History and Development of the Assault Rifle - X

With the advent of bullpup designs in the 1970s such as the Austrian Steyr AUG and the French FAMAS, some of the newer designs that have emerged since then have largely been bullpup designs. Some of these include the British L85A1 and L85A2 of the 1980s, the Chinese QBZ-95, the German Heckler & Koch G11, Singapore's SAR-21, Israel's Tavor TAR-21 etc.

Since the advent of the 5.56x45 mm. NATO cartridge, the world has essentially gone into three basic calibers as far as militaries are concerned: the NATO 5.56x45 mm. (used by M16, Steyr AUG, FAMAS, L85, INSAS etc.), the Russian 5.45x39 mm. (used by AK74 family) and the Russian 7.62x39 mm. (used by AK-47, AKM and clones such as the Type 56). The first two of these are generally used by most military forces, whereas the third cartridge is generally widespread among many insurgent groups due to the popularity and wide-spread nature of the AK-47 and AKM family of assault rifles. However, there has been some other significant research in cartridge developments as well. Both the UK and the US did some work to find an intermediate cartridge between the NATO 5.56x45 mm. and the older NATO 7.62x51 mm., in order to strike a balance between bullet effectiveness and recoil force. This was due to the 7.62x51 mm. cartridge having too much power and weight and the 5.56x45 mm. not having sufficient range for some applications. Experiments showed that cartridges such as the 6x45 mm., the Grendel 6.5x38 mm. or the Remington SPC 6.8x43 mm. strike a pretty good balance by having more range than a 5.56x45 mm. cartridge, but still having relatively less recoil and less weight than a 7.62x51 mm. cartridge. With combat in Afghanistan taking place over longer ranges and the advent of scopes on assault rifles, it is possible for an infantryman to engage over longer ranges now and hence there have been noises made in various quarters to replace the M16 with a newer rifle using one of these cartridges instead.

Newer bullet designs using exotic technologies were also tried out during the 1970s and 80s, but they've been much less successful in this regard. For instance, there were attempts to design cartridges that fired flechette darts instead of conventional bullets. However, the cost of ammunition was prohibitive and thus this never became popular. Another exotic concept was folded ammunition, which was ammunition that was roughly U-shaped. The idea was to reduce the length of the cartridge in order to speed up the firing cycle of rifles.

Folded ammunition examples. Click on images to enlarge.

Folding ammunition never caught on either. Another concept was the caseless ammunition cartridge, for which a lot of work was done by Hecker & Koch and Dynamit industries. The idea is that since a caseless cartridge doesn't have a brass case, there is no need for the rifle to eject it after every shot, which reduces the number of steps in a firing cycle and thereby enables faster firing rates. H&K developed the G11 assault rifle to use caseless ammunition. The concept of a consumable cartridge is actually a very old one, as it was used by the Dreyse Needle Gun of 1835! However, with automatic weapons and modern ammunition, there are more problems to solve. For one, caseless cartridges are more easily damaged by rough handling since they don't have a hard outer case and two, the brass case removes some of the heat from the chamber of the firearm and the lack of a brass case means that caseless ammunition could cook-off in a hot chamber. H&K solved the first problem by putting cartridges in a sealed plastic case and had to spend a lot of time developing special propellants to solve the second issue. The G11 was about to be adopted by the West German military when the Berlin wall came down and the cold war ended. This resulted in cutbacks in military spending and H&K went into financial difficulties as a result and was acquired by the British, where they earned their keep by helping fix problems with the British L85 assault rifles. Interest in caseless ammunition technology has been renewed since 2004, due to the US military's Lightweight Small Arms Technology (LSAT) program.

Oddly enough, despite most of the new rifles being bullpup layouts, the US military is looking at conventional layouts for their M16 replacements. For instance, the US Army has switched to the M4 (which is the carbine form of the M16). The (now cancelled) XM8 project, which was designed to replace the M16, also had a conventional layout:

XM8 Assault Rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The FN SCAR, adopted by the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as well as the US Marines M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle also use conventional layouts. Thus, it appears that the US is definitely not bucking the bullpup-layout trend, at least in the near future.

