How do you define "Assault Rifle"?

Well, he made the argument that because the AK is a ".30 Caliber Rifle" and is an Assault Rifle, that means that ANY .30 caliber rifle is an Assault Rifle.

No, he made the argument because the FAL was originally designed for .280 British, an intermediate round. OP's buddy's argument was "once an intermediate, always an intermediate" despite the fact that every FAL actually fired by anyone in real life is in 7.62 NATO.
 
No, he made the argument because the FAL was originally designed for .280 British, an intermediate round. OP's buddy's argument was "once an intermediate, always an intermediate" despite the fact that every FAL actually fired by anyone in real life is in 7.62 NATO.
You're replying to the OP. ;)

Sounds like their debate went in circles for a bit.
 
You're replying to the OP. ;)

Sounds like their debate went in circles for a bit.
and it still is. This individual is from South American originally and hates all things US/UK.

When I said the FAL the UK used was semi only, he said it was still an assault rifle because the other 100 nations that used it called it one.
He also says FAL stands for "Fusile d’Assault Legere" and not "Fusil Automatique Léger”, but then again, he is Argentinian and probably still butt hurt over the Falklands.
 
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and it still is. This individual is from South American originally and hates all things US/UK.

When I said the FAL the UK used was semi only, he said it was still an assault rifle because the other 100 nations that used it called it one.
He also says FAL stands for "Fusile d’Assault Legere" and not "Fusil Automatique Léger”, but then again, he is Argentinian and probably still butt hurt over the Falklands.
Again, he’s daft.

NOBODY who shoots any flavor of FAL calls it anything but a Battle Rifle, contemporary with the CETME and the M14. Which also aren’t assault rifles.
 


A rifle can not do any of the following

Don't try to define it, because its a made up term to begin with.
Except you are all quite wrong - the term "Assault Rifle" has more to do with the sort of lighter weight weapon system a soldier would carry when assaulting an objective.

Secondary small arms identification and operation guide--Eurasian Communist Countries; (FSTC-CW-07–03–70) written by Howard E. Johnson of the U.S. Army Foreign Science and Technology Center and published in 1970 defines “Assault Rifle” in Section III of the publication as follows:
“Assault rifles are short, compact, selective-fire weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachinegun and rifle cartridges. Assault rifles have mild recoil characteristics and, because of this, are capable of delivering effective full-automatic fire at ranges up to 300 meters”

Assault Rifle is a technical term. Assault WEAPON on the other hand, is a nebulous term made up by people based on feelings and appearance, not based in fact.

I would expect folks here would know the difference.
 
I would expect folks here would know the difference.

Meh. I'm over it.

As I posted above, the antis clearly won this particular battle over labels. Best just to accept it and have a beer, probably.

Your buddy is still wrong. Whether we're talking about Assault Rifles (you and I are) or Assault Weapons (like these other knuckleheads), the FAL is obviously neither.
 
Meh. I'm over it.

As I posted above, the antis clearly won this particular battle over labels. Best just to accept it and have a beer, probably.

Your buddy is still wrong. Whether we're talking about Assault Rifles (you and I are) or Assault Weapons (like these other knuckleheads), the FAL is obviously neither.

Please keep going.
I love watching you foreign weapon collecting people purse-fight each other over subtle nuances the rest of the world doesn't care about.
Its not officially over until one of you pulls out a old service manual and translates it.

And I'm pretty sure F.A.L stand for Former Alabama Lincoln, named after Abe Lincoln, who used a mag-fed rifle in his campaign against the Pilgrims in 1936, which just so happens took place in Alabama.
 
Nobody in the FAL community thinks of the FAL as anything but a Battle Rifle, despite its chambering during the prototype stage.

Assault Rifles have always been in intermediate calibers. That's the main difference, and it goes hand in hand with the ranges at which they're meant to be used.

"Assault Rifle" is, indeed, a practical military term that has been heavily bastardized by people who want gun control.
While battle rifle has a well defined(ish) meaning now, I believe it actually originated on it's own online and had not come from something like a government or manufacturer.

I think forgotten weapons talked about that name and its origins recently.
 
While battle rifle has a well defined(ish) meaning now, I believe it actually originated on it's own online and had not come from something like a government or manufacturer.

I think forgotten weapons talked about that name and its origins recently.

I think that is correct. But "assault rifle" is a term I heard much earlier. I think the weasels who invented "assault weapon" were trying to get people thinking about assault rifles. My thinking is that simply saying "rifle" was enough until people started saying "assault rifle," at which point the internet decided they needed to differentiate between battle rifles and assault rifles.

As posted a few times above, "assault rifle" is pretty much what "Sturmgewehr" means. So that context has been around awhile.
 
