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105-956: The SAR 80 (Singapore Assault Rifle 80) is an assault rifle from Singapore . In the late 1960s, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) adopted the AR-15 as their main service rifle. Due to difficulties in obtaining the rifles from the United States , the Singaporean government purchased a license to domestically manufacture the M16 rifle , which was then designated the M16S1. However, the domestic rifle requirements were not sufficient to allow Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS, now Singapore Technologies Kinetics ) to economically maintain operations at its rifle factory. Export sales of

210-491: A Portuguese fleet sent to India to take part in a colonial war in the 1740s. Also in 1737, it was mentioned that a German engineer had invented a 10-pounder cannon capable of firing 20 times in a minute. In 1740, a cannon able to shoot 11 times per minute was developed by a Frenchman called Chevalier de Benac. Meanwhile, not long after in England, in 1747 a cannon able to simultaneously charge and discharge itself 20 times in

315-486: A bipod or tripod , a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils . Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns , medium machine guns , heavy machine guns , general-purpose machine guns , and squad automatic weapons . Unlike semi-automatic firearms , which require one trigger pull per round fired,

420-421: A swivel gun that did not need cleaning or muzzle-loading and was capable of being made to any dimensions and used as an ordinary cannon at a moment's notice and firing 40 shots a minute was invented by a native of Ireland. Also in 1828 a revolver cannon capable of firing 12 shots a minute and worked by 2 artillerymen was invented by a Frenchman called Lesire-Fruyer. In 1854 this cannon would be put on display at

525-516: A tripod or on a vehicle; when carried on foot, the machine gun and associated equipment (tripod, ammunition, spare barrels) require additional crew members. Light machine guns are designed to provide mobile fire support to a squad and are typically air-cooled weapons fitted with a box magazine or drum and a bipod; they may use full-size rifle rounds, but modern examples often use intermediate rounds. Medium machine guns use full-sized rifle rounds and are designed to be used from fixed positions mounted on

630-562: A 20-round magazine. The 5.56 mm round had to penetrate a standard U.S. helmet at 460 metres (500 yd) and retain a velocity in excess of the speed of sound, while matching or exceeding the wounding ability of the .30 Carbine cartridge. This request ultimately resulted in the development of a scaled-down version of the ArmaLite AR-10 , called the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle. However, despite overwhelming evidence that

735-511: A 3× magnified telescopic sight and an unmagnified reflex sight mounted on top of the telescopic sight. Widely distributed, it has been adopted by over 40 countries and prompted other nations to develop similar composite designs, such as the FX-05 Xiuhcoatl . Machine gun As a class of military kinetic projectile weapons, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to

840-416: A French artist known as Renard invented a piece of ordnance that could be operated by one man and fired 90 shots a minute. Also in 1792, a French mechanic called Garnier invented a musket battery made up of 15 barrels capable of firing 300 shots in 2 minutes for a total rate of fire of 150 shots a minute or 10 shots per minute per barrel and of being operated by one man. In the early and mid-19th century,

945-652: A Sturmgewehr was demonstrated before the People's Commissariat of Arms of the USSR . The Soviets were so impressed with the Sturmgewehr that they immediately set about developing an intermediate caliber automatic rifle of their own to replace the badly outdated Mosin–Nagant bolt-action rifles and PPSh-41 submachine guns that armed most of the Red Army. The Soviets soon developed the 7.62×39mm M43 cartridge, which

1050-411: A bipod and drum in the light machine gun role or a tripod and belt feed in the medium machine gun role. Machine guns usually have simple iron sights, though the use of optics is becoming more common. A common aiming system for direct fire is to alternate solid ("ball") rounds and tracer ammunition rounds (usually one tracer round for every four ball rounds), so shooters can see the trajectory and "walk"

1155-407: A breech-loading volley gun , similar to the later mitrailleuse, was invented by a Frenchman called Du Perron which was worked by 3 or 4 men and capable of discharging 24 barrels 10 times a minute for a total rate of fire of 240 shots per minute. In 1776, a gun capable of charging and discharging itself 120 times 'by the motion of one hand only' in a minute was invented in England by an inventor from

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1260-431: A cartridge to overheat and detonate even when the trigger is not pulled, potentially leading to damage or causing the gun to cycle its action and keep firing until it has exhausted its ammunition supply or jammed; this is known as cooking off (as distinct from runaway fire where the sear fails to re-engage when the trigger is released). To guard against cook-offs occurring, some kind of cooling system or design element

1365-618: A common feed source. The continuous nature of the rotary action and its relative immunity to overheating allow for a very high cyclic rate of fire , often several thousand rounds per minute. Rotary guns are less prone to jamming than a gun operated by gas or recoil, as the external power source will eject misfired rounds with no further trouble; but this is not possible in the rare cases of self-powered rotary guns. Rotary designs are intrinsically comparatively bulky and expensive and are therefore generally used with large rounds, 20 mm in diameter or more, often referred to as Rotary cannon – though

