What in the Name of Hell IS an Assault Rifle Anyway? Part 1 – Origins
Posted By Randy on January 21, 2013
In our ongoing quest to disinfect the world of misused, and sometimes even meaningless, firearms terminology, today I'm going to focus on one that's particularly topical at the moment if the combined brain trust of news media and facebook are any indication. That most dreaded thing in existence today (besides "Pit Bull type" Dogs) – the ASSAULT RIFLE. As with the "Pit Bull type" Dog, the definition of "assault rifle", or by extension the "assault weapon", is confused in the minds of the public because there are three flavours of each:
The actual historically documented item;
The government generated "legal" definition, if there is one; and
The interpretation of item 2 that gets reported by the media, as well as other sources that may not actually be all that interested in Facts.
We have the first because of what actually happened in history. The second came into existence because governments need to come up with legal definitions of things before they can write laws intended to regulate or ban them. The third exists because fear sells newspapers – it's not for nothing that the term, "If it bleeds, it leads," came into use. Today we're going to limit our discussion to item 1 – the actual historically documented implement that is, without even a smidgin of doubt or ambiguity, a bona fide assault rifle. We can thank World War II era German weapon designers for the object and Adolf Hitler for its name.
To begin, here's a little illustrative historical anecdote courtesy of the very authoritative and highly recommended Military Small Arms of the 20th Century by Ian V. Hogg and John S. Weeks:
World Way II concentrated minds wonderfully, and in Germany an idea which had been germinating since about 1936 suddenly began to take shape. A number of officers who had served in World War I had observed that rifle shooting at ranges over about 400-500 meters was rare; moreover, it was difficult for the soldier to even see a target at that range, now that soldiers were wearing drab clothing and employing camouflage. So why have rifles and cartridges capable of 2000 meters range? Why not have a shorter, less powerful, cartridge capable of being effective up to about 600 meters? This meant a smaller and lighter rifle, since it would not be so highly stressed, less recoil on the man's shoulder, light ammunition so that he could carry more … there were more advantages every time you stopped to think about it. And, of course, it was proposed in 7mm caliber. And, of course,the German army threw it out straight away, pointing to all the millions of 7.92 x 57mm cartridges lying in their ammunition depots. So the designers compromised and designed a short cartridge in 7.92mm caliber, so that existing machinery could be used for manufacturing most of it.
The object in view was a selective fire automatic rifle, by which is meant one which could fire single shots as a self-loader or could fire automatic bursts as a species of light machine gun. The Germans were already trying to do this in 7.92mm caliber, and it was proving to be a difficult task (though one at which they eventually succeeded, against all odds) and the light cartridge enabled them to succeed with this design very rapidly. The result became the "Sturmgewehr", or Assault Rifle, and it was such a formidably effective weapon that it had every rifle designer in the world sharpening his pencil once the war was over.
Lest some of the technical references in that passage be confusing, let's recap in brief. Military organizations are notoriously reluctant to embrace change for a variety of reasons, not least of which is a heavy investment in equipment found essential in fighting the last war on the books. In war time, mobilization of armies demands getting rifles into the hands of troops as quickly as possible, and efficiency is greatest if this can be done using existing stockpiles, or new weapons built on existing tooling. In peace time, nobody wants to talk about spending money on developing and testing any weapons, period. If a new concept in weaponry is to enjoy a snowball's chance in Hell of being considered for official adoption, its designers will be well advised to build it to use the standard service rifle round. Hence the negative reaction to adding another calibre of ammunition to the supply stream, and the smart move to design an "intermediate" rifle round that differed from the staple service round primarily only in case length and powder charge.
As it turned out, while WWII was the crucible that gave us the concept, and the reality, of the assault rifle, most military rifles issued to the armies fighting in it were chambered for the same kind of full power, long range, hard hitting ammunition used in the previous War to End All Wars. Most combatants involved equipped their armies with bolt action; i. e. manually operated; rifles, with the Unites States being rather unique in its general issue of the self-loading, semi-automatic; M1 Garand. The Garand fired the standard .30-06 U. S. service rifle round from an internal, non-removable, 8 round magazine. It was, like most other service rifles of its time, rather heavy which along with its semi-automatic action made a perfect envelope from which to accurately fire the stout recoiling .30-06. This is a matter of Physics. For a given rifle round fired from two different rifles, the level of recoil perceived by the shooter – the perceived recoil – will be greatest with the lightest rifle. In addition, unlike with a manually operated rifle employing a bolt action, in which the recoiling cartridge case impinges directly on a fixed bolt face which is physically locked into the breech during firing, the semi-automatic action of the Garand rifle taps off some of the gases that fire the bullet to operate a piston inside a cylinder to cycle the bolt after every shot. This extracts the spent cartridge case, ejects it, and loads a new round from the magazine, and in so doing the process has the effect of spreading the perception of recoil over a longer period of time – hence perceived recoil is less.
