sofmag.com

Inside Chasiv Yar: Mortars, Drones and Tanks at War A mortar crew lived beneath a ruined Ukrainian city as Russian tanks, drones and gas attacks closed in. by Jonathan Stumpf The train jerks once and comes to a stop. I watch the flood of soldiers boarding, including a red-haired beauty in her early twenties struggling under a heavy rucksack decorated with a patch showing …

Eight Paratroopers, One Stripper, and a Lesson in ‘All the Way!’ A routine pre-deployment paperwork check at Fort Bragg uncovered a situation nobody expected. by Heath Hansen “Listen up, Charlie Company. You all know we’re deploying to Iraq in a few weeks. On top of all the equipment, weapons, supplies, and gear we need to prepare, there’s a lot of paperwork each of you needs to …

Shotguns vs. Drones: A Clay Shooter’s Guide to Defeating Enemy Swarms by Austin Lee In the escalating drone wars, where fiber optic and First-Person View (FPV) drones threaten soldiers and civilians alike, one man is turning the art of clay shooting into a battlefield advantage.  Lieutenant Marco Angelelli, an Italian Air Force reserve officer and Italian Clay Pigeon Shooting Federation (FITAV) a…

Battlefield Loot and the Things They Smuggle Arms smugglers raid the residue of combat while black-market traders work Chernobyl for contaminated metal and timber. Soldier of Fortune follows three trails out of Ukraine. Ukraine’s front lines have produced more than casualties and headlines. They’ve produced inventory. Soldier of Fortune has spent months following the trail of what gets pulled out…

Jolly Green Rescue Helicopter Goes to Work in Alaska The HH-60W Jolly Green II is carrying a legendary mission into the mountains, timber, and backcountry of Alaska. The HH-60W Jolly Green II was built to go after people in places that are difficult to reach and bring them home. Its primary mission is combat search and rescue, where distance, terrain and hostile forces can …

China’s Intelligence Collectors at Work Inside America As Xi Jinping heads to Washington, federal cases show the workings of Chinese intelligence operations in the United States. by Stephen Caldwell A woman flew into Detroit Metro Airport from Shanghai on Sept. 8, one of many trips she made between China and the United States. When customs officers questioned her, she identified herself as …

The Iraq Fraud Cases That Never Closed Bricks of cash, luxury cars and secret accounts exposed a sprawling reconstruction fraud. Years later, a tip sent Soldier of Fortune back into cases that never reached an ending. by Susan Katz Keating They bought luxury cars, opulent properties, high-end watches, first class travel, and more. The only catch was, they couldn’t afford such trappings …

This American Paratrooper Was Captured by SS Troops During ‘Operation Market Garden’ When Gene Metcalfe boarded the C-47 that would drop him just outside of Nijmegen, Holland, a British lieutenant gave him a box of condoms. Gene was to be among the first to jump into what should have been a picture-book meadow, free of German troops. Instead, it was defended by three German antiaircraft cannon em…

Papers, Please: Buying Access to the War Zone by Susan Katz Keating Not everything moving through war is a physical object. Some of the most valuable commodities in a conflict zone are identity, permission, and cover. You need the right document, the right credential, and the right story, at the right checkpoint. My team and I at Soldier of Fortune have spent months following that …

Project Azorian: The CIA’s Audacious Grab for a Sunken Soviet Sub by Austin Lee It was one of the ballsiest clandestine ops in history: Project Azorian, the CIA mission to snatch a Soviet submarine from the Pacific Ocean’s crushing depths. The haul from the Golf-II-class K-129 was a priceless score for the Americans. The mission also prompted a rare act of Cold War brotherhood, and spawned …