1470-578: A firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle: Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are not assault rifles according to the U.S. Army's definition. For example: In the United States, selective-fire rifles are legally defined as " machine guns ", and civilian ownership of those has been tightly regulated since 1934 under the National Firearms Act and since 1986 under

1575-443: A full-power rifle cartridge from a closed bolt are called automatic rifles or battle rifles , while rifles that fire an intermediate cartridge are called assault rifles . Assault rifles are a compromise between the size and weight of a pistol-caliber submachine gun and a full-size battle rifle, firing intermediate cartridges and allowing semi-automatic and burst or full-automatic fire options (selective fire), sometimes with both of

1680-424: A given amount of heat, while at the same time they are also much better at shedding the excess, as the extra barrels provide a larger surface area from which to dissipate the unwanted thermal energy. In addition to that, they are in the nature of the design spun at very high speed during rapid fire, which has the benefit of producing enhanced air-cooling as a side-effect. In weapons where the round seats and fires at

1785-592: A large flash suppressor had to be fitted". "Nevertheless, as a short-range weapon it is quite adequate and thus, [despite] its caliber, [the Colt Commando ] is classed as a submachine gun." Other compact assault rifles, such as the HK53 , AKS-74U and the Daewoo K1 , have been made and they have also been called submachine guns. In 1977, Austria introduced the 5.56×45mm Steyr AUG bullpup rifle, often cited as

1890-485: A lighter 125-grain bullet, which limited range but allowed for more controllable automatic fire. A smaller, lighter cartridge also allowed soldiers to carry more ammunition "to support the higher consumption rate of automatic fire". The Sturmgewehr 44 features an inexpensive, easy-to-make, stamped steel design and a 30-round detachable box magazine. This weapon was the prototype of all successful automatic rifles. Characteristically (and unlike previous rifles) it had

1995-573: A machine capable of firing 600 balls in a few minutes. In 1720, a French inventor called Philippe Vayringe invented a small cannon that could fire 16 shots in succession, which he demonstrated before the Duke of Lorraine. In 1737, it was mentioned that Jacob de Weinholtz, a Dane who was serving in the Portuguese army, had invented a cannon capable of firing 20 to 30 shots a minute though requiring 15 people to work it. The cannons were brought along with

2100-494: A machine gun is designed to continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down. Nowadays, the term is restricted to relatively heavy crew-served weapons , able to provide continuous or frequent bursts of automatic fire for as long as ammunition feeding is replete. Machine guns are used against infantry , low-flying aircraft , small boats and lightly/un armored land vehicles , and can provide suppressive fire (either directly or indirectly ) or enforce area denial over

2205-665: A manufacturing licence for the US-designed Armalite AR-18 assault rifle. While Sterling could not legally sublicense the AR-18, their AR-18 derived Sterling Assault Rifle (SAR) was available. This was based on a refined version of the Light Automatic Rifle, fitted with an AR-18 trigger group. Sterling licensed the SAR design to CIS, who put it into production as the SAR 80. The successor to this weapon

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2310-549: A minute of use. Because they become very hot, the great majority of designs fire from an open bolt , to permit air cooling from the breech between bursts. They also usually have either a barrel cooling system, slow-heating heavyweight barrel, or removable barrels which allow a hot barrel to be replaced. Although subdivided into " light ", " medium ", " heavy " or " general-purpose ", even the lightest machine guns tend to be substantially larger and heavier than standard infantry arms. Medium and heavy machine guns are either mounted on

2415-503: A minute though the rate of fire was limited by the overheating of the barrel. In 1819, an American inventor from Baltimore designed a gun with 11 barrels that could fire 12 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 132 shots a minute. In 1821, a muzzle-loading repeating cannon capable of firing 30 shots in 6 minutes or 5 shots per minute was demonstrated in England by the French-American "Fire King" Ivan Ivanitz Chabert. It

2520-822: A minute was invented by James Allis and presented to the Royal Society of England. In 1750, in Denmark, a Prussian known as Captain Steuben of the Train of Artillery invented a breech-loading cannon worked by 4 people and fed by paper cartridges capable of firing 24 times in a minute and demonstrated it to the King of Denmark along with some other high-ranking officials in the same year. In 1764, Frenchman Ange Goudar wrote in his work The Chinese Spy that he had assisted in Paris in

2625-512: A modular design with a wide range of accessories (telescoping butt-stocks, optics, bi-pods, etc.) that could be easily removed and arranged in a variety of configurations. The adoption of the M16, the H&;K33, and the 5.56×45mm cartridge inspired an international trend towards relatively small-sized, lightweight, high-velocity military service cartridges that allow a soldier to carry more ammunition for

