Battle rifle

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Examples of battle rifles
M1 Garand
FN FAL
Heckler & Koch G3

A battle rifle is a service rifle chambered to fire a fully powered cartridge.[1]

The term "battle rifle" is a

assault rifles.[2] Battle rifles were most prominent from the 1940s to the 1970s, when they were used as service rifles. While modern battle rifles largely resemble modern assault rifle designs, which replaced battle rifles in most roles, the term may also describe older military full-power semi-automatic rifles such as the M1 Garand, SVT-40, Gewehr 41, Gewehr 43, Type 4, FN Model 1949, and MAS-49.[3][4]

History

World War I

Semi-automatic

First examples of semi-automatic fully powered-cartridge rifles used in World War I are the Meunier A6, Fusil Automatique Modèle 1917 in 8×50mmR Lebel and the Winchester Model 1910 in .401 Winchester Self-Loading.

Winchester Model 1910

Select fire

Fedorov Avtomat

During

bolt-action rifles, and the thought of fully automatic fire in a design that was lightweight and controllable enough to be used by a single soldier was seen as something that would be extremely useful in the static conditions of trench warfare
. The Russian Empire produced the world's first battle rifle, the Fedorov Avtomat, which was select-fire and fired the rather underpowered 6.5mm Arisaka round from a 25-round box magazine. Only about 100 were produced and used during the war,[5] before the Russian Civil War forced Russia to withdraw its forces in 1917, and so there is an absence of reports on the combat effectiveness of Fedorov rifles, but they continued to be produced until 1925. Fedorov rifles were also used in limited numbers during the opening stages of the Winter War.

Chauchat-Ribeyrolles 1918

France developed the Chauchat-Ribeyrolles 1918 submachine gun, an automatic shortrifle chambered in 8×50mmR Lebel, intended to defend tank crews.

World War II

The battle rifle was of major significance during

bolt-action rifles
were much more common on the battlefield.

M1 Garand

M1 Garand and en-bloc clips

At the outbreak of World War Two, the United States was the only nation in the world to have formally adopted a battle rifle as their service rifle. The M1 Garand fired the .30-06 Springfield cartridge, which loaded from an eight-round en bloc clip. When empty, this clip would eject upwards out of the rifle, making a distinctive ping sound in the process, after which a new en bloc clip could be inserted into the rifle. The adoption of the semi-automatic rifle allowed American riflemen to field much greater sustained firepower than their Allied and Axis contemporaries, who were still using bolt-action rifles as their primary rifle. The Garand continued to see front line service during the Korean War, saw limited service during the Vietnam War, and served as the basis for the creation of the M14 rifle.

SVT-40

SVT-40

The Soviet Union issued one major battle rifle, the

machine guns such as the DP-27
were not available, but the weapon's 10 round capacity made it somewhat unsuitable for fully automatic fire.

FG-42

FG-42
with bipod deployed.

M60 Machine Gun, which was standard issue in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Both of these designs were heavily influenced by the FG-42.[9]

Gewehr 41 and 43

Gewehr 43

Another German design built during the Second World War was the

short-stroke piston, whereas the G41 uses the same system as that in the M1922 Bang rifle
. Over 400,000 G43s were built.

Type 4

Type 4

During the Pacific War, the Empire of Japan created the Type 4 rifle, also known as the Type 5, to act as a counter to the American M1 Garand. While initial attempts were made as rudimentary copies of the Garand, it was found that the Japanese 7.7×58mm Arisaka cartridge didn't respond well to being fitted into the Garand's internals, and so, the en-bloc clip design of the Garand was replaced with a 10-round internal magazine, loaded with stripper clips, as was seen in the German Gewehr 41. Only 250 were built, in 1945, when the Imperial Japanese Army was already at its breaking point, and production ceased with the surrender in August of that year.

