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Forces & Units

Browse weapons by the forces, units, and warrior cultures that carried them.

• 101st Airborne

  The Screaming Eagles — from the Normandy drops and Bastogne to modern air assault.

• British SAS

  The Special Air Service — the original modern special-forces regiment, born of WWII desert raiding. Who Dares Wins.

• Buffalo Soldiers

  The African-American cavalry and infantry regiments of the post-Civil War frontier Army.

• Conquistadors

  Spanish soldier-explorers who carried Toledo steel, arquebuses, and plate armor to the Americas.

• Cossacks

  Frontier horsemen of the Pontic steppe, famed for the shashka saber and light cavalry tactics in Russian service.

• Delta Force

  The Army's tier-one counter-terrorism unit, formally 1st SFOD-D.

• Fallschirmjäger

  Germany's WWII paratroopers — the first large-scale airborne force, and the reason the FG 42 exists.

• French Foreign Legion

  France's legendary volunteer corps of foreign nationals, forged in colonial campaigns and both World Wars.

• GROM

  Poland's elite counter-terrorism and special operations unit — Grupa Reagowania Operacyjno-Manewrowego, 'thunder'.

• Golden Age Pirates

  The buccaneers and freebooters of the Age of Sail, armed with cutlass, boarding axe, and flintlock pistols.

• Green Berets

  US Army Special Forces — unconventional warfare specialists who train, advise, and fight alongside partner forces worldwide.

• Gurkhas

  Nepalese soldiers renowned for courage and the kukri, serving with distinction in British and Indian service for two centuries.

• Highland Clansmen

  The clan warriors of the Scottish Highlands — broadsword, targe, and dirk — whose charge broke at Culloden in 1746.

• Janissaries

  The Ottoman sultans' elite standing infantry — among the first armies to broadly adopt gunpowder weapons.

• Knights Templar

  The military order of warrior-monks that guarded pilgrim routes to the Holy Land and became the elite shock cavalry of the Crusades.

• Landsknechts

  German mercenary pikemen and greatsword-wielding doppelsöldner, flamboyant and feared across Renaissance Europe.

• Minutemen

  Colonial militia sworn to muster at a minute's notice — the citizen-soldiers of Lexington, Concord, and the American Revolution.

• Mongol Horde

  The horse archers of Genghis Khan and his successors — the most mobile army of the medieval world, conquering from Korea to Hungary.

• Persian Immortals

  The 10,000-man royal guard of the Achaemenid kings, kept at constant strength — every fallen man immediately replaced, hence the name.

• Roman Legions

  Rome's professional heavy infantry — the legions conquered and held the Mediterranean world for nearly a millennium with the gladius, pilum, and scutum.

• Samurai

  Japan's hereditary warrior class, bound by bushido and famed for the katana, yumi bow, and mounted archery.

• Spartans

  Citizen-soldiers of Sparta, raised from childhood in the agoge for a life of war. The hoplite phalanx of Sparta was the most feared heavy infantry of classical Greece.

• Spetsnaz

  Soviet and Russian special-purpose forces, famed for brutal training and distinctive tools like the ballistic knife and sharpened spade.

• Swiss Guard

  Swiss mercenaries whose pike squares dominated 15th-century battlefields; the Papal Swiss Guard still serves with halberd and sword.

• US Army Rangers

  Elite American light infantry tracing their lineage to Rogers' Rangers, reborn at Pointe du Hoc and leading the way since.

• US Marine Corps

  America's expeditionary force-in-readiness, from the Barbary Coast to Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, and beyond.

• US Navy SEALs

  The Navy's sea, air, and land teams, descended from WWII frogmen and UDT swimmers.

• Varangian Guard

  Elite unit of Norse Vikings from the 10th to the 14th century who served as personal bodyguards to the Byzantine emperors.

• Vikings

  Norse raiders, traders, and settlers whose seamanship and arms carried them from North America to Constantinople.

• Winged Hussars

  Poland's legendary winged heavy cavalry, whose lance charges broke enemy lines for two centuries — most famously at Vienna in 1683.

• Zulu Impi

  The regimental armies of Shaka and his successors, whose iklwa spear and buffalo-horns formation stunned the British at Isandlwana.