2730-415: A multi-shot weapon by a Palmer during this period appear to be referring to a somewhat more common Kalthoff repeater or Lorenzoni-system gun . Despite this, there is a reference in 1663 to at least the concept of a genuine automatic gun that was presented to Prince Rupert , though its type and method of operation are unknown. In 1708, it was reported from Constantinople that a French officer had invented

2835-668: A number of rapid-firing weapons appeared which offered multi-shot fire, mostly volley guns. Volley guns (such as the Mitrailleuse ) and double-barreled pistols relied on duplicating all parts of the gun, though the Nock gun used the otherwise-undesirable "chain fire" phenomenon (where multiple chambers are ignited at once) to propagate a spark from a single flintlock mechanism to multiple barrels. Pepperbox pistols also did away with needing multiple hammers but used multiple manually operated barrels. Revolvers further reduced this to only needing

2940-430: A pre-prepared cylinder and linked advancing the cylinder to cocking the hammer. However, these were still manually operated. In 1805, a British inventor from Northampton designed a cannon that would prime, load and fire itself 10 times a minute. In 1806, a Viennese copper engraver and mechanic known as Mr Putz invented a machine cannon that could load, fire and clean itself once every second or potentially up to 60 times

3045-402: A reasonable rate of fire and reliability. In contrast to the rotary format, such weapons have a single barrel and a recoil-operated carriage holding a revolving chamber with typically five chambers. As each round is fired, electrically, the carriage moves back rotating the chamber which also ejects the spent case, indexes the next live round to be fired with the barrel and loads the next round into

3150-466: A reduced rate of fire. Some designs – such as the many variants of the MG42 – are capable of rates of fire in excess of 1,200 rounds per minute. Motorized Gatling guns can achieve the fastest firing rates of all, partly because this format involves extra energy being injected into the system from outside, instead of depending on energy derived from the propellant contained within the cartridges, partly because

3255-598: A sector of land with grazing fire . They are commonly mounted on fast attack vehicles such as technicals to provide heavy mobile firepower, armored vehicles such as tanks for engaging targets too small to justify the use of the primary weaponry or too fast to effectively engage with it, and on aircraft as defensive armament or for strafing ground targets, though on fighter aircraft true machine guns have mostly been supplanted by large-caliber rotary guns. Some machine guns have in practice sustained fire almost continuously for hours; other automatic weapons overheat after less than

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3360-478: A significant advantage over enemies armed primarily with bolt-action rifles. Although U.S. Army studies of World War II combat accounts had very similar results to that of the Germans and Soviets, the U.S. Army failed to recognize the importance of the assault rifle concept, and instead maintained its traditional views and preference for high-powered semi-automatic rifles. At the time, the U.S. Army believed that

3465-470: A small-caliber, high-velocity cartridge. Senior American commanders had faced fanatical enemies and experienced major logistical problems during World War II and the Korean War, and insisted that a single powerful .30 caliber cartridge be developed, that could be used by the new automatic rifle, and also by the new general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) in concurrent development. This culminated in

3570-439: A straight stock with the barrel under the gas cylinder to reduce the turning moment of recoil of the rifle in the shoulder and thus help reduce the tendency of shots to climb in automatic fire. The barrel and overall length were shorter than a traditional rifle and it had a pistol grip to hold the weapon more securely in automatic fire. "The principle of this weapon—the reduction of muzzle impulse to get usable automatic fire within

3675-414: A time when close. It was also claimed to be able to shoot 5 or 6 times before infantry came within musket range or cavalry within pistol range and with no more space between each shot than the time needed to prime a pistol, cock it and release the hammer as well as being nearly as manoeuvrable as cavalry. An alternative and heavier version was said to be able to throw grenades and it was also proposed to equip

3780-497: A tripod. The heavy machine gun is a term originating in World War I to describe heavyweight medium machine guns and persisted into World War II with Japanese Hotchkiss M1914 clones; today, however, it is used to refer to automatic weapons with a caliber of at least 12.7 mm (0.5 in), but less than 20 mm (0.8 in). A general-purpose machine gun is usually a lightweight medium machine gun that can either be used with

3885-436: A very light cannon that could fire from a single barrel 30 shots in 2 and a half minutes for a total rate of fire of 12 shots a minute. In 1711, a French lawyer called Barbuot presented to the parliament of Dijon a crank-operated 'war machine' made up of 10 carbine barrels and loaded via a 'drum' capable of firing in vollies. It was said to be accurate at 400 to 500 paces and to strike with enough force to pierce 2 or 3 men at

3990-597: Is a 5.56×45mm assault rifle, designed in the early 1990s by Heckler & Koch in Germany as a replacement for the heavier G3. It was accepted into service with the Bundeswehr in 1997, replacing the G3. The G36 is gas-operated and feeds from a 30-round detachable box magazine or 100-round C-Mag drum magazine . The G36 was made with the extensive use of lightweight, corrosion-resistant synthetic materials in its design;