Assault rifle? Full auto or burst fire rifle

Assault weapon? A fantasy, a creation by gun controller josh sugarman to make a gun sound scary.
 
i have yet had a rife assault me...or attempt to...at any time in my life. i've tried hard, used and abused a few rifles to what i thought was their breaking points. but no, nothing, they all showed good judgment and restraint, as well as loyalty, never anything even remotely close to an "assault."
I did, once, years ago.

My dad's friend had a Ruger No. 1 in .375 H&H Magnum.

The three of us were at the range, and I took a shot. WOW. "Thanks for those two shots with that gun....my first, and my last." [laugh]

I ended up inheriting it, and sold the bastid! [rofl]
 
Isn't the only difference between assault rifle and battle rifle is that assault rifles fire wimpier 'intermediate' rounds like 6.8, 5.56x45, 7.62x39, 5.45x39? Battle rifles shoot 'full' rifle rounds like 7.62x51, 7.92x57, 30-06, etc? Big boys who can handle the kick back and wanna shoot longer rangers pick the battle guns. HK G3 or an M14 over an M4 any day.
 
In that all language is made up? Sure.

Assault Rifle is a technical term that is used in the military.

In the 80s, it was used by manufacturers to market firearms.

At the end of the 80s/beginning of the 90s antis started to use it incorrectly.

Somewhere along the way, it was expanded to Assault Weapon

But the OP is asking about that original, functional definition.
Sort of like irregardless and intensive purposes
 
Have been having a discussion with a self-identified "expert" in small arms.

He is claiming the FN-FAL is an "Assault Rifle" because the original trial rifle used an intermediate cartridge before switching to a 7.62x51.

I tried to define an Assault Rifle in the same parlance from the US Army Technical Manual I found in the belongings of a relative published in the late 60's which simply said it was a lightweight rifle capable of automatic fire, chambered for an intermediate cartridge.

The individual I am talking with swears up and down that any infantry weapon system chambered for a rifle round counts as an assault rifle.

Thoughts? Am I that far off base here? Or is this "expert" talking out of his ass?
Neither. (he said diplomatically :) ) This "expert" is mistaken, but IMHO that's much less bad than "talking out of his ass." Mistakes can be fixed, but stupid is forever.

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert on small arms, just somebody with an interest in military firearms and the history thereof. That being said, this is where the term "assault rifle" came from, as best I've been able to piece it together:

By 1942 the German Wehrmacht high command had decided to equip all infantrymen with an automatic rifle, thus replacing both the obsolete Gewehr98 bolt-action rifle and the light machine guns that were carried as squad-level automatic weapons. (I suspect they also wanted to leapfrog the semiautomatic rifles then being encountered in the hands of American infantrymen, but that's just my own thought.) They issued a requirement for a lightweight rifle chambered to fire a new cartridge that was more powerful than a submachine gun but less powerful than a standard rifle cartridge, because previous experience had shown that a handheld weapon firing a rifle cartridge was difficult to control on automatic fire. In terms of its power and effectiveness, the new cartridge was in between the 9mm Luger and the standard Mauser 7.92x57mm rifle cartridge, hence it was an "intermediate" cartridge.

Two companies produced competing designs neither of which was really good enough, so they had Hugo Schmeisser work over the better one (from Walther), and he came up with a gun which was designated the Maschinepistole-44. It was called a machine pistol (submachine gun) rather than a rifle because by then Hitler was in full-nutcase mode and had forbade development of new rifles. However, when Hitler found out about the MP44, he liked it and dubbed it the "Sturmgewehr-44". (Go figure.) "Sturmgewehr" translates from German to English literally as "storm rifle," but for whatever reason it actually got translated as "assault rifle." The name stuck. So since WW2, any rifle that:
  • is designed for infantrymen to carry as their primary weapon;
  • fires an intermediate-power cartridge; AND
  • has a select-fire capability, so it can fire semiautomatic or full-automatic
is called an "assault rifle." By contrast, infantry rifles that fire a full-power rifle cartridge are known as "battle rifles", even if they're capable of automatic fire like the M14.

[shrug] Maybe I've got it right, maybe I don't, but that's the best explanation I've been able to find. In view of this, my own opinion would be that the FAL is a battle rifle, not an assault rifle, because it fires the NATO-standard 7.62x51mm NATO rifle cartridge, not an intermediate cartridge.
 
Have been having a discussion with a self-identified "expert" in small arms.

He is claiming the FN-FAL is an "Assault Rifle" because the original trial rifle used an intermediate cartridge before switching to a 7.62x51.

I tried to define an Assault Rifle in the same parlance from the US Army Technical Manual I found in the belongings of a relative published in the late 60's which simply said it was a lightweight rifle capable of automatic fire, chambered for an intermediate cartridge.

