Rifles have been the basic infantry arm since the 19th Century. If one includes the smoothbore muskets of previous centuries under the generic term "rifle," this weapon has been an important part of infantry arsenals for at least 1500 years. The word rifle, of course, was originally coined to decribe a particular type of firearm, one with spiral grooves or "rifles" cut into the barrel lining to give the bullet a stabilizing spin, improving accuracy and range. Smoothbore weapons-whether the muskets of ancient days or the shotguns, needle guns, or the auto-stabilized gyrojet "rifles" of today are not, properly speaking, true rifles. Nonetheless, the term has come to represent a broad class of weapon which has been the infantry's principal combat weapon since the middle of the Second Millenium. In the mid-20th century, military rifles took a new and unexpected direction in their de velopment, one which reflected the rapid pace of technological change and innovation in those days. The "assault rifle" came to represent the epitome of personal infantry combat weapons, a weapon capable of semi- or full-automatic fire, providing great accuracy overlong ranges. The full-autocapabilitygave these rifles the advantages of submachine guns in providing fire suppression and covering fire; their size and the power of the rounds gave them accuracy, range, and superb penetration. Fire accuracy with full auto fire was much less than for single-shot fire, butgreater than the accuracy possible with shorter, lighter SMGs. Further, the rounds were more powerful, travelled faster, and caused more damage than typical SMG pistol-caliber ammo. These factors together combined to make the assault rifle the principal weapon of the infantryman throughout the Age of War. Even the personal, man-portable laser and particle weapons developed during the Star League era did not replace assault rifles in this capacity, for energy weapons proved to be bulky, heavy, much more expensive to manufacture, and less reliable under adverse conditions, and they required far more training and maintenance than did conventional assault rifles. As manufacturing centers and industrial facilities continue to suffer the ravages of war, it sems likely that this assessment will be even more valid in the future. Assault rifles are, relatively speaking, easy to manufacture and to maintain, their ammunition is abundant and simple to produce. The same cannot be said of laser pistols or man-portable particle guns. This issue of Battle Technology takes a close look at a few of the more well-known modem intantryassault rifles. Two of them, the '03 Gallo and the Thomas GPR are not, strictly speaking, assault rifles, but are included because they are frequently encountered on today's battlefields. Assault Rifles Introduction Federated Long Rifle Federated Zeus Heavy Rifle Gallo Model 3003 "KRT AR" Bereiter Arms Model AR90 Thomas GPR Back to BattleTechnology 3 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com