Why are these things called 'assault' rifles?

>ArmaLite Rifle
Stop this

AR stands just for ArmaLite
there is the AR 17, which is a shotgun

But wouldn't ArmaLite be AL instead of AR? My head's starting to hurt.

ARmalite

say it like a pirate

Armalite Rifle, I always thought it was. As for the origin of the term "assault rifle," thank Hitler for Sturmghwere, literally "storm rifle," but storm as in the synonym for attack or assault, as in "storm the walls."

>WARNING MAXIMUM AUSTISM
The term for any weapon the fired a rifle cartridge and was automatic was a automatic rifle, compared to submachine guns, which fired pistol cartridges.

Now enter Autist Hitler, who drank the Kool Aid about superweapons being a thing, and enter the Mkb 42, which was the first TRUE (Fedorov was a Automatic Rifle) intermediate cartridge select fire rifle. Now Hitler heard about this and shitcanned it, due to him believing the "800M rifleman" myth and wanting a not-M1 (and fucking that program over through not allowing barrel porting).

Now the small arms developers stuck their necks WAY OUT (cause disobeying Hitler was a BLAMable offence) and continued development anyway.

The weapon was renamed MP43 to inflate SMG production figures and to cover it up. When the news came out Hitler was pissed, but hearing such overwhelming praise about the weapon decided to view a demonstration.

Hitler was so impressed he named the weapon "storm rifle" (as to "storm" a enemy position) to boost morale and act as propaganda.

Translated by the British as "Assault Rifle" the designation by Western military experts stuck, but the Soviets continued to refer to the AK47 is a "automatic rifle".

Fpbp

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You forgot about the Winchester Model 1907 Select-Fire, which was used by the French in WWI and fired a cartridge equivalent to 7.62x39 in muzzle energy. Also 6.5mm Arisaka could be considered an intermediate cartridge at the time going by muzzle energy, as it was only producing ~1960 ft-lbs at the muzzle when the majority of frontline military cartridges were producing ~2700 ft-lbs to 4000 ft-lbs at the muzzle.

Isn't the word 'sturm' used quite heavily in german to name offensive weapons, i.e sturmpistole grenade launcher, sturmgeschütz and sturmkanone (StuG/StuK) assault guns etc, sturmgewehr seems to fall in line with that.

The english word is quite arbitrary but so is 'battle rifle' as well for example, and the term assault rifle being controversial or notorious is a recent liberal invention with 'assault weapons'. It's probably noteworthy that the US army does field some assault weapons all of which are recoilless rifles or rocket launchers

its allways those damned european-style socialists

>Winchester
More a beefed up pistol round, as it was straight walled and used a conical rather than a Spitzer bullet.
>6.5 Arisaka
It's a full power load, not intermediate.

No? ARmalite. AR. Simple.

.351SL is squarely in intermediate cartridge territory in terms of muzzle energy.

6.5mm Arisaka is an intermediate round compared to other rifle rounds, especially since it's producing on average 1000-2000 ft-lbs less muzzle energy than them

Because you can pepper the target with them.

Literally Hitler.

The Mp44, the first mass fielded assault rifle, was rechristened "Sturmgewehr" by Adolf Hitler, literally translated, it means "Storm Rifle", as in a rifle for storming your enemies with.
In English, it's generally translated to Assault Rifle instead, a rifle for assaulting enemy positions with.

