Assault rifle | Definition, Examples, Facts, & History | Britannica (original) (raw)

assault rifle, military firearm that is chambered for ammunition of reduced size or propellant charge and that has the capacity to switch between semiautomatic and fully automatic fire. Because they are light and portable yet still able to deliver a high volume of fire with reasonable accuracy at modern combat ranges of 1,000–1,600 feet (300–500 metres), assault rifles have replaced the high-powered bolt-action and semiautomatic rifles of the World War II era as the standard infantry weapon of modern armies.

M16 assault rifleFunctional components of an automatic rifle, as illustrated by the M16 assault rifle.

A hint at this new weapon had been given during World War I, when Vladimir Grigorevich Fyodorov, father of Russian automatic weapons, married the 6.5-mm cartridge of the Japanese Arisaka rifle to an automatic rifle. In 1916 he unveiled his new weapon, the Avtomat Fyodorova. Owing to the turmoil of the Russian Revolution of 1917, only about 3,200 of Fyodorov’s weapons were delivered. Nevertheless, they pointed the way to future infantry weapon design.

During World War II, Hugo Schmeisser designed a light rifle to fire the Germans’ 7.92-mm Kurz (“Short”) cartridge, which was of the same calibre as the Mauser rifle cartridge but was lighter and shorter and was therefore of a less-potent “intermediate” power. The weapon, known variously as the MP43, MP44, or Sturmgewehr (“Assault Rifle”) 44, was loaded by a curved box magazine holding 30 rounds and was designed for most-effective fire at about 300 yards (270 metres). Only some 425,000 to 440,000 of these rifles were built—too few and too late for the German war effort—but they were based on a concept that would dominate infantry weapons into the 21st century.

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Late in the war the Soviets also began a search for a rifle to shoot their 7.62-mm intermediate cartridge, which produced a muzzle velocity of 2,330 feet (710 metres) per second. Historical evidence suggests that they were influenced by the Sturmgewehr, but to what extent remains uncertain. In 1947 they adopted a weapon designed by Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, naming it the Avtomat Kalashnikova (“automatic Kalashnikov”). Like the German weapon, the AK-47 (weapons in the AK family were suffixed with the year of their development) was operated by diverting some of the propellant gases into a cylinder above the barrel. This drove a piston that forced the bolt back against its spring and cocked the hammer for the next round. At the turn of a selector switch, the action could be changed from semiautomatic to fully automatic, firing at a rate of 600 rounds per minute. The AK-47 was made of forged and milled steel, giving it a weight of 10.6 pounds (4.8 kg) with a loaded 30-round magazine. The receiver of the AKM version, introduced in 1959, was made of lighter sheet metal, reducing the weight to 8.3 pounds (3.8 kg), and the AK-74 version, following later trends in the West, switched to a 5.45-mm cartridge.

Kalashnikov’s assault rifles became the most significant infantry weapons of the post-World War II era. In many variants, they were adopted and made by countries all over the world. By the end of the century, some 100 million AKs had been produced, more than any other firearm in history.

The development of Western small arms proceeded more slowly, mainly because the United States insisted upon maintaining a power level comparable to the M1. As a result, in 1953 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) reluctantly agreed to standardize on a 7.62-mm cartridge that was a half-inch shorter than the M1 cartridge but of the same calibre and power. To fire this new round, the United States produced an improved version of the M1 rifle, featuring a 20-round detachable magazine and being capable of selective fire. Called the U.S. Rifle 7.62-mm M14, it replaced the M1, beginning in 1957. As a self-loading rifle, the M14 performed well, but it was too heavy to be effective as a close-quarters weapon, and the extreme recoil generated by the NATO round caused it to be totally unmanageable as an automatic rifle.

Other NATO armies adopted more satisfactory 7.62-mm rifles, although even these were employed as advanced self-loaders rather than automatics. Most commonly, they were either the gas-operated Fusil Automatique Léger (FAL), introduced by the Belgian Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre in 1957, or the blowback-operated Gewehr 3 (G3), produced in West Germany by the firm Heckler & Koch, beginning in 1959. Millions of these weapons were sold to many countries.

After the Korean War (1950–53), U.S. military researchers, dissatisfied with rifle-power ammunition, began to test a .22-inch (5.56-mm) cartridge that propelled a lighter projectile at a much higher muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet (910 metres) per second. To fire this small-calibre high-velocity round, in 1958 they chose the AR-15 rifle, designed by Eugene M. Stoner for the ArmaLite Division of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation. The AR-15 was gas-operated, but it eliminated the piston in favour of a tube that directed propellant gases directly into an expansion chamber between the bolt and bolt carrier. By reducing the number of working parts and chambering the rifle for a smaller cartridge, Stoner had come up with a lightweight weapon that, even on automatic fire, produced a manageable recoil and yet was capable of inflicting fatal wounds at 300 yards (270 metres) and beyond. In 1962 the U.S. Air Force adopted the AR-15, and the Department of Defense designated it the M16. Five years later, with units engaged in the Vietnam War finding the weapon very effective under the close conditions of jungle warfare, the U.S. Army adopted it as the M16A1. Early complaints about the tendency of the M16 to jam were addressed with improved education about weapon maintenance and a change in the chemical composition of the powder in the cartridge that it fired.

M16 assault rifleM16A1 assault rifle. Colt's Manufacturing Company has produced various M16 models for the U.S. military since the 1960s.

After U.S. troops in Europe were issued the M16, a series of trials ensued that ended with the decision, in 1980, to adopt a standard 5.56-mm NATO cartridge. This fired a brass-jacketed projectile that, having a heavier lead core and steel nose, was lethal at longer ranges than the original AR-15 bullet. The M16A2 was rifled to fire this round, and other NATO armies switched over. West Germany introduced the G41, a 5.56-mm version of the G3, and Belgium replaced the FAL with the FNC.

assault rifleChinese QBZ-95 assault rifle. A bullpup design (magazine and cartridge ejection behind the trigger), the QBZ-95 was adopted by the Chinese People's Liberation Army in 1997.

The trend toward ever more-compact designs did not end with the adoption of the new round, however. Armies around the world developed new assault rifles with compact “bullpup” designs, in which the bolt, receiver, and magazine were behind the handgrip and trigger and much of the shoulder stock was occupied by the operating mechanism. This permitted a much shorter weapon than orthodox designs, in which the magazine and receiver were ahead of the trigger. As a result, weapons such as the Belgian Steyr AUG, the Chinese QBZ-95, and Israeli IWI Tavor SAR were less than 30 inches (760 mm) long—compared with the M16, which was 39 inches (990 mm) overall. In the 1990s the U.S. Army began to issue the M4, a lighter and shorter carbine version of the M16 that soon became the army’s standard infantry weapon. U.S. soldiers found the M4, at 30 inches with the stock retracted, to be easier to use than the M16 in the close quarters of urban fighting during the Iraq War of 2003–11. Many of the newer assault rifles were built with lightweight plastic shoulder stocks and magazines, as well as receivers made of aluminum.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Michael Ray.