A full powered rifle cartridge must needs be fired from a rifle that is robust enough to survive repeated firings over long periods of time without disintegrating or experiencing breakage of critical parts. This is why military rifles had historically been made from high grade steel that is formed by milling and forging. These are time consuming processes that make their manufacture an expensive enterprise. As stated in the excerpt from Military Small Arms of the 20th Century cited above, less powerful ammunition can be safely and effectively fired from weapons that are lighter in weight, offering cost saving options in their manufacture.
Walther Maschinenkarabiner 42W (click the image to enlarge)
Enter the Walther company's Maschinenkarabiner 42(W) – called at the time a "machine carbine". A carbine is the term used to describe a compact rifle – something that was seeing increased development even in traditional rifle designs as armies moved more heavily toward transporting troops by vehicle and aircraft where space was at a premium. The MKb42(W) fired an intermediate cartridge, and was capable of selective fire – both semi-automatic and fully automatic fire – chosen by means of a selector switch. This was one of the first rifle designs to be crafted predominantly from stamped, pressed, riveted, and welded sheet steel instead of machining and forging, and it was intended to be manufactured in the simplest manner possible. Attractive alternatives for a resource depleted and embattled Germany.
The standard Commonwealth Lee Enfield No.4, Mk1 bolt action service rifle, a design still issued by the Canadian Army to Northern Rangers to this very day. (click the image to enlarge)
In the design, we can also see a set of characteristics that have since been incorporated into that of most, although not quite all, modern assault rifles – the straight alignment of the butt stock with the rest of the weapon, the pistol grip, and the elevated sights. A conventional rifle butt stock drops significantly below the center line of the barrel from the point where it attaches to the rifle to the point where it is held against the operator's shoulder, as is clearly illustrated by the photo to the right depicting the conventionally styled Lee Enfield No.4, Mk.1. The design of the stock has shaped into it a place to be gripped by the firing hand, something that would be awkward at best, to the preclusion of sound marksmanship, if the butt stock of the Lee Enfield were to be a straight back affair. The reason for the straight line design of the MKb42 once again lies in Physics.
Fire a Lee Enfield and the leverage of the recoil, coming as it does straight back along the axis of the barrel, but significantly above the level of the butt of the stock, will rotate the rifle upwards around a pivot point that lies at the spot where the butt of the stock rests against the shooter's shoulder. This will cause the rifle's muzzle to rise, and the sights to come slightly off the target. No matter though, because this effect will be easily compensated for by a good marksman, and the sights will be back on target before he is finished cycling the bolt for the next shot. If the Lee Enfield were to be capable of fully automatic fire however, the climb of the muzzle would still be ongoing as each succeeding shot was fired, leading to extreme loss of accuracy, wasted ammunition, and no small amount of punishment to the shooter.
Not so with the MKb42 in which the recoil of each and every shot is directed straight back along the full axis of the rifle. The pistol grip is a simple and elegant solution for holding the rifle, and the elevated sights are necessary because the raised cheek rest portion of the stock will bring the operator's eye above the level of sight plane that permits such a snuggled down firing hold on a rifle with a conventional stock, like the Lee Enfield.
The first rifle ever to bear the name "Assault Rifle", courtesy of Adolf Hitler himself. (click the image to enlarge)
The evolution of rifle design in Germany ultimately led to what is regarded as the Father of all modern assault rifles, and the first to bear the name – the Sturmgewehr 44. It's interesting to note that this rifle was first introduced under the name Maschinenpostole 44 (Machine Pistol 44), branding it with a title referencing the German term for what we call a "submachine" gun, a short range, fully automatic or selective fire, usually shoulder fired weapon that fires pistol ammunition. Adolf Hitler was much enamoured of the machine pistol, but had come out firmly against development of new rifles by this point in the war, and it was certain that he would have ordered a stoppage to its development had he known what was going on before he got to see it in action. Reports are that he liked what he saw, and bestowed upon it the title of Sturmgewehr – assault rifle – personally.
To quickly sum up, the assault rifle, as originally envisioned, is a light weight, compact, selective fire rifle that fires ammunition of intermediate power fed from a quickly changeable removable magazine. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, and a moving one even more so, I will close this piece with an excellent demonstration produced by Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons. Don't miss how well that straight line design works in taming that pesky recoil.
Next time we'll look at how we got from then to now as the foundation for discussing the government generated "legal" definition of "assault rifle" and "assault weapon".
Categories: A Call to Arms, About Beginnings, Alpha and Omega, Bush, Blade, Birch, Bludgeon, and Boomstick, Business As Usual, Lest We Forget, Public Service Announcements, Reality Stranger than Fiction
3 Responses to "What in the Name of Hell IS an Assault Rifle Anyway? Part 1 – Origins"
Troy Zwicker says:
someone who knows what they're talking about!
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