Okay, let’s see if I’ve got this straight.
An AK-47 and M-15/16 are purportedly “assault rifles.” A .50 “machine gun” is an, um, machine gun. A SAW (squad automatic weapon) is a light machine gun, I suppose. An M1 carbine is neither, I was recently told.
What distinguishes one category from the other? All of the above can, if modified, be made to fire in a fully automatic mode. These terms and divisions strike me as arbitrary and ill-defined.
What constitutes an “assault rifle”?
Please explain.
Generally speaking, an assault rifle is a personal weapon that is, in fact, a rifle, and that has automatic or semi-automatic fire, and carries a magazine. An M-16, AK-47 or AK-74, FN-FAL, etc. are all assault rifles.
A machine gun is a weapon that is capable of holding very large box magazines or firing belt ammunition, or some other loading mechanism that allows many rounds to be fired without reloading. Machine guns are generally larger than rifles and normally are either mounted on a vehicle or platform, or can have their own built-in mounting devices, such as a bipod. SAWs, M-60s, and the famed German MG-43 are “machine guns.” Machine guns ALWAYS have full automatic fire, whereas assault rifles sometimes do not. Actually, IIRC, the SAW doesn’t have have a single-shot option. The Canadian versions I fired didn’t; the only choices were “Safe” and “Full bore blast’em.”
The difference between an assault rifle and a machine gun is one of degree, not any one specific thing. Assault rifles are personal weapons with magazines usually around 20-50 rounds. Machine guns are larger weapons designed to provide supporting fire for a whole squad or more, usually holding more than 50 rounds.
Incidentally, I would argue than an M1 is an assualt rifle as far as I’m concerned, albiet a primitive one.
I just asked a gun-collector buddy of mine about this.
A machine gun is a gun, usually a rifle, where, if you hold down the trigger, the gun will continue to fire without you continuing to have to pull the trigger. It’s also (and more accurately called an “automatic” or “fully automatic” weapon)
The proper definition of an assault rifle is
The legal definition of an “assault weapon” means the following: is a semi-automatic rifle which has a detachable magazine and 2 or more of the following features:
A folding or telescoping stock
A pistol grip
A bayonet mount
A flash suppressor, or threads to attach one
A grenade launcher.
Cites from here. While the cite has an agenda, it’s defintions accurate.
In other words, guns that people who don’t know a pistol from a shot-gun think are scary looking.
Fenris
There are also ‘submachine guns’ like the Uzi, Hk-MP5, or the Ingram Mac-10. They are machine guns designed to fire handgun rounds in order to be controllable when operated by one person without a rest of some sort. A good example is the Thompson, with fired .45 caliber bullets.
Dredging up the recesses of my brain… Isn’t the technical difference that an assault rifle fires from a closed bolt and a ‘machine gun’ fires from an open bolt?
I’m no gun expert, but I’ll give it a try (then we can see how far off I am).
A machine gun is made to spew a copious number of rounds rapidly. It is too big to use effectively while holding it in one’s arms. Some of them require a crew of two for efficient use.
A submachine gun is made for one person to use while holding it. Its strong suit is firing in rapid succession. It’s not very good at distance shots. It has a smaller capacity before reloading than a machine gun.
Machine guns and submachine guns feed the bullets directly into the firing mechanism from a belt or drum.
An automatic rifle is designed for distance shots. Rounds are loaded into a magazine, and after each shot one moves into the chamber. Even though it may operate in a fully automatic mode, there’s more motion involved in getting each bullet into the chamber than with machine guns, so it’s doesn’t fire in as rapid a succession. The magazine holds a relatively small number of rounds.
An assault rifle is somewhat of a hybrid between a standard rifle and a submachine gun. It can be used for distance shots, but has greater magazine capacity and faster firing succession than a standard automatic rifle.
Okay, how many mistakes did I make?
By the way, my friend (who I was on the phone with) just pointed me to this page, which defines every class of firearm that I’ve ever heard of.
Just to make sure everyone’s clear on this, “assault weapon” is the legal term for “scary-looking weapns” that meets that weird set of criteria. It is NOT the same as “assault rifle”, which according to the above linked page are:
Fenris
As was mentioned before, the assault rifle has variable modes of fire. If you hold down the trigger on an MG, it will always continue to fire. With an assault rifle, such is not always the case. Also, assault rifles are always air-cooled. A good look at how machineguns work is here:
Click for the next page on it to see an animation on assault rifle workings.