Another interesting concept developed in Australia is the Metal Storm rifle, where many bullets are stacked head to tail in series inside a barrel, with propellant between the bullets. Ignition of individual cartridges is accomplished electronically. Since the cartridges are completely consumable and because they are stacked one behind the other in line, there is no need for case ejection or a feed system to load new cartridges in the chamber. This makes the firing rate much faster than other designs, as well as contributing to reduced weight. As of now, Metal Storm products have found limited use and support from the US Marines.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - IX

A couple of posts ago, we saw how the US adoption of the M-16 and its 5.56x45 mm. cartridge led to the various member countries of NATO also standardizing the same caliber cartridge in their forces. Some NATO members adopted the M-16 as their standard rifle as well, whereas some others designed their own rifles to use the new NATO cartridge. One of those countries was Austria. At that time (late 1960s), the Austrians were using a variant of the FN-FAL, which used the previous NATO standard cartridge of 7.62x51 mm. The Austrian military decided to make an all new rifle design to replace their old rifles.

Design and development duties of the new rifle was handed to the Steyr-Daimler-Puch company, in collaboration with the Austrian military.The Steyr-Daimler-Puch company has a long history in Austria as a manufacturer of vehicles and firearms. In fact, when Steyr was first founded in 1864, its primary business was manufacture of rifles and they only branched out into making bicycles in 1894 and automobiles in 1915. It later merged with the well known Daimler-Puch automobile manufacturer in 1934 to become Steyr-Daimler-Puch. After World War II, the company gained some bad reputation, as it later emerged that its managing director was the first to suggest using concentration camp slave labor in their factories. However, its reputation did not suffer much after the war and it still remained a manufacturer of heavy vehicles, offroad vehicles, bicycles, small mopeds and scooters. In the US, their mopeds and scooters were sold by Sears Roebuck under the Allstate brand in the 1950s and 60s. In India, their Puch Maxi Plus moped model (made in India in collaboration with Hero Motors and sold as the Hero Puch) was in production until 2003!

During the development process of the new rifle, the Austrian military placed the Office of Military Technology under one Colonel Walter Stoll in charge of development from the military side, while three men, Horst Wesp, Karl Wagner and Karl Moser handled things from Steyr-Daimler-Puch's end. The result was the Steyr AUG rifle.

Steyr AUG Assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge.

Image licensed from Steyr Mannlicher GmbH & Co. under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.

The letters AUG stand for Armee Universal Gewehr (i.e.) Universal Army Rifle. From the beginning, the AUG was designed as a family of firearms (i.e.) a carbine, an assault rifle and a Light Machine Gun (LMG). This means that many parts between these three are interchangeable. It also was one of the first successful bullpup designs. Design of the rifle was completed in 1977 and it was accepted by the Austrian military in the same year as the StG 77 (Sturmgewehr 77). Since then, it has been adopted by various countries around the world.

While many people think that the Steyr AUG was a very revolutionary design when it first came out, a lot of the features on it existed long before the rifle was conceived. For example, the idea of a family of rifles (i.e. carbine, assault rifle and LMG) sharing many parts in common is not new. The same modular concept was already used successfully by the Soviet designer Fedorov during World War I. In fact, we studied about Fedorov's design earlier in our first installment of assault rifle development. Another misconception is that the AUG is the first bullpup design. The truth is that while it was one of the first commercially successful bullpup designs, it was not the first bullpup design and not even the first military bullpup design. The original bullpup rifle was the British Thorneycroft carbine from 1901. Additionally, the French FAMAS (also a bullpup) was also being developed at around the same time as the AUG. The use of plastics in the weapon was also not a new idea, as the Soviet-made TKB-408, which was designed by German Korobov also had plastics, as did the French FAMAS rifle. Finally, the built in telescopic sight was also not a new innovation, as it was already a feature of the British Enfield EM-2 rifle (also a bullpup design) from the 1940s and a Canadian FN FAL variant in the 1950s.

The real technical merit of the AUG is taking a group of very good ideas and combining them all into a successful design.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - VIII

In the last few posts, we saw during the development of the M-16 rifle, that the US military had determined that "small is beautiful" and therefore used smaller-caliber, but higher velocity ammunition for their assault rifles. The chief motivation for smaller ammunition was because studies had shown that the side with the most firepower tended to win infantry engagements. However, this meant that each soldier would need to carry a larger amount of ammunition, so the US decided to research smaller calibers, which are lighter and therefore a soldier can carry more of them. Research showed that 5.56x45 mm. cartridges were lethal enough at ranges where most infantry combat took place and so they developed assault rifles around this concept: the M16 family.