4095-594: Is a 7.62×51mm, selective fire, automatic rifle produced by the Belgian armaments manufacturer Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN). During the Cold War it was adopted by many North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries, most notably with the British Commonwealth as the semi-automatic L1A1 . It is one of the most widely used rifles in history, having been used by more than 90 countries. The FAL

4200-569: Is a revolving arquebus , produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597. True repeating long arms were difficult to manufacture prior to the development of the unitary firearm cartridge; nevertheless, lever-action repeating rifles such as the Kalthoff repeater and Cookson repeater were made in small quantities in the 17th century. Perhaps the earliest examples of predecessors to the modern machine gun are to be found in East Asia. According to

4305-657: Is generally attributed to Adolf Hitler , who used the German word Sturmgewehr (which translates to "assault rifle") as the new name for the MP 43 ( Maschinenpistole ) , subsequently known as the Sturmgewehr 44 . Allied propaganda suggested that the name was chosen for propaganda purposes, but the main purpose was to differentiate the Sturmgewehr from German submachine guns such as the MP 40 . It has been suggested, however, that

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4410-900: Is locked into the chamber. Almost all machine guns have a "safety" sear, which simply keeps the trigger from engaging. The first successful machine-gun designs were developed in the mid-19th century. The key characteristic of modern machine guns, their relatively high rate of fire and more importantly mechanical loading, first appeared in the Model 1862 Gatling gun , which was adopted by the United States Navy . These weapons were still powered by hand; however, this changed with Hiram Maxim 's idea of harnessing recoil energy to power reloading in his Maxim machine gun . Dr. Gatling also experimented with electric-motor-powered models; as discussed above, this externally powered machine reloading has seen use in modern weapons as well. While technical use of

4515-579: Is required. Early machine guns were often water-cooled and while this technology was very effective, (and was indeed one of the sources of the notorious efficiency of machine guns during the First World War ), the water jackets also added considerable weight to an already bulky design; they were also vulnerable to the enemies' bullets themselves. Armour could be provided, and in WW I the Germans in particular often did this; but this added yet more weight to

4620-587: Is the SR-88 . Assault rifle An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine . Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44 , a development of the earlier Mkb 42 . While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles ,

4725-549: Is the recoil actuated type, which uses the gun's recoil energy for the same purpose. Machine guns, such as the M2 Browning and MG42 , are of this second kind. A cam, lever or actuator absorbs part of the energy of the recoil to operate the gun mechanism. An externally actuated weapon uses an external power source, such as an electric motor or hand crank, to move its mechanism through the firing sequence. Modern weapons of this type are often referred to as Gatling guns , after

4830-474: The Heereswaffenamt was responsible for the name Sturmgewehr , and Hitler had no input besides signing the production order . Furthermore, Hitler was initially opposed to the idea of a new infantry rifle, as Germany lacked the industrial capacity to replace the 12,000,000 Karabiner 98k rifles already in service, only changing his mind once he saw it first-hand. The StG 44 is generally considered

4935-493: The Firearm Owners Protection Act . However, the term "assault rifle" is often conflated with " assault weapon ", a U.S. legal category with varying definitions which includes many semi-automatic weapons. This use has been described as incorrect and a misapplication of the term. The 1890s Cei-Rigotti prototype was built to fire the fully powered 7.65×53mm Mauser and the weaker 6.5×52mm Carcano , it

5040-462: The Nordenfelt gun . The first known ancestors of multi-shot weapons were medieval organ guns . An early example of an attempt at the mechanisation of one of these would be an 'engine of war' produced in the mid-1570s in England capable of firing from 160 to 320 shots 4, 8, 12 or 24 bullets at a time at a rate of fire up to roughly 3 times the rate of fire of the typical arquebusier of the day. It

5145-772: The Russian Empire and later in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . A total of 3,200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured between 1915 and 1924 in the city of Kovrov ; the vast majority of them were made after 1920. The weapon saw limited combat in World War I , but was used more substantially in the Russian Civil War and in the Winter War . Some consider it to be an "early predecessor" or "ancestor" of

5250-572: The Type 56 ). As a result, more AK-type weapons have been produced than all other assault rifles combined. As of 2004, "of the estimated 500 million firearms worldwide, approximately 100 million belong to the Kalashnikov family, three-quarters of which are AK-47s." The U.S. Army was influenced by combat experience with semi-automatic weapons such as the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine , which enjoyed

5355-520: The 1960s other countries would follow the Americans' lead and begin to develop 5.56×45mm assault rifles, most notably Germany with the Heckler & Koch HK33 . The HK33 was essentially a smaller 5.56mm version of the 7.62×51mm Heckler & Koch G3 rifle. As one of the first 5.56mm assault rifles on the market, it would go on to become one of the most widely distributed assault rifles. The HK33 featured