A carbine is between a pistol and a rifle. It will usually hold four rounds, sometimes in a revolver form, and have a long barrel. A light rifle if you will.
I thought:
A submachine gun / machine pistol fires pistol ammunition.
A machine gun fires rifle ammunition.
An Assault rifle is an automatic with either a small calibre (eg M-16’s 5.56mm) or ammunition inbetween a pistol and rifle in length- (eg the AK47 7.62mm)
(But theres also “Assualt-rifle-light-machineguns”. An Assault rifle with a heavy barrel and a larger magazine.)
The Assault rifle developed because it was the best compromise for the modern battlefield.
-The Submachine gun doesnt have enough range.
-The very long range of a rifle is often not particularly useful.
-An automatic rifle firing full size rifle ammo will be heavy and have a hell of a lot of recoil.
By definition, assault rifles ALWAYS have automatic capability. As mentioned, the popular definition of “assault weapons” was made up by anti-gun lawmakers in an effort to ban “scary looking guns”.
The barrel of a carbine is longer than a pistol, but shorter than a rifle. IIRC it was originally used mainly by cavalry, the shorter barrel being easier for use on horseback (even if they generally dismounted to fire).
Formal definitions aside, the popular notion of an “assault rifle” is a semiautomatic or fully-automatic rifle with removable magazine and pistol grip. Such rifles have that “scary look” that frightens certain members of Congress.
When I think of an assault rifle, I usually picture an AK-47, H&K 93, or AR-15/M16. These rifles fire a fairly “light” round. It should also be mentioned there’s a special subclass of assault rifles called Main Battle Rifles (MBRs). These usually fire 7.62 X 51 (.308 Win). Common MBRs include the FAL, M-14/M1A[sup]1[/sup], AR-10, H&K 91, and Galil.
My favorite is the FAL. Mmmm… love that FAL.
[sup]1[/sup] [sub]M1A does not have pistol grip.[/sub]
I know that’s what Congress says, but that would literally mean that one model of the M-16 now in use in the U.S. military, which does not not full automatic fire - it has a three-round burst option, IIRC - isn’t an assault rifle. Isn’t that obviously a little dumb? The FN I use to use was an assault rifle, too, but it was just a semiauto.
Ketchup isn’t a vegetable just because Congress says so. There’s no hard and fast definitions here, we’re dealing in generalities. In terms of their purpose and role, the FN-FAL and M-16 are more or less the same, just with different capabilities.
Pretty good so far, one more thing I’d like to add.
Typically a machine gun is heavy enough to be difficult to be effectively carried as a personal weapon. With this added weight generally comes greater heat disappation. That is key to the big difference. Machine gun should have a much higher ** sustained rate of fire**. An M-60 should be able to easily take what would melt an assault rifle.
This leads to where the difference comes in my mind, how will it be employed. Even in an offensive role, true machine guns tend to get parked in good firing position and stay there, where asault rifles are designed to deliver fire from where ever a troop happens to be with it.
Though you complain about legislating “scary looking weapons,” Fenris, the definition you cite is incomplete. In fact, the federal statute you’re referring to identified approximately ten or so specific models as “assault rifles,” including the ever-popular AK-47, AR-15 (cousin to the M16), and the Uzi. The criteria you cite are only the backup definition, intended to catch the stuff that would invariably pop up if all Congress did was regulate those specific models. See 18 U.S.C. § 921 (I forget which subsection, but it’s way at the end of what is a very long statute indeed).
Incidentally, one of the more interesting stories circulating among the Canadian military at the time of the changeover from the FN/FAL 7.62mm rifle to the C7 assault rifle (a copy of the M16) was that a 7.62 was a “killing” round, while the relatively light 5.56 was only a “maiming” round. Maiming is actually preferable since a dead enemy soldier just lies there, while a wounded enemy soldier requires a helathy enemy soldier to carry him, the wounded soldier consumes enemy medical resources, and when returned to civilian life, a ex-soldier missing a limb has propaganda value.
On reflection, I think the people telling this story were overplaying it a bit, to quell complaints about the changeover from an effective FN FAL to the plasticized jam-prone C7. I’ve had too many jams on the ranges myself, under near-ideal conditions, to fully trust the C7.
