SOFREP

Knife forums still argue about edge types with religious intensity, but the answer has not changed much in 2026: the right edge depends on what you expect the blade to cut. Certainly one of the most debated topics in the world of knives, an argument dating back before the time of the internet, is whether plain-edged, serrated-edged, or combo-edged knives are best. In this guide, we’ll go over the pros and cons of each and outline which one would be better for you.

The World’s Most Expensive Paperweight There is a special kind of number that stops meaning anything the moment you say it out loud. A Los Angeles-class submarine costs over half a billion dollars just to exist. Then the meter keeps running. Maintenance, refits, overhauls, crews, fuel that is not really fuel in the way most people understand it.

Imagine a woman so feared by the enemy she earned a battlefield nickname that sounded like folklore and menace at the same time: “Lady Death.” But the myth never quite matched the reality. Lyudmila Pavlichenko was no towering figure of war-born fantasy. She stood just 5 feet 1 inch tall, 155 cm, a compact silhouette that belied what she had done on the Eastern Front. And yet in the calculus of war, she loomed far larger than her frame suggested.

“Heckler and Koch first announced the existence of the HK433 rifle…in early February 2017…the HK433 represents a step forward, and uniquely combines certain tactical-technical features. They have also emphasized that, compared to the HK416, it is more reliable, and has better ergonomics.” — Eric Sof, for CombatOperators.com, February 22, 2026.

It does not look like a warship built for headlines. No towering superstructure. No dense cluster of missile cells. No illusion of dominance. Instead, the US Marine Corps’ newly unveiled Medium Landing Ship moves with a different logic. Quiet, deliberate, and built for a fight that will not be decided by a single decisive clash, but by who can stay in the fight longer. The service’s latest video offers the clearest look yet at that shift.

Congress Questions Sudden Removal of Army Chief Lawmakers from both parties pressed Army leadership this week over the sudden removal of Randy George, the service’s chief of staff, calling the move damaging to morale and demanding answers the Pentagon has yet to provide. At a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing on the Army’s fiscal year 2027 budget request, frustration cut across party lines.

The Strait of Hormuz has stopped behaving like a waterway and started behaving like a checkpoint. In the latest escalation of the US naval blockade against Iran, the Pentagon says 13 commercial vessels have turned back in the Strait of Hormuz, choosing withdrawal over confrontation as American destroyers tighten control of the world’s most sensitive oil artery. The message from Washington is simple, and deliberately blunt. Transit is no longer automatic. It is conditional.

Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar entered a fractured world where kings fought brothers, borders shifted overnight, and loyalty was a currency more valuable than gold. He would become El Cid Campeador, “The Champion,” a title earned not through inheritance but through a lifetime of battlefield dominance, political survival, and myth that blurred the line between history and legend. By the time his story ended, it was said he had done the impossible. He did not just win battles. He kept winning after death.

The war did not just burn through Ukraine’s front lines. It burned through its doctrine. What is emerging in its place looks nothing like the army Kyiv inherited from the Soviet collapse. It is faster. Flatter. Brutally adaptive. And it is being built in real time, under fire. At the center of that shift sits the Khartiia Corps, a force that began as a 30-man volunteer unit and now claims a 40,000-strong footprint inside Ukraine’s defense structure.

The Conflict Nobody Is Covering When was the last time you saw a news segment about Iran attacking the American power grid? Not just this week or since the missiles started falling, but the attacks that have been running quietly and persistently for over a decade. The probes into water treatment systems. The intrusions into telecommunications infrastructure. The reconnaissance missions inside the networks that keep your hospital running, your bank online, your lights on.