The proper definition of an assault rifle is;
>Intermediate Caliber: generally capable of effectively reaching to 300-400yds easy, it may reach longer, but terminal ballistics are much weaker at long distances like these, and infantry almost never engage in firefights this far out.
>Full-Auto, or Select Fire: the rifle has to be capable of burst or full-auto fire. It may be full-auto only, or burst only, or it might be selectable between semi and full, semi and burst, or sometimes even selectable between semi, burst and full.
>Detachable Magazines; self-explanatory, a magazine which isn't affixed to the gun, and the gun being reloaded by switching the magazines. Most rifles use a 20 or 30 round box magazine, double stacked, two position feed. However, magazines in all sorts of capacities exist, tiny 3 round magazines, short 10 round magazines, extended 40 round magazines, and even 150 round double drums. 20 and 30 are most commonly used, 10 and lower is generally commercial market magazines for jurisdictions and purposes that require lower capacities

Media regularly confuses this, either by ignorance or by malice; a rifle that can only fire in semi-auto is NOT an assault rifle. Western militaries generally has in doctrine to use their assault rifles in semi-auto 99% of the time, but their rifles are all genuine assault rifles capable of burst or full-auto fire for when it's relevant. The M16A2 doesn't stop being an assault rifle just because it mostly used on semi, and a Colt HBar Sporter doesn't become an assault rifle just because it shares most parts and functions with an M16A2.
Likewise, the SKS isn't an assault rifle on any level.

Energy does not equil intermediate, by that logic .44Mag and .50AE are rifle rounds.
6.5x50mm was downloaded as to not damage the machine guns Japan had at the time, instead of building better guns the Japanese made completely new ammo and guns.
The first true "intermediate" caliber would have been the French 8x35mm for the Ribyrolles 1918, but it never entered production.

The British called some subguns 'machine carbines' at times as well.
Given also that an assault rifle can be a full length rifle, blanket calling them carbines seem quaint.

Doesn't matter.

The Fedorov was generally employed as an automatic rifle, a support weapon, not an infantry rifle, and the 6.5mm Arisaka was initially fielded for a bolt-action infantry rifle.
It can ostensibly be looked at as an assault rifle, and be used as one sort of, but it wasn't in its time.

Likewise, the US M2 Carbine can be sort of looked at as an assault rifle; select fire, detachable mags, and a cartridge meant to bridge the gap between a pistol and a rifle, but I don't think it counts, as it lacks a lot in range, and in purpose the M1 and M2 were more like the modern idea of a PDW, using a small high velocity rifle cartridge and being intended for rear echelon units, not for frontline infantry.

You are exactly right, previous posters are retards.

>by that logic .44Mag and .50AE are rifle rounds.
They were designed for handguns, so no. By that logic, lower powered rifle cartridges are not rifle cartridges. Energy is a determining factor in what makes a cartridge intermediate vs full power.

No, he's wrong. AR stands for Armalite.

Literally Hitler.

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Except that all sides had assault rifle prototypes predating the Memegewehr Endofwar

>(((Politicians)))

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True, many had some work put in here and there to develop intermediate fighting rifles, but the Gnatzees were the first to mass produce and mass field them.

Often there was that roadbump of "But what if the soldiers get into a firefight at a kilometer? MUH INDIVIDUAL MARKSMANSHIP!", America and Russia were particularly stubborn on that point, but cost and infrastructure was was another issue, and one that was actually real, unlike "Muh raaange!"
America was actually fairly close to adopting to .276 Pedersen when they adopted the M1, a sort of intermediate-ish cartridge. It looked extremely good on paper, and was a great performer, weighing and recoiling less than .30-06, but having comparable range external ballistics.
General McArthur put his foot down though. He recognized that the .276 might be really good, but that the US Army had quite limited funds, that they had the stockpiles and facilities for .30-06 already, that sharing this cartridge between all rifles and machineguns was advantageous, so by selecting the .276 makes them lose that, unless they selected new machineguns and sniper's/marksmen's rifles in this caliber, which they could not afford back then.

For many countries, this was a serious reality, politics and fuddlore is one thing, but fact of the matter was that by WW2, most countries had been making bolt-action rifles for a long time, having become good at doing this in good time and at lower cost.
Now all these people were getting into (another) really huge and expensive clusterfuck war, and just changing your entire fleet of service rifles during is logistically prohibitive.
Thus, you have Gnatzee Germany, a country with an unfathomably bad grip on and judgement on the subject of logistics, and they dared to make this impressive technological leap at a really bad time.
The Sturmgewehr was impressive in concept, and where properly implemented, it was an extremely useful rifle, but it was held back strongly by ammunition shortages.