The individual I am talking with swears up and down that any infantry weapon system chambered for a rifle round counts as an assault rifle.

Thoughts? Am I that far off base here? Or is this "expert" talking out of his ass?
Assault rifles go along with assault knives, assault bricks and assault baseball bats. Once you assault someone with it - it becomes a weapon of mass destruction and needs to be banned from existence by all the god fearing good peoples in the name of being a good little bunnies.
 
And don’t forget the dangerous assault ammo, as no one gave no one no rights specifically to bear any ammunition to shoot them damn guns.
Ban it, baby!
 
None of this is what he's talking about.
it is as none of that talk means anything. all that talk serves a single purpose - to demonize an item, in order to ban it. all the subsequent logic and definitions and deliberations do not interest no one. assault = ban, and it is all what matters. so name all you can as assault, and 'roads open toward success'.

and all those domestic terrorists typing assault shit on assault keyboards are no better.
 
it is as none of that talk means anything. all that talk serves a single purpose - to demonize an item, in order to ban it. all the subsequent logic and definitions and deliberations do not interest no one. assault = ban, and it is all what matters. so name all you can as assault, and 'roads open toward success'.

and all those domestic terrorists typing assault shit on assault keyboards are no better.
That's not what he's taking about.

He's talking about the technical definition, used by military tactician to distinguish among available tools

You're talking about political terms.

These are not the same conversation.
 
That's not what he's taking about.

He's talking about the technical definition, used by military tactician to distinguish among available tools

You're talking about political terms.

These are not the same conversation.
Military does not have different definitions for service weapons issued to conscripts during assaults or retreats. A rifle is a rifle. A handgun is a handgun.
Rifle can be either automatic or semiautomatic, that is a technical term. ‘Assault’ is a bullshit invented and used by politicians only.
 
Military does not have different definitions for service weapons issued to conscripts during assaults or retreats. A rifle is a rifle. A handgun is a handgun.
Rifle can be either automatic or semiautomatic, that is a technical term. ‘Assault’ is a bullshit invented and used by politicians only.
Read the discussion in this thread. You're missing the point.
 
Military does not have different definitions for service weapons issued to conscripts during assaults or retreats. A rifle is a rifle. A handgun is a handgun.
Rifle can be either automatic or semiautomatic, that is a technical term. ‘Assault’ is a bullshit invented and used by politicians only.
Don't they though?

BAR
DMR
Assault Rifle
Carbine
PDW
Air Crew Survival Rifle
If, as you say a "rifle is a rifle" then kindly explain why there are terms for the Browning Automatic Rifle, Designated Marksman Rifle, Assault Rifle, Carbine Length Rifle, Personal Defensive Weapon, Air Crew Survival Rifle
 
Don't they though?

BAR
DMR
Assault Rifle
Carbine
PDW
Air Crew Survival Rifle
If, as you say a "rifle is a rifle" then kindly explain why there are terms for the Browning Automatic Rifle, Designated Marksman Rifle, Assault Rifle, Carbine Length Rifle, Personal Defensive Weapon, Air Crew Survival Rifle

The military can't get out of it's own way with what it calls guns, I mean weapons. [rofl]

The term "long gun" or "long rifle" is a completely useless term(s) that get used a lot. And they are also used a lot to describe things like the M4 which as a 14.5 inch barrel. In terms of guns being long, that isnt really one of them. But they still use those mindless expressions. If I had to guess most people in the military wouldn't know what PDW stands for and the people who do would probably only know due to video games - theyre quite rare and in reality they probably shouldn't be for things like armor/helicopter crews, etc.

interestingly the only time in my era where the military tried to make a rifle for an armored vehicle was the M231 which is something of a freakshow gun that only the military would come up with and put into service. That thing is in a league of it's own in terms of what the F it actually is. "Mistake" is probably the best category for that one [rofl]

Now were seeing another weird naming situation with the M250 being considered a light machine gun. I mean... it's literally pretty light in weight. But I wouldnt consider .277 Fury to be a round a "light machine gun" would fire (its round has about as much energy as the M240's 7.62x51 which isnt a light machine gun). But then there's the traditional definition of a LMG which is it's used by one person. But when you look at something like the SAW is the gunner really carrying all that ammo and the spare barrel and shit by himself? Because if he is boy is he going to be slow. So even the small LMGs would reasonably need 2 people to carry all the shit around it needs. Don't get me wrong, the M249 is a light machine gun, but I'd consider it that because it's round size and its weight, not the fairy tale that it's a one man gun - because it really shouldn't be.

endless bickering can go on with what stuffs called/classified [rofl]
 
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