The results of this research did not go unnoticed by the Soviets. At that time, the Soviets were using the AKM assault rifle as the standard rifle for their military. The AKM and its predecessor, the AK-47, fire 7.62x39 mm. cartridges. In line with western findings, the Soviets also decided to develop another assault rifle, one that uses smaller bullets than the AKM or AK-47. Of course, they did not want to copy the same 5.56x45 mm. cartridge as used by the West, because the Soviets went to great pains to ensure that their own weapons could not be used against them. Hence, they designed a new cartridge of size 5.45x39 mm. and designed a new assault rifle that used the same basic mechanism as the AKM, but scaled down to use the new cartridge. Since the new rifle and cartridge were developed in 1974, the new rifle was called the AK-74. This rifle is still in use in the Russian military.

AK-74 assault Rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The AK-74 is heavily based on the AKM design, so much so that about 50% of the parts (pins, screws, springs etc.) are interchangeable between the two, even though they are of different calibers. However, the AK-74 also has a bunch of other improvements over the AKM, in order to increase reliability, accuracy and durability. For one thing, the bolt extraction claw is larger on the AK-74 to better extract spent cartridges. The stock is lighter on the AK-74 and was originally made of laminated wood, with cuts on the side to save weight. The stock, pistol grip and hand guards were all later changed to a polymer. The magazine is made of a polymer plastic, unlike the metal magazines of the AKM or AK-47. The magazine also has two extra horizontal ribs in it, which make it impossible to insert it into an older AK family rifle.

Other variants of the AK-74 have folding metal stocks (AKS-74 and its carbine variant, AKS-74U)

A variant called the AK-74M does away with all the wood and the stock, pistol grip and hand guards are all black or plum colored plastic.

AK-74M assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Note the lack of wood in the above rifle.

The AK-74M also has a mounting rail on the left to attach other hardware such as telescopes. Since the early 1990s, the AK-74M model is the current official rifle of the Russian military and is gradually replacing the older AK-74 and AKS-74 models in service.

The Russians have also designed the AK-101, AK-102, AK-103, AK-104 and AK-105 assault rifles, but these use the same AK-74 design, but are chambered for different calibers instead. For instance, AK-101 and its carbine form, the AK-102, are chambered for the NATO 5.56x45 mm. cartridges and are specially designed for the export market.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - VII

In our last post, we studied how the AR-15 rifle was morphed into the M16 A1 model. Where we last left off was during the Vietnam war.

The original design for the M16 had a number of flaws: lack of cleaning kit, no chrome lining on the inside of the barrel or chamber, issues with cartridges etc. These flaws became more evident during the Vietnam war, but sadly, only after a number of US servicemen lost their lives. Soon after a Congressional investigation, fixes were made for all these issues and the rifle became a much more reliable product. However, the bad reputation earned by its early flaws took a lot longer to clear.

By 1970 though, the M16's reputation was established and other countries also wanted their own M16 style rifles. The NATO member countries decided to standardize on the 5.56x45 mm. cartridge, which was also used by the M16 A1 model, but they wanted to make improvements to the US version of the cartridge, in particular, because of improvements to body armor technology. The US version of the 5.56x45 mm. cartridge was called the M193 and tests had shown that it didn't penetrate newer body armors that well. The British, Germans and Belgians all presented cartridges that all had the same 5.56x45 mm. external dimensions, but had different bullet shapes and materials that offered much better ballistics and penetrating power than the M193. In the end, the Belgian designed SS109 (which has a bullet with a steel tip) was chosen as the NATO standard. The Belgians also designed a tracer round, L110, which had better performance than the old M196 tracer round. The M196 could burn out in 450 meters, whereas the L110 could show its trail to 800 meters. However, it was found that the M16 A1's barrel rifling twist rate of 1/12 inch (i.e. 1 turn every 12 inches or 1 turn every 300 mm.) was not adequate to stabilize the SS109 or L110 bullets past about 90 meters or so. New barrels with a faster twist rate were required to get the best performance out of the SS109. The ideal rate for a bullet from a SS109 cartridge is at least 1 turn in 9 inches (1 turn in 229 mm.), but the L110 requires at least 1 turn in 7 inches (1 turn in 180 mm.) to continue to be stable for much longer ranges (over 800 meters or so). Hence, it was decided to make a new version of the M16, the model A2, which would feature a barrel with a 1 turn in 7 inch twist rate.

