Weapon Type: Assault Rifle Manufacturer: Bereiter Arms Operation: Gas operated, semi-or full automatic Weight (w/o magazine): 3.5 kg Weight (20-round magazine): .6 kg (Flechettes:.5 kg) Weight (50-round magazine): 1 kg (Flechettes: .8 kg) Weight (100-round casette): 1.8 kg (Flecheftes: 1.5 kg) Length: 95 cm Caliber: 10 mm Type of Fire: Selective: single shot, burst, or full-auto Rate of Fire: 730 rpm Magazine: 20- or 50-round magazine; 1 00-round cassefte Reload Time: 10 seconds Effective Ranges Full auto/single shot or burst/flechettes: Short: 25/40/20 m Medium: 50/90/40 m Long: 120/160/60 m Weapon Reliability: 91 % Base Cost: Cb 225 Reload Cost: (20-round magazine): Cb 4 (50-round magazine): Cb 10 (100-round cassette): Cb 20 (Flechettes): Base cost x 1.5 Notes Bereiter Arms' assault rifle offers several innovations in assault rifle design but suffers from what one critic called an "unfortunate tendency to try to be too much of a good thing." The receiver group is designed to fire from either a box magazine or a 100-round, auto-feed cassette. The cassette, while an interesting idea, suffers from frequent feed jams, especially under adverse conditions, and is also difficult and time-consuming to reload. The weapon can also take 10-mm cartridges loaded with 1 mm flechettes, slivers of metal some 3 cm long with tiny fins designed to spray from the AR's barrel like shotgun pellets, but then stabilize and fly in a tight pattern to the target. Flechettes have limited range and low penetration values, but they are capable of doing tremendous damage to unarmored targets. Critics point out that most infantrymen on today's battlefields wear combat armor, and that flechettes are therefore relatively useless. Supporters of the round insist that there are numerous specialized functions in which flechettes are ideal, such as security, counter-insurgency, and crowd control. The AR90's chief disadvantage is its complex design, which leaves it prone to jams and malfunction. It is particularly susceptible to dirty environments and has a somewhat exaggerated reputation for jamming whenever the firer forgets to wash his hands. The weapon features a built-in variable zoom telescopic sight, and modular units which convert it into a 112 cm sniper's rifle, a 70 cm submachine gun, or a 105 cm light machine gun. The Model AR90C Short is a carbine version identical to the assault rifle, but with a somewhat shorter range. 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