting a local night shoot and some of the attendees were from Redeye Targets. They brought out their new AR500 folding target that is deceptively small but full size when fully erect. (innuendo). See the canvas gym bag in the photo above? That contains the entire target system. Target and stand!

If you discuss home defense scenarios with fellow firearms owners, you will almost certainly get a wide variety of ideas and responses. People’s chosen defensive firearms, planning, and training will vary significantly based on their individual backgrounds and a host of other variables. In my particular circle, AR-15s and modern semi-automatic handguns tend to be the go-tos, far more than a trusty old shotgun. This is also the case for me; given my specific training and experience, I am most proficient, comfortable, and well-schooled with these types of guns. My most readily-accessible “bump in the night” firearm for a potential “Alamo” situation in my house is a suppressed, short-barrelled AR pistol with a high-quality weaponlight and optic. Where I live, it normally wouldn’t take long at all for an ambulance and law enforcement to come help me and my family in the event of a violent encounter like a home invasion. However, “normally” is the operative word – and we all know that the last couple of years have been anything but normal.

Training courses are some of the best money I’ve spent in terms of the value I get out of them. However, training courses of any time are generally very expensive and usually require you to travel to a different state and also lug along all of your gear needed for whatever course you’re taking. Elite You has just launched an online/virtual training platform for those that would prefer to absorb the knowledge of trained experts from the comfort of their own homes.

TFB’s Photo Of The Day is where you can discover the World of firearms through a camera lens. Every day we run a new theme, selected pictures, a short story and credit to the person behind the lens. Today we take a look at the German exercise Black Boar where the rangers of the 1st company of the support battalion conducted a combat shooting with practice ammunition, using blanks. Particular attention was paid to the execution of the activities of the individual shooter. This includes, for example, preparing a shooting position correctly before moving into it, correctly passing on the reports and the correct behavior and action in the event of enemy fire.

Photo Of The Day: Over the years TFB’s POTD has gathered thousands of interesting images from around the world. If you’re interested in a special subject you can use our search function. For instance, if you’re looking for photos of snipers just check here. Today the subject is the Colt Canada C7A2, here seen with the eFP Battle Group Latvia where they had the chance to share the shooting range with soldiers from the U.S. Army. Another opportunity for NATO allies to train together.

Photo Of The Day: The Royal Marines Commandos have some postcards from their action-packed mission in the USA, where they are working together with US and Dutch Marines. The location: Mojave Desert in California.

Photo Of The Day: For some reason, it’s always difficult to get clean pictures of Japanese infantry firearms, but here’s a welcome exception. Here we have Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force soldiers assigned to the 34th Infantry Regiment, 1st Division. They’re engaging in a firefight during a guard and protect exercise in Samurai Readiness Inspection at Yokota Air Base, Japan, 2021.

Photo Of The Day: Here we look at 291th Security Forces Squadron members Airman 1st Class Calvin Sprung, Staff Sgt. Michael Lee and Airman 1st Class Daejon Snipes wearing personal protective equipment as they run into their position during a force on force training in a military operation in urban terrain (MOUT) village at Camp Gilbert C. Grafton, near Devils Lake, N.D., July 15, 2020.

Going over the top with the U.S. Marines. In our Photo Of The Day, the show is performed by USMC Marines as they conduct fire and maneuver training on a fire team assault range in Jordan. They’re armed with the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle made by Heckler & Koch, and it looks like a hot, dry day in the desert.

One of the more common questions I get when it comes to concealed carry is how to focus on training for carrying concealed. There are a number of new gun owners who don’t have the knowledge or just experienced shooters who want to focus on drawing from concealment. In past articles, I have written about various drills and targets you can use but there are also tips, in general, to help you guys out when it comes to carrying concealed. If you don’t necessarily enjoy printing off specific targets, there are still plenty of things you can do to improve your skills at the range with minimal effort. Let’s dive into some easy range tips to help with concealed carry.

Each day a different image from the World of firearms. We call this POTD, short for Photo Of The Day, and it is our daily article series where we go to great lengths trying to find the most interesting pictures for you out there. Right above we have Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David Wells, a rifleman assigned to Alpha Company, Battalion Landing Team 1/1, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) as he posts security on the flight deck during an interior and exterior clearing exercise. The team is aboard the amphibious transport dock USS Portland (LPD 27) earlier this month.

As usual, TFB has selected a few pictures for you. By this time you know it, it’s TFB’s Photo Of The Day to keep you in a good mood. Get a coffee, take a break and enjoy a few minutes off. Here we have Australian Army soldiers together with U.S. Marines with the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin as they dismount an MV-22B Osprey during Exercise Koolendong at Bradshaw Field Training Area, NT, Australia. This happened at the end of August of this year.

The first online photograph is said to have been published by Tim Berners-Lee in 1992. It’s uncertain how many were actually able to see that image at the time, but probably not a lot. Luckily TFB’s Photo Of The Day is a lot more popular and anyone with an Internet connection is welcome to visit. Here we do our best to focus on interesting high-quality images with a focus on firearms of all sorts.