It was also found during the Vietnam war, that many soldiers would put their M16s into full-automatic mode and when in a firefight, new soldiers would often hold down the trigger and shoot entire magazines into the bushes in a few seconds, without killing a single enemy. This caused many of them to run out of ammunition prematurely. Also, the act of firing in full-automatic mode makes the rifle more difficult to control and thereby reduces accuracy. The US military conducted various tests a decided to replace the full-automatic firing mode with a three-round burst mode (i.e. upto 3 rounds would fire when the trigger is held down), because the three-round burst was determined to be the optimum balance between accuracy, ammunition conservation and firepower. The US Marines were the first to request the development of the M16A2 model based on the Vietnam war experiences.

M16A2 model. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

Along with the newer barrel with the 1:7 inch twist rate and the three-round burst mode, there were numerous other improvements made to the M16A2. The thickness of the barrel in front of the front sight was made thicker, to avoid bending the barrel in the field and to also resist overheating better, thereby allowing firing the weapon for longer periods of time. The front and rear sights were improved and the rear sight was made adjustable for ranges between 300-800 meters using the SS109 cartridge (which had different ballistics than the M193). The recoil compensator at the end of the barrel was closed at the bottom, so it would not kick up dust when fired in the prone position. A deflector was attached immediately behind the ejection port, so that left handed users would not get hit in the face by a hot ejected case. The grips were improved and the handguards were made symmetrical so that there was no need to manufacture spare parts for left and right side. With advances made in polymers, the buttstock was re-engineered to use a new plastic that is 10 times stronger than the original stock on the M16A1. The buttstock was also made slightly longer than the original version.

The M16A2 model was first adopted by the US Marine Corps in 1982, followed by the US Army in 1986 and then the other branches of the US military, as well as military forces of other countries worldwide. It is still being used by many users and is the most common variant in the M16 family.

The M16A3 model came out around the same time as the M16A2, but was made in very small numbers indeed. The M16A3 is very similar to the M16A2, but retains the original full-automatic firing mode of the M16A1 instead of the three-round burst mode of the M16A2. This variant was made for US Special Forces, who need the extra firepower afforded by the full-automatic firing mode. Special forces personnel are trained to maintain better fire discipline and not use up their ammunition so quickly. The US Navy was the first to order this variant, for use by its SEAL and Seabee units.

The M16A4 and the M4 are the latest variants of the M16 family.

M16A4 rifles. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The M16A4 is currently being issued to US Marine Corps front line units, and some US Army units. The main difference between this and the M16A2 is the removal of the fixed carrying handle/rear sight, which is seen on the M16A2. Instead, this is replaced by a Picatinny rail on the A4 model. This allows the user to not only attach a carrying handle, but also other accessories, such as a scope, as seen in the image above. The hand guards in front of the magazine are also of a new design (Knight Armament's M5 RAS handguard), which allows the user to attach a vertical grip, tactical light, laser sight etc.

The M4 variant is a carbine firearm and is a shorter and lighter version of the M16A2. It is intended to replace the M16 in most units of the US Army.

The M16 rifle had initial teething issues, but has later evolved into a fine, reliable weapon, which is in use by several military forces around the world.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - III

In this post, we will look at the history of one of the most famous assault rifles in history, the AK-47. The AK family is pretty widespread around the world these days, but there are widespread myths about its origins. The Soviet propaganda machine liked to portray that it was an original design entirely invented by a self-taught Russian peasant named Mikhail Kalashnikov. The real truth is actually somewhat different. We will study the history of this firearm in the following series of posts.

In the last post, we saw how the concept of the assault rifle was successfully used by the Germans. Their assault rifle was used against the Soviet Union with great success. The Soviets, in turn, analyzed some captured weapons and decided that it was a pretty good idea. Another major influence was the American M1 Garand rifle, which was also supplied to the Soviets in large quantities by the US and the Soviets decided that they must also have a reliable weapon that fires intermediate power cartridges. They quickly established a factory to manufacture 7.62x41 mm. ammunition, but needed a rifle to go with it. The initial requests for new rifle designs were sent to various Soviet bureaus in late 1943 and by the spring of 1944, at least ten designs were submitted by different groups. The Soviets adopted a design by one Mr. Sudayev and his design was called the AS-44. A limited run of the AS-44 was produced just after WW-II ended and the troops were generally happy with these weapons as they were better than what they had previously. However, the AS-44 was just too heavy and thus the Soviets opened another design competition in 1946.

