Glock debuted the new Generation 6 models late last year, and we’ve evaluated the popular G45 variant over the past few months– with some interesting takeaways.
Any conversation about the Glock 45 that is longer than a fortune cookie scroll needs to start with the G19X.
Debuted in January 2018, the Gen 5 (ish) G19X was originally developed as Glock’s submission for the U.S. Army’s Modular Handgun System trials before being adapted for commercial sale. The company’s first “crossover” design (hence the “X”) blended a full-size G17 grip with a compact G19 slide assembly and a hybrid frame with a G19-length dustcover to accommodate it.
Just nine short months after the debut of the G19X, Glock delivered the Gen 5 G45 to market, which was basically a black G19X with some very minor tweaks.
Announced at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, the G45 was billed as the perfect duty gun, blending all the best attributes of the G19 and G17 while adding Gen 5 features to boot —front slide serrations, ambi controls, a modular backstrap system, and the Glock Marksman Barrel. It soon became a smash hit in Glock’s catalog, especially after optics-ready MOS models were introduced in 2019.
Then Glock ended its Gen 5s in place of the transitional Gen V last November, then announced the new (and MOS-less) Gen 6 guns just a confusing month later.
We’ll get into it more below, but in a nutshell, the Gen 6 brings a different slide, internals, and trigger system but keeps everything dimensionally the same (so legacy holsters still work) while delivering a much better optics mounting system than MOS while retaining the same manual of arms and being reverse compatible with existing 17+ capacity double stack 9mm mags.
The new Glock Gen 6 G45. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
As with other G45s, it is a hybrid design with a compact slide assembly and full-sized frame.
Full 1,800-word review over in my column at Guns.com
7 July 1967: American Aerospace Museum founder Lynn Garrison in “Blue Max” (N693M), his privately owned ex-Aéronavale Vought F4U-7 Corsair (BuNo 133693) leading a trio of brand-new LTV A-7A-4a-CV Corsair IIs (BuNo 153168, 153174, 153175) of the similarly brand new U.S. Navy Attack Squadron VA-147 “Argonauts” over NAS Lemoore before the squadron’s first deployment to Vietnam aboard USS Ranger (CVA-61).
Talk about the Vinn diagram between jet stall speed and prop max speed
Of the above aircraft, Garrison’s old-school bent-wing bird would be destroyed in a crash near Chula Vista on 10 May 1987, with two fatalities.
However, the newer birds, as noted by Baughner, were all lost within 15 months of the above image.
The CAG bird, 153175, NE-300, suffered an engine failure over the Gulf of Tonkin on Halloween 1968. The pilot ejected and was rescued.
Meanwhile, BuNo 153174 was written off after an accident on 11 February 1968 and 153168 had a similar fate on 28 September 1968.
Following up on yesterday’s NASA color birds article on their patriotic-themed 42-year-old F-15D and F-18B, let us take a look at the interesting lineup of Artemis III astronauts.
With no USAF or Navy personnel, it is commanded by a Marine Hornet vet joined by an Italian test pilot, a Coastie and an Army astronaut.
The NASA Artemis III crew poses for an official portrait (from left: CDR Andre Douglas, USCGR; Col. Luca Parmitano, AM; Col. Randy Bresnik, USMC (Ret); Col. Frank Rubio, U.S.Army).
NASA astronaut Randolph “Randy” James Bresnik, Mission Commander, is a 58-year-old retired Marine colonel and Citadel graduate who flew F-18Cs with VMFA-212 on three overseas deployments before seeing combat in OIF with the Vikings of VMFA(AW)-225 and wrapping up his service as ops officer of VMFA-232. In NASA service, he flew on one of the last Shuttle missions (STS-129) and logged 138 days aboard the ISS, catching Soyuz MS-05 up and back for that one.