Cold War

FN FAL

FN FAL

The most enduring battle rifle of the

assault rifles are typically more common in contemporary usage, the FAL is still in active service in many nations (none of which are in NATO), most notably Brazil. In total, the FAL has been used by over 90 countries and over 7,000,000 have been produced,[10] leading to the rifle's other, unofficial name: "The Right Arm of the Free World."[11]

Heckler & Koch G3

Heckler & Koch G3

The '

box magazines and 50 or 100 round detachable drum magazines.[12] It was first produced in 1959. The modular designed G3 has over the years been exported to over 70 countries and manufactured under licence in at least 15 countries, bringing the total number built to around 7,800,000.[13]

M14

M14

The

full auto, its profile was too long, and the weapon was generally unreliable. A 1962 Department of Defense report described it as "completely inferior" to the M1 Garand.[14] It went into production in 1959 and about 1,300,000 M14 rifles have been produced.[15] The M14 was eventually replaced by the M16 assault rifle, which was a controversial decision as the M16's less powerful 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge, combined with the fact it was much smaller and lighter, and had plastic furniture instead of wood, led some soldiers to sarcastically call the new rifle the 'Mattel 16'.[16] Despite initial shortcomings, however, the M16 remains in American military service to this day, and it is the most produced rifle in 5.56×45mm NATO
cartridge.

AR-10

Artillerie Inrichtingen
(A.I.) produced AR-10

The

manufacturing license by Artillerie Inrichtingen. First introduced in 1956, the AR-10 used an innovative combination of a straight-line barrel/stock design with phenolic composite, a new U.S. patent 2,951,424 filed gas-operated bolt and carrier system and forged alloy parts resulting in a small arm significantly easier to control in automatic fire and over 1 lb (0.45 kg) lighter than other infantry rifles of the day.[18] Over its production life, the original AR-10 was built in relatively small numbers, with fewer than 10,000 rifles assembled. However, the ArmaLite AR-10 (later developed into the ArmaLite AR-15, M16 rifle, and M4 carbine
) would become the progenitor for a wide range of firearms.

Contemporary usage

Desert Tech MDRX

After WW2, the USSR was the first global power to make an assault rifle the standard infantry weapon, with the

HK417.[19] Other examples of contemporary battle rifles include the SCAR-H, Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle, Desert Tech MDRx, IWI Tavor 7, and XM7 rifle
.

Australian soldier with a HK417 in Afghanistan.

List of battle rifles

Main article: List of battle rifles


See also

References

  1. ^ Charles Karwan (December 1999). "Military Guns Of The Century". Guns Magazine. Archived from [http.://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_12_45/ai_57006135/ the original] on 2012-07-12.
  2. ISBN 978-1-59884-981-3
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-4766-1564-6
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-87364-297-2
    .
  5. ISBN 5-98655-006-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  6. ^ Rottman, Gordon (2007). Soviet Rifleman 1941–1945. Osprey Publishing. p. 25.
  7. ^ "SVT-38 SVT-40 Tokarev". Modern Firearms. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  8. ^ Dugelby, Thomas (1990). Death from Above – the German FG42 Paratroop Rifle. Collector Grade Publications. pp. 3–4.
  9. ^ Dugelby, Thomas (1990). Death from Above. the German FG42 Paratroop Rifle. Collector Grade Publications. pp. 138, 143.
  10. ^ Aldis, Anne (2005). Soft Security Threats & Europe. Routledge. p. 83.
  11. ^ Bishop, Chris (1998). Guns in Combat. Chartwell Books, Inc.
  12. ISBN 83-11-09310-5
    .
  13. JSTOR resrep10728. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on June 29, 2017.
  14. ^ Kay, Bruce (10 June 1977). An Analysis of the Infantry's Need for an Assault Submachine Gun. p. 9.
  15. ISBN 1-84065-245-4
    .
  16. ^ Mikkelson, David (9 July 2002). "Were the M-16 Rifles Used During the Vietnam War Made by Mattel?". Snopes. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  17. ISBN 9986-494-38-9
    .
  18. ISBN 9986-494-38-9
    .
  19. ^ "HK241: A DMR-System". Heckler & Koch. Archived from the original on 2017-10-08. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
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