Meanwhile, in a little known battle, called the Battle of Bryansk in 1942, a certain Russian T34 tank commander named Mikhail Kalashnikov was wounded in combat and made it to the hospital on foot, to receive medical treatment. During his recovery period, he vowed that he would make sure that his country would never be defeated again. While he was lying in bed, he overheard some other soldiers complaining about the quality of the Soviet rifles and his own experiences with the standard Soviet infantry rifles of that period also were similar. Hence, he began to design his own firearm, a sub-machine gun. While his sub-machine gun design was rejected because it was over-complex, his talents as a designer were noticed and he was reassigned to the Red Army's Small Arms Research division. Here, he designed a carbine, which was heavily influenced by the American M1 Garand  rifle's piston driven gas-operated system (if the reader looks at an AK, it uses a gas-operated system almost identical to the Garand, except that the AK has the gas tube mounted on top of the barrel whereas it is below the barrel in an M1 Garand.) While this carbine also was not successful, it was the basis of a new assault rifle that was submitted to the Soviet design competition of 1946, the AK-1 (otherwise known as the AK-46). There were 16 other competing designs originally, with the old AS-44 acting as the benchmark standard and after the first round of trials, the AK-46 was chosen along with entries by A.A. Demetyev (the AD-46 rifle) and F. Bulkin (AB-46 rifle). In the second round of trials, the AK-46 was actually rejected because it did not perform as well as its other rivals, but Mikhail Kalashnikov managed to pull enough strings in the selection committee to continue work on his design and submit a new entry for the next round of trials. He went back to the drawing board with his assistant, Alexandr Zaitsyev, and decided to incorporate design features from other weapons (including some from his competitors, the AB-46 and AD-46!). The design of the AK-46's gas operated systems was already heavily influenced by the M1 Garand and the idea of the long stroke piston attached to the bolt carrier and return spring design were lifted from the AB-46 and the idea of large clearances came from the AS-44 and the safety lever mechanism was from the John Browning designed Remington 8 etc.  The new design was dubbed the AK-47.

The other two designers were also given an opportunity to make design improvements for the next set of trials held in 1947. In the next round of trials, the F. Bulkin design (AB-47/TKB-415) was actually the most accurate of the three weapons and the AK-47 was last.  However, the AB-47 had issues with parts wearing out quickly and the AK-47 beat out the other two handily in tests for durability and reliability. The selection committee made the decision that it is better to have a not-so-accurate-but-durable-and-reliable firearm than wait for an indefinite period for an accurate-and-reliable weapon and hence the AK-47 was chosen over its two competitors. The first version of this was deployed to limited troops between 1947 and 1948.

Initially the design called for a stamped steel receiver pinned at the front, for quicker manufacturing time. However, Soviet machine technology was not advanced enough to do this reliably and there were a large number of rejected receivers. Hence, the decision was made to manufacture the receivers using various machining operations. This made the manufacturing processes slower, but at least they could make reliable receivers this way. Therefore the AK-47 Mark I featured a machined receiver.

Meanwhile, a designer named German A. Korobov began to make an improved assault rifle design himself. Korobov had actually submitted a bullpup assault rifle design (the TKB-408) for the original design competion of 1946, but it was rejected after the first round of testing. Nevertheless, he continued to experiment with other bullpup and traditional rifle designs. By 1952, he switched to using the lever-delayed blowback action invented by Hungarian designer, Paul Kiraly. This led to more accuracy and simpler production for his design. In 1955, the Soviets started another design competition and the improved Korobov design (TKB-517) was submitted to the competition.

Meanwhile, the AK guys were not sitting idle either. They recruited several captured German engineers, including the renowned Hugo Schmeisser (the designer of the StG44) and learned mass production techniques from them. Their new design submission for the 1955 competition was the AKM (AK Modernizirovanniy, the Russian word for "Modernized").

Believe it or not, the TKB-517 pretty much beat the AKM on almost all counts. It was more accurate (especially in full automatic mode), significantly lighter and about 1/3rd cheaper to manufacture. So why did the Soviets adopt the AKM then? Because the selection committee decided that since the troops were already familiar with the AK-47, it would not be a good idea to replace it with a firearm that uses an entirely new design. Hence, the less-reliable, but more familiar AKM beat out the more accurate, but new design, TKB-517.