The Pilot for AIII is ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Salvo Parmitano, a 49-year-old colonel in the Italian Air Force who formerly flew zippy little AMXs before shifting gears to become a test pilot. He’s racked up 366 days in space between two stints on the ISS, both carried back and forth via Soyuz.
Douglas is a USCGA grad (regimental commander, class of ’08) who went on to earn advanced engineering degrees from the University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins, and George Washington University. He spent four years on active duty, including as an engineering officer on the old 210-foot Reliance-class USCGC Vigilant (WMEC-617) working out of Florida, then reactivated his commission in the reserve in 2024. A Group 23 class ‘naught, this will be his first time in space, the only “rookie” on the crew.
Douglas, 40, is the only third Coast Guard astronaut since 1996, following in the footsteps of Capt. (ret.) Daniel Burbank and CDR (ret.) Bruce Melnick. Burbank, now a professor of mechanical engineering at the Coast Guard Academy, spent 188 days in space on two Space Shuttle missions and one mission aboard the ISS. Previously, Melnick, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, logged over 300 hours in space.
AIII’s fourth member is the very well-traveled Col. Frank Rubio (USMA 1998) of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. One of just 20 Army astronauts since 1978, Rubio has the American record for the longest single spaceflight, having spent 371 consecutive days aboard the ISS on Expeditions 68 and 69 from September 2022 to September 2023, during which he logged 5,963 orbits of the Earth, traveled more than 157 million miles, and conducted three spacewalks totaling 21 hours and 24 minutes.
Colonel Rubio on the ISS in 2017. Photo 221001-A-D0431-1001
Rubio definitely “walked the walk” before heading to NASA, flying over 1,100 hours in Army aircraft– including more than 600 as a Blackhawk pilot in Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq- before serving as a member of the Black Knights parachute team, a flight surgeon at Redstone Arsenal, and as a battalion surgeon with “The Originals” of the 10th Special Forces Group.
New: Army Space Branch
Of note, the Army recently established its new Space Operations Branch, giving FA40 Space Operations Officers a dedicated “forever home” and, for the first time, joining it with newly created 40D enlisted Tactical Space Operations Specialists.
While FA40s have served the Army since 1999, they previously lacked an enlisted counterpart. The Army previously sheep-dipped enlisted personnel from the Air Defense Artillery, Signal, and Military Intelligence branches to temporarily execute space missions.
U.S. Army Space Branch will continue to use the USAF/USSF Space Operations Badge in Basic, Senior, and Master grades. The badge dates back to 1982 when it was first adopted by the Air Force and has been authorized for Army use since 2006.
The Master Space Badge, seen above Army jump wings.
NASA Looking for Folks for Year-long Simulated Mars/Moon missions
And in further NASA news, the agency is “recruiting research participants for the agency’s next simulated deep space mission. Beginning no earlier than August 2027, research volunteers will spend one year living and working in interplanetary environments at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, operating under isolated conditions expected during crewed missions to the Moon or Red Planet.”
While this weekend’s Sail4th 250 event in NYC was amazing (two-hour video here) and included over 100 companion aircraft flyovers, one of my big disappointments was that there were no full-color birds such as the military had in widespread service during the Bicentennial in 1976, when arguably the military was even more cash-strapped.
You know, like these guys:
Bicentennial VX-4 F-4 Phantom II pictured over NAS North Island.
Well, at least the NASA guys reached for the paint.
Among the 16 aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert, next to Edwards AFB, are three surplus old F-15Ds and F-18Bs used as high-altitude testbeds and chase planes for other, more experimental types, such as the X-59 quiet supersonic research aircraft, providing photo and video support for the latter.
One of each of the twin-tailed Cold Warriors was recently given very patriotic Bicentennial-worthy schemes to perform the flyover of D.C. during the 250th celebration.
For reference, the two aircraft are N867NA (F/A-18B-12-MC Hornet, Lot 6, BuNo 161947, formerly of VX-23) and N885NA (F-15D-38-MC Eagle, SN 84-0045, formerly of the 433rd WPS), both circa 1984 airframes that have been much modified over the years.