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5460-508: The 1970s, Finland, Israel, and South Africa introduced AK type assault rifles in 5.56×45mm. Sweden began the transition with trails in 1981 and full adaptation in 1986. During the 1990s, Russia developed the AK-101 in 5.56×45mm NATO for the world export market. In addition, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia (i.e., Serbia) have also rechambered their locally produced assault rifles to 5.56mm NATO. The AK-74 assault rifle

5565-543: The 5.56×45mm FAMAS bullpup rifle. In 1985, the British introduced the 5.56×45mm L85 bullpup rifle. In the late 1990s, Israel introduced the 5.56mm NATO Tavor TAR-21 . In 1997, China adopted the QBZ-95 in the new 5.8×42mm cartridge, which they claim is superior to both the 5.56×45mm and the 5.45×39mm. By the turn of the century, the bullpup assault rifle design had achieved worldwide acceptance. The Heckler & Koch G36

5670-467: The 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge has become not only the NATO standard but "the standard assault-rifle cartridge in much of the world". It also led to the development of small-caliber high-velocity service rifles by every major army in the world, including the USSR and People's Republic of China. Today, many small arms experts consider the M16 the standard by which all other assault rifles are judged. During

5775-416: The 5.56×45mm cartridge. This shift represented a change in the philosophy of the military's long-held position about caliber size. By the middle of the 1970s, other armies were looking at assault rifle-type weapons. A NATO standardization effort soon started and tests of various rounds were carried out starting in 1977. The U.S. offered the 5.56×45mm M193 round, but there were concerns about its penetration in

5880-627: The AK-47 and the M14 ("assault rifle" vs "battle rifle") came in the early part of the Vietnam War . Battlefield reports indicated that the M14 was uncontrollable in full-auto and that soldiers could not carry enough ammunition to maintain fire superiority over the AK-47. And, while the M2 Carbine offered a high rate of fire, it was under-powered and ultimately outclassed by the AK-47. A replacement

5985-547: The AR-15 could bring more firepower to bear than the M14, the Army opposed the adoption of the new rifle. In January 1963, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that the AR-15 was the superior weapon system and ordered a halt to M14 production. At the time, the AR-15 was the only rifle available that could fulfill the requirement of a universal infantry weapon for issue to all services. After modifications (most notably,

6090-522: The M1 Garand proved disappointing. During the Korean War , the select-fire M2 Carbine largely replaced the submachine gun in U.S. service and became the most widely used Carbine variant. Combat experience suggested that the .30 Carbine round was under-powered. American weapons designers reached the same conclusion as the German and Soviet ones: an intermediate round was necessary, and recommended

6195-472: The M16S1 were not a viable option. Due to the requirements of the license agreement, CIS had to request permission from Colt and the US State Department to allow any export sale, which they rarely granted. In the early 1970s, Sterling Armaments Company engineers had developed their own 5.56 mm rifle design, the Light Automatic Rifle (LAR), but this had been shelved when Sterling acquired

6300-694: The Mulhouse facility between 1946 and 1949. Vorgrimler later went to work at CETME in Spain and developed the line of CETME automatic rifles based on his improved StG 45 design. Germany eventually purchased the license for the CETME design and manufactured the Heckler & Koch G3 as well as an entire line of weapons built on the same system, one of the most famous being the MP5 SMG . The first confrontations between

6405-616: The Red Army's new mobile warfare doctrines. In the 1960s, the Soviets introduced the RPK light machine gun , itself an AK-47 type weapon with a bipod , a stronger receiver, and a longer, heavier barrel that would eventually replace the RPD light machine gun. The AK-47 was widely supplied or sold to nations allied with the USSR, and the blueprints were shared with several friendly nations (the People's Republic of China standing out among these with

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6510-541: The Spanish state-owned design and development agency CETME ( Centro de Estudios Técnicos de Materiales Especiales ). The rifle proved successful in the export market, being adopted by the armed forces of over 60 countries. After World War II, German technicians involved in developing the Sturmgewehr 45 , continued their research in France at CEAM. The StG 45 mechanism was modified by Ludwig Vorgrimler and Theodor Löffler at

6615-495: The Sturmgewehr 44 was "intended in a general way to serve the same purpose as the U.S. carbine" and was in many ways inferior to the M1 carbine, and was of "little importance". After World War II, the United States military started looking for a single automatic rifle to replace the M1 Garand, M1/M2 Carbines, M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle , M3 "Grease Gun" and Thompson submachine gun . Early experiments with select-fire versions of

6720-680: The Wu-Pei-Chih, a booklet examining Chinese military equipment produced during the first quarter of the 17th century, the Chinese army had in its arsenal the 'Po-Tzu Lien-Chu-P'ao' or 'string-of-100-bullets cannon'. This was a repeating cannon fed by a hopper containing balls which fired its charges sequentially. The way it worked was similar to the Perkins steam gun of 1824 or the Beningfield electrolysis gun of 1845 only slow-burning gunpowder