In the next post, we will look at further developments of the AK-47.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - II

When World War I started, the French introduced a light machine gun called the Chauchat. While it was capable of selecting both single and automatic firing modes, this firearm used full sized cartridges, unlike an assault rifle. It was also a notoriously unreliable weapon, because it did not function well under muddy conditions and jammed frequently because the slots cut into the magazine would let in dirt and mud. The .30-06 version also frequently jammed after a few shots once the gun became hot. In fact, it has the dubious distinction of being dubbed "worst machine gun ever" by several firearms experts. Still, it was not only used by the French, but also other allies such as Belgium and the United States. Captured Chauchats were even used by the Germans because they didn't have any comparable automatic firearms.

Chauchat Machine Gun. Click on image to enlarge.

Due to the Chauchat's unreliability under battlefield conditions, US troops turned to the redoubtable John Browning for help and he delivered the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) design in 1918. This weapon was introduced rather late in the war, but was very effective when it was used during this short time. The first time it was used was September 13th 1918 and one of the people demonstrating its use against the enemy was John Browning's son, Val Allen Browning.

Browning Automatic Rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The BAR was so successful that the French ordered 15,000 of them to replace their own Chauchats! The BAR remained in production until the 1950s.

Note that both the Chauchat and BAR use full-size rifle cartridges. There were also automatic weapons designed during World War I, that used pistol ammunition. The most famous of these was the Thompson submachine gun, the so called "Tommy gun" that we studied about previously, when we studied the Blish lock mechanism. Both the Tommy gun and the BAR were designed rather late in the war though and the Tommy gun never saw action in World War I, but saw plenty of action in the hands of mobsters.

During the peace time period of World War I, several people argued for a new intermediate cartridge that was smaller than existing rifle cartridges, but bigger than pistol cartridges, and a suitable weapon to fire this new cartridge. The Swiss designer Furrer made an intermediate 7.65x35 cartridge for a carbine in 1921 and one Hauptmann Piderit of the German Rifle Testing Commission also advocated a shorter cartridge and a rifle to fire it. Colonel Fedorov, who we studied in the previous post, was also arguing for a smaller cartridge. There were also experiments made in Denmark and the US.

It was however, Germany, where some of the major new development took place. The Germans had observed that a small group of soldiers could easily overcome a larger group, provided that they had superior firepower. It was also observed that most infantry combat happened at less than 400 meters or so. By the 1930s, at least 5 German companies (Geco, DWM, RWS, Rheinmetall and Polte Patronenfabrik) were experimenting with intermediate rifle cartridges. It was Polte that was officially awarded the contract to design a new intermediate cartridge by the German military and after some experiments, came out with the 7.92x33 mm. "kurz" (German for "short") cartridge in 1938.

Contracts to design a new rifle for this cartridge were sent to both Walther and Haenel GmbH. Haenel's chief designer was Hugo Schmeisser and his design won out over the Walther design and was designated as the Maschinenkarabiner 1942 (after 1942, the year it was adopted) or MKb 42 for short. It underwent some minor design modifications, as requested by the German military. The Haenel design originally used an open bolt mechanism, but after a few trials, it was requested to make a closed bolt design similar to the Walther entry.

As it turned out, Adolf Hitler was strongly opposed to the new intermediate cartridge and demanded that more submachine guns be built instead. However, the German armament office secretly kept working on this new firearm and to avoid raising suspicions, they christened the weapon as MP 43 (MP = Machine Pistol). Hitler later asked for it to be renamed the MP 44, after some official tests in April 1944, unaware that it was not a machine pistol at all. In July 1944, Hitler held a conference with his generals on the Eastern Front and asked them what they needed most. A general who had no idea that the German armament office had disobeyed Hitler's orders, replied, "We want more of those new rifles!" and a thoroughly confused Hitler asked, "What new rifles?" and the cat was out of the bag. Some people thought they would be executed for disobeying Hitler's direct orders, but once Hitler was given a chance to test-fire the new MP 44 for himself, he became very impressed and enthusiastically gave it the name Sturmgewehr, which is German for "Storm (Assault) Rifle" ("Storm" as in storming a castle or assaulting a castle). This is where the term "Assault Rifle" comes from. Because of this new official name, the MP 44 was rechristened the StG 44.

Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44), the first firearm to be called "Assault Rifle". Click on image to enlarge. Public domain image.