“Automatic” as in “fully automatic” means that more than one round is fired for each single pull of the trigger. So a rifle capable of three-round bursts is by definition “automatic” and therefore an assalt rifle.
If the FAL is not capable of automatic fire, then it is not an assault rifle. However there may be an exception. Some assault rifles have their automatic capabilities removed. I believe this was the case with some (or even most) FAL-type rifles as well as most M-14s. In these cases, the semi-auto is a converted auto. Since it started out life as being capable of automatic fire, it may be classified as an assault rifle (unlike an AR-15, HK-91, etc. which was not capable of automatic fire unless modified). I don’t know how the military would consider an assault rifle converted to fire only semi-automatically, so I’ll have to stand by the official definition that requires auto capability.
The fact remains, Minty, that these weapons are being regulated based upon their physical appearance rather than less subjective criteria. They look scary, therefore they must be more dangerous. If that applied in all areas of life then large dogs, sushi, and Vin Deisel would all be strictly regulated as well, because they’re all kinda scary-looking. Granted, nobody’s ever used Vin Deisel in the commission of a crime, but just wait…I mean, the guy looks mean!
Seriously, unless you’ve illegally modified it (or aquired it illegally) or you happen to have a federal permit, you can’t get an assault rifle that fires in full-automatic mode in the US. In semi-auto mode, they’re less dangerous than a higher-caliber semi-auto hunting rifle, but hunting rifles don’t look as scary.
I’d be much more afraid of a sniper on a rooftop with a high-powered deer rifle (such as Charles Whitman on the UT tower back in the '60s) than some idiot with an (unmodified civilian version of an) AK-47 who thinks he’s Rambo. I’m more likely to survive being perforated by Rambo than by Whitman owing to the performance of their weapons and ammunition.
Now, somebody’s bound to point out that I said the Rambo-impersonator would have an unmodified AK-47. That’s right, because that’s what’s being restricted under the legislation. If the weapon is illegally modified to fire in a full-automatic mode, then he’s alread broken several federal laws that were in place before this “assault weapon” hysteria took hold (including the National Firearms Act of 1934, as mentioned by Fenris). If somebody’s already breaking multiple laws, then adding another law for them to break won’t be a big deal for them.
Besides, any normal semi-automatic weapon can be modified (or malfunction) to fire fully automatically. My brother-in-law had a pistol that malfunctioned while he was using it, and suddenly his magazine was emptied on a single trigger pull. It wasn’t an “assault weapon”, just an old pistol with some worn parts.
So, back to the OP -
Machine Gun = heavy weapon, high rate of fire, usually belt-fed, not real portable, often permanently mounted on a vehicle or structure.
Submachine Gun = high rate of fire, rifle or carbine sized, fully automatic. Very effective in close quarters, not incredibly accurate.
Assault Rifle = selective fire (can be semi-auto or full-auto, depending on user preference and the flick of a switch), magazine-fed, lightweight, usually rifle or carbine sized. Effective in close quarters, also accurate enough for moderate distance shooting.
Early model Uzi’s were definitely submachine guns. Later models introduced selective fire, and it became a very compact assault rifle.
I dunno where Taggert got his carbine definition - the M1 Carbine is not limited to a four-round capacity (in fact, it uses 15 and 30 round magazines), and neither is the carbine version of the Winchester 1876 (15 round tubular magazine built in under the barrel). “Carbine” refers to the length of the weapon, being somewhat shorter than a traditional rifle. The M-4 Carbine is a short-barrelled version of the M-16 with a telescoping stock currently in use with our military, and it uses the same magazines as its big brother.
Crafter_Man, the Galil is a 5.56 weapon. There’s a very rare sniper varient that fires 7.62 cal. rounds, but only in semi-auto.
As for the OP, think of it as a Q&A:
Does it fire rifle-caliber ammo, with full (or partiel) auto capablility? Then it’s either an AR or machine gun.
Is it belt fed? Then it’s a machine gun.
Is it over 7.62 caliber? Then it’s a machine gun.
Does it way more than 5kg? Then it’s a machine gun.
Does it have an open breech, or any other mechanism besides a closed breach? Then it’s a machine gun.
Does it have a heavy barrel designed for continuous firing? Then it’s a machine gun.
Those are general guidelines - there probably are exceptions to them all. Note that an integral bipod, detachable barrel or foldable stock mean nothing, as they appear in both machine guns and ARs.