Photo Of The Day with a loud bang as U.S. Army Paratroopers assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade, fire an M3 Carl Gustaf rocket launcher. This happened during exercise Rock Klescman 21 at Pocek Range in Slovenia, in September 2021. Exercise Rock Klescman was a bilateral training exercise with the Slovenian Armed Forces focused on the rapid deployment and assembly of forces and team cohesion with weapon systems tactics and procedures.

Photo Of The Day: Right above is a German soldier engaging long-range targets in the middle of the night. He’s using a Remington Mk 21 Precision Sniper Rifle at the International Specialty Training Center (ISTC) Alpine Sniper Course, in Hochfilzen training area, Austria. The Alpine Sniper Course went on for two weeks and was designed to teach and train sniper teams the necessary skills to operate in mountainous terrain.

Of all the pictures we have featured in our Photo Of The Day since 2014, this has got to be one of the oddest. I know sniper challenges are supposed to be a challenge, but this certainly takes the price. If I’m correct, we have a sniper and a spotter, with the PSG90B sniper rifle (AI AW) and the spotting scope supported by tripods on the bottom of the lake. The spotter has an empty Ak5 (FN FNC) on his back. Since they’re wearing hearing protection I think this is a photo taken in the heat of the action, during the competition, and not a staged one.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves and Johnny B go to Thunder Ranch to take the Combat Shotgun course from Clint Smith and Jack Daniel. In this excerpt from arguably the best shotgun course in the country, Clint gives us pointers, basics, pros, cons, and drills for the defensive use of the combat shotgun.

Today’s Photo Of The Day shows a Bulgarian sniper, looking for targets from a tower during the range estimation event of the European Best Sniper Team Competition held in Hohenfels, Germany in August 2021. The 7th Army Training Command hosted a contest of skill that included 14 participating NATO allies and partner nations.

In today’s Photo Of The Day, we offer an experience from Exercise Archipelago Endeavor. Above you see a Swedish Marine with the 204th Rifle Company, 2nd Marine Battalion, 1st Swedish Marine Regiment, providing security aboard a Combat Boat 90 near Berga Naval Base, Sweden, September 2021.

TFB’s Photo Of The Day can be many things. Today we get a good look at the setup that the German KSK Special Forces are using on their not-so-black rifle. KSK is short for Kommando SpezialKräfte, or Special Forces Command. The KSK takes part in typical SOF operations and they are armed with the Heckler & Koch HK416 in the A7 / G95 configuration. In terms of optics, they are using the EOTech EXPS3 with a G33 magnifier with offset Iron Sights as backup. From Rheinmetall, they are using the LM-VTAL and the TL-MISSIONLIGHT. Of course, there’s some Magpul furniture on the G95 as well, just look at that AFG-2.

At a cost of $119,320 each ( source) this is one expensive Photo Of The Day, that TFB luckily didn’t have to pay for. Above we see a U.S. Marine from the Alpha Battery, 2nd Low Altitude Air Defense Platoon, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron – 363 (Reinforced), Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, as he inspects a FIM-92 Stinger missile prior to firing.

Photo Of The Day and we are back to the excellent pictures from the NATO enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Latvia. We get a look at soldiers working together to mount a strong defence against an opposing force during the exercise Silver Arrow. Silver Arrow is part of the larger Namejs 2021, designed to test the skills and interoperability of the multiple NATO partners. Above you can see a soldier shooting his Heckler & Koch G36 from a prone position.

Photo Of The Day – The word photograph is a combination of Greek words and means “drawing with light”. The word was invented by Sir John Herschel, over 180 years ago. I suppose that at the time he had no idea that there would be photos “drawn with light” of a machine gun, yet here we are. These photos are from the Latvian Army and their exercise Namejs 2021. Location: Riga.

Last year was a doozy. It seemed that overnight, not only were individual rights disappearing, but so were guns and ammo. Finding 9mm was and still is nearly impossible. When you do find ammo, even steel-cased FMJ is still going for 50 cents per round. We’re all aware that dry fire is a valuable tool for staying familiar with your platform, but there are also options that can give you more value with every press of the trigger. The Mantis X3 Shooting Performance System is one of those options.

Photo Of The Day: As promised we’re back with more Swiss Special Forces, Kommando Spezialkräfte (KSK), and here we can see them monitoring the environment from a helicopter. The door gunner is from the military police special detachment (MP Spez Det) and the picture was taken back in 2017.

Photo Of The Day: Portuguese Special Forces training aircraft intervention, here just before entering. The unit is called Grupo de Intervenção de Operações Especiais or GIOE for short. In this training event, they had the support of Air Portugal and the Airport of Lisbon. You can see the iconic Heckler & Koch MP5 above, suppressed (B&T) and with the stock collapsed. In terms of handguns, they have been seen using both SIG Sauers and Glocks.

Photo Of The Day: Smoking guns and a lot of action, the way we like our pictures best. Here we have U.S. Naval Special Warfare Task Unit Europe in a bi-lateral training exercise in Limassol (Cyprus), together with the Cypriot Underwater Demolition Team (MYK). You can see a suppressed FN SCAR above.