The StG 44 was heavily used in the Eastern Front and found extremely useful by soldiers. It was also very reliable in the extreme cold conditions of the Russian winter. It had a longer range than the Russian submachine guns, but a comparable rate of fire, switchable firing mode from single shot to full automatic mode, pretty decent accuracy and decent controllability even in fully automatic mode.

The StG 44 is now generally accepted as the world's first successful mass produced assault rifle. It was an encounter with one of these that prompted a Russian tank mechanic to invent his own assault rifle, which would later become one of the most famous designs world wide. But that is the subject of another article.

History and Development of the Assault Rifle - I

In the next series of posts, we will study the evolution of the modern assault rifle.

First let us go back a few centuries in time and study how infantry warfare worked in the 1600s, 1700s and part of the 1800s. Back in those days, most firearms were smoothbore muskets, such as the famous Brown Bess, which was in service with the British military for over 100 years. Since muskets had no rifling, accuracy was somewhat limited. Also, since these firearms were muzzle loaders using mostly flintlock firing mechanisms, they were slow to load and use. Therefore the standard military strategy of the day was to line up three lines of troops  about 50-100 meters away from the enemy. The first line would fire their weapons and immediately retreat to the rear. The second line would then step forward and in turn discharge the weapons and then retreat to the rear and the third line would repeat the same process. Meanwhile, this would hopefully give the first line enough time to reload their firearms so they could fire another volley. Each line was coordinated by an officer so that all the men in one line would fire at approximately the same time. This strategy also maximized the firepower of the unit. Since the firearms weren't very accurate, it was hoped that the massed fire would hit at least some of the enemy troops. In fact, Colonel George Hanger of the British Army famously said, "A soldier's musket, if not exceedingly ill-bored (as many are), will strike a figure of a man at 80 yards; it may even at a hundred; but a soldier must be very unfortunate indeed who shall be wounded by a common musket at 150 yards, providing his antagonist aims at him; and as to firing at a man at 200 yards with a common musket, you may as well fire at the moon and have the same hope of hitting him. I do maintain and will prove…that no man was ever killed at 200 yards, by a common musket, by the person who aimed at him."

In the 1800s, with the advent of rifled firearms, massed fire tactics and tight formations began to fade away. As accuracy was improved, it was no longer practical for soldiers to fire at each other from standing positions over a plain. It took a while for military planners to realize that massed fire tactics were obsolete though, as can be witnessed by the huge casualties in the American Civil War, where men still shot at each other in tight formations at distances less than 100 yards apart. The final death knell of the massed formation strategy came in World War I, where the machine gun, trenches and artillery rendered this method obsolete. Instead, troops took pot shots at each other from longer ranges and from trenches.

In 1890, an Italian officer named Amerigo Cei-Rigotti invented an rifle, which was capable of selective fire (single shots or burst mode). The rifle was designed to fire 6.5x52 mm. ammunition from a detachable magazine. Incremental modifications were made to the rifle until 1900 before it was dropped from consideration. While this was the first real "assault" rifle, it wasn't very popular because it was extremely unreliable and had a very high rate of misfiring and jamming. That is why it was never adopted by any military anywhere.

The next development was the Fedorov Avtomat from Russia, in 1916. This particular firearm was developed by Vladimir Fedorov. This firearm was relatively lighter weight than other firearms of its time, had a large detachable magazine, had capability to switch firing mode from single shot to automatic mode and used an intermediate powered cartridge (smaller than a rifle cartridge, but larger than a pistol cartridge). The cartridge used for this was originally a custom designed 6.5 mm. cartridge, but it was later switched to use a 6.5x50 mm. Japanese designed Arisaka cartridge because it was available in quantity already. While this cartridge appears big compared to modern cartridges, remember that ammunition was not as powerful in those days, so it could be considered as an intermediate power cartridge. The Fedorov Avtomat was not produced in great numbers, but it was popular with Russian troops until World War II.

Federov avtomat assault rifle. Click on image to enlarge. Image is in the public domain.

The Fedorov Avtomat was influential because it was the first practical assault rifle that was adopted by a military anywhere. Incidentally, its inventor, Colonel Fedorov, also invented the concept of the infantry weapon family, where carbine, assault rifle, light machine gun, medium machine gun etc. would all share some commonality of parts (e.g.) action, receiver, trigger assembly etc.