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Showing posts from December, 2016

The M1 Carbine - Perhaps the world's first assault rifle

The M1 Carbine - Perhaps the world's first assault rifle Assault rifles are the modern firearm of choice by today's standards; nearly every military in the world uses them, from the U.S. with the M16, to the Russians with the Ak-47, and Europe with the SA80, Steyr Aug, FAMAS, and many more firearms. From the 5.56mm fals and HK41's to the Tavors, assault rifles are just the weapon of choice on the modern battlefield. Light, moderately accurate, having a long range, piercing basic body armor and with just enough punch to be considered applicable for most situations, they are the perfect compromise of power, maneuverability, and weight for most situations, making them the best all around practical rifle. While the origins of the weapon are complex, many point towards the Stg-44 or Ak-47 as the first true assault rifles, weapons that were not quite submachine guns, but not quite full sized rifles either. Their large magazine capacity, high rate of fire, light weight and maneuv...

The G11 - The rifle that never was

The G11 - The rifle that never was The G11 is one of the most unique and interesting firearms in modern history, that was evaluated by both U.S. and German military forces as a new replacement for their older weapon systems, in direct competition with the AR-15, but that ultimately never came to fruition. While certainly a very capable firearm in many respects, it's overly ambitious features that it more or less lacked the developed technology for at the time severely hampered it's capabilities and as a result, paved the way for more conventional, proven designs to take it's place. However, what it achieved by itself is still quite tremendous even by today's standards, and is what the modern U.S. military caseless programs is based on. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite and the creator of the Nobel peace foundation, helped work on the caseless cartridges, providing them with a very shock insensitive binder that not only held the powder together without need for a ...

The "Perfect" Combat Rifle Concept

The "Perfect" Combat Rifle Concept In WWII, the basic conundrum arrived, of, how do we create a weapon that will ultimately fulfill every role we could possibly need it to on the battlefield? While the Germans had the MG42, a heavy machine gun, the Americans eventually got the M16, a light assault rifle. But what was this concept based around? The simple comparison would be the Submachine gun, rifle, and machine gun, or the Thompson M1, M1 Garand, and Browning automatic rifle. The submachine gun had a magazine of 20-30 rounds, fired very quickly and was only 30 inches long, making it very easy to maneuver in close quarters. It's powerful hard-hitting .45 ACP was good at close ranges, but lacked the range of a rifle, effectively making the weapon completely useless past 150 yards in most circumstances, and barely serviceable past 100, and couldn't pierce armor. The M1 Garand could get out to 400-500 yards and theoretically 800 or more with the right ammunition, but on...