The term
assault rifle is a translation of the German word Sturmgewehr (literally meaning "storm rifle"), "storm" used synonymous with assault. The name was coined by Adolf Hitler to describe the Maschinenpistole 44, subsequently re-christened Sturmgewehr 44, the firearm generally considered the first true assault rifle that served to popularize the concept.
The translation assault rifle gradually became the common term for similar firearms sharing the same technical definition as the StG 44. In a strict definition, a firearm must have at least the following characteristics to be considered an assault rifle:
It must be an individual weapon with provision to fire from the shoulder (i.e. a buttstock);
It must be capable of selective fire;
It must have an intermediate-power cartridge: more power than a pistol but less than a standard rifle or battle rifle;
Its ammunition must be supplied from a detachable box magazine.
Rifles that meet most of these criteria, but not all, are technically not assault rifles despite frequently being considered as such. For example, semi-automatic-only rifles that share designs with assault rifles such as the AR-15 (which the M-16 rifle is based on) are not assault rifles, as they are not capable of switching to automatic fire and thus not selective fire. Belt-fed weapons (such as the M249 SAW) or rifles with fixed magazines are likewise not assault rifles because they do not have detachable box magazines.
The term "assault rifle" is often more loosely used for commercial or
political reasons to include other types of arms, particularly arms that fall under a strict definition of the battle rifle, or semi-automatic variant of military rifles such as AR-15s
The US Army defines assault rifles as "short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges."
A
Battle Rifle is a full-size rifle designed for military use that fires a high-power rifle cartridge such as the U.S. .30-06 Springfield, the German 7.92x57mm IS, the Russian 7.62x54mmR, or the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge. While the term battle rifle is usually given to post-World War II selective-fire infantry service rifles such as the H&K G3, the FN FAL, the AR-10, or the M14, this term can also include older military bolt-action or semi-automatic rifles such as the Mosin Nagant or the M1 Garand.
The Battle Rifle's power and long-range accuracy are intended to engage targets at long distances, but this comes with a trade-off of length and weight that make it relatively cumbersome in close-quarter combat. Also, the recoil of a full-size cartridge makes most battle rifles difficult to control when using full-automatic fire, though a few designs have attempted to control this tendency.
The
Fedorov Avtomat was an early self-loading battle rifle designed by Vladimir Grigoryevich Fedorov and made in Russia. A total of 3,200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured between
1915 and 1924 in the city of Kovrov. In 1919, after 500 had been built, production was increased. The weapon saw combat in World War I, the Russian Civil War, and later in the Winter War with Finland in 1940, when some were withdrawn from storage and issued to elite units of the Red Army. The Fedorov Avtomat is sometimes considered to be an early predecessor to the modern assault rifle, due to its relatively light weight compared to other automatic rifles of the time and selective-fire capabilities.
By early 1918, as a result of turmoil of the Russian Revolution and the subsequent civil war, production was finally stopped.
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