It would be great to see these “color birds” continue to carry their schemes for the next few years and then be retired to deserving air museums as-is.
There has been no shortage of “250th Anniversary” special edition firearm models released so far this year. Savage has them. Auto-Ordnance. Heck, Ruger has a whole series of them in five flavors, while Henry has three.
Spoiler alert: all are pretty ho-hum, being standard models with the addition of a little extra laser-etched scroll or Cerakote splash. Nothing really stands out.
Well, except for what Cabot did, which is something altogether special.
They took a 4-pound British cannonball recovered from Lake Champlain in the 1950s– almost surely from the 1776 Battle of Valcour on said lake– and transformed it into Damascus carbon steel billets. Then, from that salvaged vintage ore, they precision-crafted triggers for a small run of 50 custom “America 250” series 1911s.
“Once an instrument of British military power during the struggle for independence, this relic has been reborn as a symbol of American freedom,” says Cabot of the guns.
The cannonball’s iron was meticulously refined by master blacksmith Ray Rybar before being hand-forged into Damascus steel by renowned artisan Robert Eggerling.
The slide is machined from 100 percent American-made billet stainless steel. It features intricate engravings centered around the Great Seal of the United States and the American bald eagle—symbols of strength, freedom, and independence since the nation’s founding. The frame is crafted from 4140 carbon steel and finished using Cabot’s proprietary Fire and Ice process, creating rich red-brown tones that complement white American holly grips engraved with excerpts from the Declaration of Independence. Together with high-polished blue PVD components and the Damascus steel trigger, the pistol reflects the red, white, and blue of the American flag.
From what I understand, all 50 have already been spoken for.
July 6, 1916, a fortified sector of Pirnar, Greece, on the Salonika front along the Vardar River, showing a well-sandbagged artillery position held by French bachi-capped and pith-helmeted sailors on a “dirt” cruiser.
By this point in the Great War, with the Germans and Austrians bottled up in their respective harbors and the French in dire need of large bore artillery, numerous French cruisers and battlewagons gave up their less usable casemated 100mm, 138mm, and 165mm guns for emplacement ashore, served by naval gunners who gave up worrying about U-boats and mines for the joys of a nice, soggy berth in a bunker somewhere on the line.
A camouflaged canon de 138/55 Modèle 1910 naval gun at La Raperie near Terny-Sorny (Aisne) during World War I. This photograph is part of the Fonds Raoul Berthelé, preserved by the city archives of Toulouse.
Another camouflaged canon de 138 mm Modèle 1910 naval gun near Vacherauville, France, 1915. This photograph is part of the Fonds Raoul Berthelé, preserved by the city archives of Toulouse.
Of note, the future Admiral François Darlan of Vichy infamy served as a young lieutenant de vaisseau marine gunnery officer in Salonika at about this time.
Lots of news, some sad, about America’s final cruiser class.
The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) returned to her homeport at San Diego on 27 June, following 11-months of sustained operations at sea in the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations.
Yup, 11 months in SOUTHCOM. That’s a lot of low-intensity ops.
NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO (June 27, 2026) – The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie (CG 70) returns to its homeport of Naval Base San Diego following 11 months of sustained operations at sea in the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations June 27, 2026.
Erie, with embarked USCG LEDET 107, successfully interdicted a stateless, sanctioned dark fleet motor tanker, M/T Sophia, in addition to serving as “Integrated Air and Missile Defense Commander and the U.S. Air Force Southern Command’s (AFSOUTH) Regional Air Defense Commander (RADC)” during which she directed other assets to the interdiction of 2,900 pounds of narcotics.
In other news, USS Robert Smalls (CG-62), formerly USS Chancellorsville, has been active as the AAW commander for the Japan-based forward-deployed George Washington Strike Group during Ex Valiant Strike 26.
Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls (CG 62) sails with the USS George Washington Carrier Strike Group as part of Valiant Shield 2026 while underway in the Philippine Sea, June 21, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Nicolas Quezada)
USS Cape St. George (CG-71), which last year shifted her homeport from Everett, Washington to San Diego, recently got underway and got to stretch out her now-vintage MK 45 5″/54s. While there were over 160 such mounts delivered from 1972-92, once they were removed from the Tarawas, and then the Kidds/Sprucans and most of the Ticos were decommissioned, now less than 50 remain in the fleet with St. George and her sisters and the first 30 Burkes— 28 Flight I and II ships (hull numbers DDG-51 through DDG-78), as well as the first two Flight IIA ships (DDG-79 and DDG-80)
Now for the bad stuff.
The Pearl Harbor-based USS Shiloh (CG-67) is looking great.
USS Shiloh – CG-67 Pearl Harbor June 2026 by LT Farrar
She is getting ready for her going-away party.
Commissioned on 18 July 1992, she is set to be decommissioned in less than 100 days, wrapping up a 34-year career.
And in terrible news, the recently (August 2023) decommissioned USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) will be sunk as a target during RIMPAC 2026.
She served over 36 years and will only be the second of her class expended in a SINKEX, following ex-Valley Forge (CG 50), which was sent to the bottom in 2006.
SAN DIEGO (Aug.10, 2023) – The Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) sits pier-side during a decommissioning ceremony. The Mobile Bay was decommissioned after more than 36 years of distinguished service. Commissioned Feb. 21, 1987, Mobile Bay served in the U.S. Atlantic, Seventh, and U.S. Pacific Fleet and supported Operation Desert Storm. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Stevin C. Atkins)
With Shiloh and Mobile Bay gone, the Navy will only have six active Ticos left of the 27-ship class (Princeton, Smalls, Gettysburg, Chosin, Lake Erie, and Cape St. George) and 15 laid up (Bunker Hill, Antietam, Leyte Gulf, San Jacinto, Lake Champlain, Philippine Sea, Normandy, Monterey, Cowpens, Hue City, Anzio, Vicksburg, Vella Gulf, Port Royal, and, of course, Shiloh) with all of the latter only sent there since 2022.
The current plan is to decommission the last three CGs in 2029, so you can expect more cruiser SINKEXs in the coming years.
One of the most aggressively American images I have seen in a long time.
It is beautiful.
Official caption: “U.S. National Guardsmen join service members from Croatia and nine other countries for Combat Power in Slunj, Croatia, June 27, 2026. The exercise was designed to bring partners together to conduct joint operations in land, air and sea domains.”
U.S. Army Photo 260627-Z-DY230-9221 by Army Staff Sgt. Mahsima Alkamooneh
Of note, elements of the 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 136th Infantry Regiment, of the Minnesota Army National Guard, are currently in Croatia, showing how to sport around in the 62 refurbished M2A2 Bradley IFVs which were transferred to the country’s Army starting in late 2024 to modernize its forces. Minnesota and Croatia have been united through the National Guard Bureau’s State Partnership Program for 30 years.
The 2-136 IN (CAB) is part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division, and their motto is “REX MONTIS” or “King of the Hill,” which tracks.
While the Royal Danish Navy was tasked with policing and defending the far-flung colony of Iceland, and, generally, a station ship or patrol boat of some sort was on location since 1859, the locals knew the score.
Denmark was 1,300 miles away and, during the Great War, with the country sandwiched between the Brits and the Germans, only one ship could be spared from the neutrality patrol to police both Iceland and the Faeroes, the 730-ton cutter (Inspektionsskib) Islands Falk (Icelandic Falcon), a humble 13-knotter with a pair of 6-pounders and another pair of 3-pounders.
