Assault rifle (disambiguation)

Revision as of 16:46, October 20, 2009 by Quirel (talk | contribs) (→‎History)

An Assault Rifle is a selective-fire firearm using a projectile with a muzzle energy in between those of a full-sized rifle and a smaller submachine-gun or a pistol. Assault rifles are categorized in between light machine guns, which are intended more for sustained automatic fire in a support role, and submachine guns, which fire a pistol cartridge rather than a rifle cartridge.

History

Assault Rifles date back to the end of the Second World War. Germany developed the first assault rifle, a weapon called the Sturmgewehr 1944. Although it was not fielded in the same quantities as the Maschinenpistole 1940 or the Karabiner 98Kurtz, the devastating losses it inflicted upon the advancing Soviet armies encouraged the USSR to develop this new class of weapons. The result was the Russian AK-47, which basically set the definition of an assault rifle. By the time of the Halo trilogy, most assault rifles also house an onboard electronics suite, showing ammo capacity, a compass, and other information, without the use of a HUD.

These could refer to the following:

It is also possible that the BR55 is an Assault Rifle, as it doesn't fire a full rifle cartridge and, in trailers, seems capable of fully automatic fire hinting at a selective fire feature that was not included due to gameplay issues. In some ways the Battle Rifle is a better assault rifle than the over grown SMG, the MA5B, and its Halo 3 iteration, the MA5C .


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