6825-432: The actual ranges of combat—was probably the most important advance in small arms since the invention of smokeless powder ." Like the Germans, the Soviets were influenced by experience showing that most combat engagements occur within 400 metres (1,300 ft) and that their soldiers were consistently outgunned by heavily armed German troops, especially those armed with Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles. On July 15, 1943,

6930-461: The basis of size; those using shotgun cartridges are almost always referred to as automatic shotguns . The term personal defense weapon (PDW) is sometimes applied to weapons firing dedicated armor-piercing rounds which would otherwise be regarded as machine pistols or SMGs, but it is not particularly strongly defined and has historically been used to describe a range of weapons from ordinary SMGs to compact assault rifles. Selective-fire rifles firing

7035-406: The chamber. The action is very similar to that of the revolver pistols common in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving this type of weapon its name. A Chain gun is a specific, patented type of Revolver cannon, the name, in this case, deriving from its driving mechanism. As noted above, firing a machine gun for prolonged periods produces large amounts of heat. In a worst-case scenario, this may cause

7140-445: The charging handle was re-located from under the carrying handle like it was on AR-10 to the rear of the receiver), the newly redesigned rifle was subsequently adopted as the M16 Rifle. "(The M16) was much lighter compared to the M14 it replaced, ultimately allowing soldiers to carry more ammunition. The air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed assault rifle was made of steel, aluminum alloy and composite plastics, truly cutting-edge for

7245-476: The county of Westmoreland. In 1777, Philadelphia gunsmith Joseph Belton offered the Continental Congress a "new improved gun" , which was capable of firing up to twenty shots in five seconds; unlike older repeaters using complex lever-action mechanisms, it used a simpler system of superposed loads , and was loaded with a single large paper cartridge . Congress requested that Belton modify 100 flintlock muskets to fire eight shots in this manner, but rescinded

7350-404: The development of the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge and the M14 rifle which was basically an improved select-fire M1 Garand with a 20-round magazine. The U.S. also adopted the M60 GPMG , which replaced the M1919 Browning machine gun in major combat roles. Its NATO partners adopted the FN FAL and Heckler & Koch G3 rifles, as well as the FN MAG and Rheinmetall MG3 GPMGs. The FN FAL

7455-435: The development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and submachine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives. The term assault rifle

7560-480: The face of the wider introduction of body armor . In the end the Belgian 5.56×45mm SS109 round was chosen ( STANAG 4172) in October 1980. The SS109 round was based on the U.S. cartridge but included a new stronger, heavier, 62-grain bullet design, with better long-range performance and improved penetration (specifically, to consistently penetrate the side of a steel helmet at 600 metres or 2,000 feet). Also during

7665-472: The fire into the target, and direct the fire of other soldiers . Many heavy machine guns , such as the Browning M2 .50 BMG machine gun, are accurate enough to engage targets at great distances. During the Vietnam War , Carlos Hathcock set the record for a long-distance shot at 7,382 ft (2,250 m) with a .50 caliber heavy machine gun he had equipped with a telescopic sight . This led to

7770-450: The first selective fire military rifle to popularize the assault rifle concept. Today, the term assault rifle is used to define firearms sharing the same basic characteristics as the StG 44. The U.S. Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and rifle cartridges." In this strict definition,

7875-475: The first successful bullpup rifle , finding service with the armed forces of over twenty countries. It was highly advanced for the 1970s, combining in the same weapon the bullpup configuration, a polymer housing, dual vertical grips, an optical sight as standard, and a modular design. Highly reliable, light, and accurate, the Steyr AUG showed clearly the potential of the bullpup layout. In 1978, France introduced

7980-573: The guns. Air-cooled machine guns often feature quick-change barrels (often carried by a crew member), passive cooling fins, or in some designs forced-air cooling, such as that employed by the Lewis Gun . Advances in metallurgy and the use of special composites in barrel liners have allowed for greater heat absorption and dissipation during firing. The higher the rate of fire, the more often barrels must be changed and allowed to cool. To minimize this, most air-cooled guns are fired only in short bursts or at

8085-513: The introduction of .50 caliber anti-materiel sniper rifles , such as the Barrett M82 . Other automatic weapons are subdivided into several categories based on the size of the bullet used, whether the cartridge is fired from a closed bolt or an open bolt , and whether the action used is locked or is some form of blowback . Fully automatic firearms using pistol-caliber ammunition are called machine pistols or submachine guns largely on

8190-606: The inventions mentioned in the book, it is uncertain if it was ever built. It is sometimes claimed (i.e. in George Morgan Chinn's the Machine Gun ) that in 1663 the first mention of the automatic principle of machine guns was in a paper presented to the Royal Society of England by Palmer, an Englishman who described a volley gun capable of being operated by either recoil or gas. However, no one has been able to find this paper in recent times and all references to