The Sturmgewehr never got to see its full potential, and as it was manufactured, it was less than perfect, but despite the bad timing, Germany dared to put it in use, and the times it got to shine, the Sturmgewehr REALLY made impressions, both on the people who got to use them, and on the people who were on the receiving end, either facing it in combat or reviewing captured examples.

It was clearly the future for infantry fighting rifles, the Germans proved that if anything.

The fuck you on about?
Storm Rifle sounds badass.

>anyone talking about the weapon today literally calls it by name, sturmgewehr

its not meant to be spoken in english, or have opinions formed around how it would be spoken in english

I like Assault Rifle, it feels adjacent to Battle Rifle, which is a totally badass term.

Hitler wasn't too smart when it came to making military strategy

"Battle Rifle" is a made up term to disguise that time the US cucked NATO

So, WW2 ends and the Brits are ready to build their own sturmgewehr, the EM2, chambered in the intermediate cartridge .280 British. Merka says no and insists on a full size rifle round that all of NATO has to use (.308). So, rest of NATO begrudgingly agrees under the condition that the US buy their rifles from the UK (the inch-pattern FAL).

Then, after .308 is the standard for NATO rifles, the US says "haha fgts" and adopts the M14 as their rifle instead of buying FALs.

Then the US gets into Nam, meets the AK47 and realizes that assault rifles are actually a good idea after all! So they demand that NATO standardize the .223 round for their new M16. NATO complains about this ridiculous fuckery, and the US says "no no no, we weren't wrong all along! .308 is for the 'battle rifles' and .223 is for the 'assault rifles'." This is the origin of the term. (Then, the US retires all their M14s from general service and everyone else follows suit)

Well yes, used adjacent to battle rifle, it fits better ill give ya that.

The US cucking NATO is like fucking your own wife.

it's like fucking your ex-wife after the divorce

The EM2 was fucking dogshit, and the .280 British is a glorified .308 for all that it matters, but yeah, that's kind of how it went.

Still, I like the term Battle Rifle as a descriptor for a full powered and self-loading infantry rifle. This particular use of the term is relatively new, starting somewhere in the 80's, but I think it's a cool way to distinguish this class of rifles from true assault rifles, and those need to be intermediate.

The Eternal G*rman is to blame, as usual.

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I just get annoyed when people go back and use the term to talk about, like, the Garand.

Like, you want to call the SCAR-H a "battle rifle", sure, it's even in the brochure. The M14 wasn't called one until it was in service for a couple decades but whatever. But the Garand and its contemporaries were just "rifles".

Slightly wrong. Actually what they wanted was .270 British, which was dimensionally very similar to 7.62x39mm, and was a true intermediate. .280 British and the follow-on .280-30 was a desperate attempt to appease the US, which failed anyway because hurr-durr muh thurdy caliburr.

"Battle Rifle" as far as I'm aware, is a term made up by Springfield Armory (the company) to sell M1As to the kind of retards who buy M1As.

Yeah Marx totally "unleashed" the very real and tangible noun that "communism" is and it killed shitload of people much in the way you fire a howitzer.

Read a fucking book dipshit. Even if you disagree with the shit, it makes you look like less of a reactionary.

>getting triggered by a meme
lmao at commies

What’s her name Jow Forums?

I don't think it's wrong to call the M1 a battle rifle. Also the phrase is probably older than Springfield marketing.

Shut the fuck up, pinko.

Why, European-style Socialists, of course, my fair goyi- errr... man!

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If you don't think that the STG being what it's named after is true, go read some books on cartridges and reloading from the 50s. All of the cartridges like .308 1.5" are labelled as assault rifle cartridges and compared to the STG cartridge. It was already a commonly accepted term only 10 years after the war, and has persisted to this day.