The Danish Navy’s Helsingør-built Inspektionsskib Islands Falk, all 183 feet of her. Completed in 1907 specifically for colonial service off Iceland, Greenland and the Faeroes, in 1928 she was replaced by the larger “fisheries cruiser” Fylla, the former sloop HMS Asphodel, and reassigned to metropolitan Denmark, where she was captured by the Germans in WWII.
After Iceland gained a measure of self-autonomy in December 1918, Falk (which fired the first 21-shot salute to the new country’s first official flag while tied up at Reykjavik) began spending more time in Greenland and the Faeroes.
Plans were already afoot to get something more local.
In conjunction with local Icelandic philanthropists and the Iceland Fishing Boat Association (Fiskifélag Íslands), the Björgunarfélag Vestmannaeyja, a volunteer uniformed search-and-rescue/salvage organization, was founded in August 1918 and later morphed into ICE-SAR, the national lifesaving organization.
The BV soon set about looking for a blue water vessel to use for local fisheries patrol and as an offshore rescue ship (Björgunarskipið). By August 1919, they had cobbled together enough money (292,385 kroner, mainly from donations and grants from the Icelandic parliament, the Althing) to purchase an aging 190-ton, 115-foot British-built (Edwards Bros) trawler, Thor, which the Danish Navy had used as a survey ship and patrol boat.
Thor in Danish service. She was a steam trawler, built in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1899 and used for oceanographic research in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Oceans between 1903-1914, then as a patrol boat for the Danish Navy during the Great War. Ukendt. Angivet “Efter J. Schmidt”. – Affotografering fra Wolff (1967): Danske ekspeditioner på verdenshavene
With her name retained but Icelandized (Þór) and flying an early Icelandic pennant, she was eventually armed with two surplus M/96 57mm guns obtained from the Danes.
Her crew was volunteers from the BV, with Jóhann P. Jónsson, who had been a wartime officer in the Danish navy, appointed captain.
By late March 1920, Thor was underway and protecting local herring and cod grounds, chasing off her first foreign vessel, a British trawler, two days into her inaugural patrol.
Rescue ship/patrol boat Thor (Þór) in her time with the Björgunarfélag Vestmannaeyja,
She was effective, venturing out for the annual three-month winter season then spending the rest of the year working as a coaster, hauling passengers, goods, and mail around the island in an attempt to offset her costs.
In 1922, she captured 12 Norwegian ships for illegal fishing, to which the local government duly issued fines.
In 1924, she took eight foreign trawlers and a herring ship.
In 1925, two Norwegian herring ships, four Danish draggers, and 10 British trawlers.
Slowly, the Althing was forced to vote for more and more money for Thor, as even a shoestring operation needed, well, shoestrings. By 1926, a resolution was passed to purchase Thor for the token fee of 80,000 kroner, and put her to work in a more official capacity.
Thor’s service led to the formation of a dedicated local force, the Landhelgisgæslan, or Coast Guard, on 1 July 1926. That year, with a crew of her first “regulars,” Thor took 26 illegal fishing boats and raked in 270,000 kroner for the budding country’s coffers.
Thor, between 1926 and 1929, as the first Icelandic cutter. Note her deck guns
Between 1922 and 1926, Thor took a total of 131 ships in territorial waters and was responsible for fines of one million kroner. She searched for lost boats 80 times during this period and towed 40 ships to shore. She also transported passengers, goods, and mail on 73 coastal trips.
While Thor was wrecked in 1929, by that time the LHG had two other purpose-built cutters in operation, the smaller Odin (70-foot, 240hp diesel, one 47mm gun) and the larger Aegir (170-foot, with a 1,800shp diesel and two 75mm guns).
Further, the service has had three different Thors since then, with the current one being the LHG’s flagship.
The second LHG Thor. Built in Stettin, Germany, in 1922 as Senator Schäfer. Arrived in Iceland in 1930 and served with the Coast Guard until 1939. Note the national flash on her bow.