8295-530: The latter presents. Many machine guns are of the locked breech type, and follow this cycle: The operation is basically the same for all locked breech automatic firearms, regardless of the means of activating these mechanisms. There are also multi-chambered formats, such as revolver cannon , and some types, such as the Schwarzlose machine gun etc., that do not lock the breech but instead use some type of delayed blowback . Most modern machine guns are of

8400-514: The locking type, and of these, most utilize the principle of gas-operated reloading , which taps off some of the propellant gas from the fired cartridge, using its mechanical pressure to unlock the bolt and cycle the action. The first of these was invented by the French brothers Claire, who patented a gas operated rifle, which included a gas cylinder, in 1892. The Russian PK machine gun is a more modern example. Another efficient and widely used format

8505-438: The machine with a bellows for clearing smoke that built up during firing. Another early revolving gun was created by James Puckle , a London lawyer, who patented what he called "The Puckle Gun " on May 15, 1718. It was a design for a manually operated 1.25 in. (32 mm) caliber, flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder, intended for use on ships . It

8610-404: The modern assault rifle. The Germans were the first to pioneer the assault rifle concept during World War II, based upon research that showed that most firefights happen within 400 metres (1,300 ft) and that contemporary rifles were overpowered for most small arms combat. They would soon develop a select-fire intermediate powered rifle combining the firepower of a submachine gun with

8715-430: The next round can be inserted simultaneously with or before the ejection of the previous cartridge case, and partly because this design intrinsically deals with the unwanted heat very efficiently – effectively quick-changing the barrel and chamber after every shot. The multiple guns that comprise a Gatling being a much larger bulk of metal than other, single-barreled guns, they are thus much slower to rise in temperature for

8820-413: The order when Belton's price proved too high. In 1779, a machine made up of 21 musket barrels worked by 3 men was produced by a British inventor called William Wilson Wright which he claimed could be fired 3 times quicker than a single man could load and fire a musket 3 times. In 1788, a Swiss soldier invented a machine worked by 10 men capable of discharging 300 balls in 3 minutes. Also in 1788, it

8925-413: The original inventor (not only of the well-known hand-cranked 19th century proto-machine gun, but also of the first electrically powered version). They have several barrels each with an associated chamber and action on a rotating carousel and a system of cams that load, cock, and fire each mechanism progressively as it rotates through the sequence; essentially each barrel is a separate bolt-action rifle using

9030-408: The proofing of a 'great gun' capable of firing 60 times in a minute. In 1773, another cannon capable of firing 23 or 24 times in a minute and cleaning itself after every shot was invented by Thomas Desaguliers . In 1775, it was mentioned that in England two large cannons invented by an unidentified matross at Woolwich had achieved a rate of fire of 59 shots in 59 and a half seconds. Also in 1775,

9135-409: The range and accuracy of a rifle. The result was the Sturmgewehr 44, an improvement of the earlier Maschinenkarabiner 42(H) , and approximately half a million Sturmgewehrs were produced by the war's end. It fired a new and revolutionary intermediate powered cartridge, the 7.92×33mm Kurz. This new cartridge was developed by shortening the standard 7.92×57mm Mauser round and giving it

9240-495: The receiver housing, stock, trigger group (including the fire control selector and firing mechanism parts), magazine well, handguard and carrying handle are all made of a carbon fiber -reinforced polyamide . The receiver has an integrated steel barrel trunnion (with locking recesses) and a nylon 66 steel reinforced receiver. The standard Bundeswehr versions of the G36 are equipped with a unique ZF 3×4° dual optical sight that combines

9345-532: The rifle-calibre Minigun is an exception to this. Whereas such weapons are highly reliable and formidably effective, one drawback is that the weight and size of the power source and driving mechanism makes them usually impractical for use outside of a vehicle or aircraft mount. Revolver cannons , such as the Mauser MK 213 , were developed in World War II by the Germans to provide high-caliber cannons with

9450-406: The same time, mechanical timing is essential for operator safety, to prevent the round from firing before it is seated properly. Machine guns are controlled by one or more mechanical sears. When a sear is in place, it effectively stops the bolt at some point in its range of motion. Some sears stop the bolt when it is locked to the rear. Other sears stop the firing pin from going forward after the round

9555-423: The same weight compared to the larger and heavier 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. The 5.56mm cartridge is also much easier to shoot. In 1961 marksmanship testing, the U.S. Army found that 43% of AR-15 shooters achieved Expert, while only 22% of M-14 rifle shooters did so. Also, a lower recoil impulse, allows for more controllable automatic weapons fire. In March 1970, the U.S. recommended that all NATO forces adopt

9660-550: The term "machine gun" has varied, the modern definition used by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute of America is "a fully automatic firearm that loads, fires and ejects continuously when the trigger is held to the rear until the ammunition is exhausted or pressure on the trigger is released." This definition excludes most early manually operated repeating arms the Gatling gun and such as volley guns like