The third Coast Guard ship to bear the name, this Thor was purpose-built for the LHG in 1951, was the flagship of the fleet, and served in all three Cod Wars. She was sold in 1982
The current Icelandic Coast Guard UT 512L-type offshore patrol vessel ICGV Thor (Þór), walking the beat. Note her 40mm Bofors forward. Delivered in 2009, she runs 4,000 tons and is 307 feet in oal.
A great 3~ minute sizzle reel showing some of the LHG’s greatest hits:
Exercise Valiant Shield 2026 (VS26) concluded on 1 July, stretching across the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Japan, and at sea around the Mariana Islands Range Complex.
It was an impressive assemblage of vessels, built around the GW and Kaga carrier groups with support from other Pacific allies.
Think of it as a warm-up for RIMPAC, which is just warming up.
U.S. Navy aircraft, attached to Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 5, and U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning IIs fly over U.S. Navy George Washington Carrier Strike Group as it sails in formation with Japan Maritime Self- Defense Force as part of Valiant Shield 2026 while underway in the Philippine Sea, June 21, 2026. U.S. Navy participants include Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73), Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls (CG 62), Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Shoup (DDG 86) and USS Benfold (DDG 65), and Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Minnesota (SSN 783). Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force participants include JS Kaga (DDH 184), JS Fuyuzuki (DD 118), and JS Jingei (SS 515). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler Crowley)
The big culmination of VS26 was a SINKEX of a large combatant some 200nm from Guam, in this case the retired Austin-class ‘phib ex-USS Juneau (LPD-10), which had a storied career over nearly 40 years from Vietnam to Desert Storm and has been on red lead row since 2008.
The old girl took one hell of a beating. One that the Navy, probably in some advertising to China, isn’t afraid to share.
First up was a Guam-deployed B-2 Spirit bomber hitting her with a 2,700-pound LRASM in an ode to Billy Mitchell. While the effect isn’t seen in real time, its half-ton warhead left the 17,000-ton LPD listing and with a flooded well deck.
A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber, assigned to the 509th Bomb Wing, deploys an AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) to support a live-fire sinking exercise as part of Valiant Shield 2026 over the Philippine Sea, June 27, 2026. This maritime strike in the Pacific showcased the Joint Force’s capacity for simultaneous global operations while underscoring U.S. commitment to regional security and cooperation. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech Sgt. Thomas Barley)
Juneau then caught two Australian-owned AGM-84 Harpoons from an RNZAF P-8A Poseidon of No. 5 Squadron, with the Kiwis assisted by an RAAF Poseidon and two from the U.S. Navy.
This is the first time an RNZAF Poseidon has taken part in Valiant Shield, which started in 2006 and is in its 11th iteration this year, and the first time they have used anti-ship ordnance, which were loaded at Anderson AFB in Guam.
She also suffered from ordnance delivered by Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force SH-60 maritime helicopter and Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-2 multirole fighter aircraft.
Then came the coup de grace delivered by an unnamed Japanese submarine (likely JS Jingei, SS 515). A bit of a tragic twist of fate when you consider the loss of a previous USS Juneau (CL-52), which was lost to a Japanese submarine in 1942 and carried almost all of her crew, including the five Sullivan brothers, to the bottom.
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fires a torpedo at the decommissioned USS Juneau in support of a live-fire sinking exercise (SINKEX) as part of Valiant Shield 2026 while underway in the Philippine Sea, June 27, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Anthony Vilardi)
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fires a torpedo at the decommissioned USS Juneau in support of a live-fire sinking exercise (SINKEX) as part of Valiant Shield 2026 while underway in the Philippine Sea, June 27, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Anthony Vilardi)
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine fires a torpedo at the decommissioned USS Juneau in support of a live-fire sinking exercise (SINKEX) as part of Valiant Shield 2026 while underway in the Philippine Sea, June 27, 2026. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Anthony Vilardi)
The Jolly J now lies with the fishes. A hard-earned rest.