9765-527: The time. Designed with full and semi-automatic capabilities, the weapon initially did not respond well to wet and dirty conditions, sometimes even jamming in combat. After a few minor modifications, the weapon gained in popularity among troops on the battlefield." Despite its early failures, the M16 proved to be a revolutionary design and stands as the longest continuously serving rifle in American military history. It has been adopted by many U.S. allies and

9870-532: The worldwide trend toward small caliber, high-velocity cartridges. Following the adoption of the M16, carbine variants were also adopted for close quarters operations. The AR-15 family of weapons served through the Vietnam War. However, these compact assault rifles had design issues, as "the barrel length was halved" to 10 inches (250 mm) which "upset the ballistics", reducing its range and accuracy and leading "to considerable muzzle flash and blast, so that

9975-521: Was a Soviet answer to the U.S. M16. The Soviet military realized that the M16 had better range and accuracy over the AKM, and that its lighter cartridge allowed soldiers to carry more ammunition. Therefore, in 1967, the USSR issued an official requirement to replace the AKM and the 7.62×39mm cartridge. They soon began to develop the AK-74 and the 5.45×39mm cartridge. AK-74 production began in 1974, and it

10080-680: Was also claimed that the gun could be reloaded 'as often as you like' and fired no matter the weather though the English government never adopted the weapon despite testing being carried out at the Tower of London . The first firearms to have the ability to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without a full manual reload were revolvers made in Europe in the late 1500s. One is a shoulder-gun-length weapon made in Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1580. Another

10185-638: Was first used in the semi-automatic SKS carbine and the RPD light machine gun . Hugo Schmeisser , the designer of the Sturmgewehr, was captured after World War II, and, likely, helped develop the AK-47 assault rifle, which would quickly replace the SKS and Mosin in Soviet service. The AK-47 was finalized, adopted and entered widespread service in the Soviet army in the early 1950s. Its firepower, ease of use, low production costs, and reliability were perfectly suited for

10290-403: Was needed: A medium between the traditional preference for high-powered rifles such as the M14, and the lightweight firepower of the M2 Carbine. As a result, the Army was forced to reconsider a 1957 request by General Willard G. Wyman, commander of the U.S. Continental Army Command (CONARC) to develop a .223 caliber (5.56 mm) select-fire rifle weighing 2.7 kg (6 lb) when loaded with

10395-406: Was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a machine gun, being called such in 1722, though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. According to Puckle, it was able to fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks . However, it was a commercial failure and was not adopted or produced in any meaningful quantity. In 1729, a report was written in France on

10500-519: Was predominantly chambered for the 7.62mm NATO round, and because of its prevalence and widespread use among the armed forces of many western nations during the Cold War, it was nicknamed "The right arm of the Free World ". The Heckler & Koch G3 is a 7.62×51mm, selective fire, automatic rifle produced by the German armament manufacturer Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K) in collaboration with

10605-413: Was reported that a Prussian officer had invented a gun capable of firing 400 balls one after the other. In 1790, a former officer in the French military known as Joseph-François-Louis Grobert invented a 'ballistic machine' or 'pyroballistic machine' with multiple barrels operated by 4 men and a continuous rotational movement capable of firing 360 rifle shots a minute in a variety of calibers. In 1792,

10710-444: Was somewhat of a predecessor. However, it had its magazine fixed. The Fedorov Avtomat (also anglicized as Federov, Russian: Автома́т Фёдорова , romanized : Avtomát Fyódorova , IPA: [ɐftɐˈmat ˈfʲɵdərəvə] , lit. 'Fyodorov's automatic rifle') is a select-fire infantry rifle and also one of the world's first operational automatic rifles, designed by Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov in 1915 and produced in

10815-603: Was unveiled in 1977, when it was carried by Soviet parachute troops during the annual Red Square parade . It would soon replace the AKM and become the standard Soviet infantry rifle. In 1979, the AK-74 saw combat for the first time in Afghanistan , where the lethality of the 5.45mm rounds led to the Mujahadeen dubbing them "poison bullets". The adoption of the 5.56mm NATO and the Russian 5.45×39mm cartridges cemented

10920-562: Was used as the propelling force in place of steam or the gases produced by electrolysis. Another repeating gun was produced by a Chinese commoner, Dai Zi, in the late 17th century. This weapon was also hopper-fed and never went into mass production. In 1655, a way of loading, aiming and shooting up to 6 wall muskets 60 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 360 shots per minute was mentioned in The Century of Inventions by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester , though, like all

11025-420: Was worked by a "wheel" fed by paper cartridges from a store attached to the cannon and ignited using a match from a match-holder somewhere else on the cannon. In 1825 an Italian book attempting to catalogue all topographic features of all known countries on Earth mentioned that in France there were 'mechanical rifles' used to defend warehouses that were capable of firing 120 shots without reloading. In 1828,

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