The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova, is an assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, it is the originating firearm of the Kalashnikov family of rifles. After more than seven decades since its creation, the AK-47 model and its variants remain one of the most popular and widely used firearms in the world.
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automatic firearm with notably less firepower than a machine gun. As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns.
The IMI Galil is a family of Israeli-made automatic rifles chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×51mm NATO cartridges. Originally designed by Yisrael Galili and Yakov Lior in the late 1960s, the Galil was first produced by the state-owned Israel Military Industries and is now exported by the privatized Israel Weapon Industries.
The AK-74 is an assault rifle designed by small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1974 as a successor to the AKM. While primarily associated with the Soviet Union, it has been used by many countries since the 1970s. It is chambered for the 5.45×39mm cartridge, which replaced the 7.62×39mm cartridge of Kalashnikov's earlier automatic weapons for the Soviet Armed Forces.
The MP 40 is a submachine gun chambered for the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge. It was developed in Nazi Germany and used extensively by the Axis powers during World War II.
The FG 42 is a selective-fire 7.92×57mm Mauser automatic rifle produced in Nazi Germany during World War II. The weapon was developed specifically for the use of the Fallschirmjäger airborne infantry in 1942 and was used in very limited numbers until the end of the war.
Mauser, originally the Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik, was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols was produced beginning in the 1870s for the German armed forces. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mauser designs were also exported and licensed to many countries, which adopted them as military and civilian sporting firearms. The Gewehr 98 in particular was widely adopted and copied, and it is the foundation of many of today's sporting bolt-action rifles.
The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It became the standard-issue rifle for the U.S. military in 1957, replacing the M1 Garand rifle in service with the U.S. Army by 1958 and the U.S. Marine Corps by 1965; deliveries of service rifles to the U.S. Army began in 1959. The M14 was used by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps for Basic and Advanced Individual Training from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.
The Makarov pistol or PM is a Soviet semi-automatic pistol. Under the project leadership of Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov, it became the Soviet Union's standard military and Militsiya side arm in 1951.
The PP-19 Bizon is a 9×18mm Makarov submachine gun developed in 1993 by the Russian company Izhmash. The Bizon was designed by a team of engineers headed by Victor Kalashnikov and including Alexei Dragunov.
The PK is a belt-fed general-purpose machine gun, chambered for the 7.62×54mmR rimmed cartridge.
The RPK, sometimes retroactively termed the RPK-47, is a Soviet 7.62×39mm light machine gun that was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the early 1960s, in parallel with the AKM assault rifle. It was created to standardize the small arms inventory of the Soviet Army, where it replaced the 7.62×39mm RPD machine gun. The RPK continues to be used by the military of the post-Soviet states and certain African and Asian nations. The RPK is also manufactured in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia.
The MP 18 is a German submachine gun designed and manufactured by Bergmann Waffenfabrik. Introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army during World War I, the MP 18 was intended for use by the Sturmtruppen, assault groups specialized in trench combat, as a short-range offensive weapon that would provide individual soldiers with increased firepower over a pistol.
The Type 97 automatic cannon is a 20-millimeter (0.79 in) Japanese anti-tank rifle that began development in the 1930s. It was used by the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts and the Pacific War. Improvements in armour thicknesses on tanks rendered the Type 97 obsolete by about 1942. This weapon was not related to the Type 97 heavy tank machine gun used in armored vehicles or the Type 97 aircraft machine gun used in Japanese Navy aircraft.
The two most common assault rifles in the world are the Soviet AK-47 and the American M16. These Cold War-era rifles have been used in conflicts both large and small since the 1960s. They are used by military, police, security forces, revolutionaries, terrorists, criminals, and civilians alike and will most likely continue to be used for decades to come. As a result, they have been the subject of countless comparisons and endless debate.
The PPSh-41 is a selective-fire, open-bolt, blowback submachine gun that fires the 7.62×25mm Tokarev round. It was designed by Georgy Shpagin of the Soviet Union to be a cheaper and simplified alternative to the PPD-40.
The P-64 is a Polish semi-automatic pistol designed to fire the 9×18mm Makarov cartridge. The pistol was developed in the late 1950s at the Institute for Artillery Research by a team consisting of: W. Czepukajtis, R. Zimny, H. Adamczyk, M. Adamczyk, S. Kaczmarski and J. Pyzel. The P-64 is also known as the CZAK.
The M3 is an American .45-caliber submachine gun adopted by the U.S. Army on 12 December 1942, as the United States Submachine Gun, Cal. .45, M3. The M3 was chambered for the same .45 ACP round fired by the Thompson submachine gun, but was cheaper to mass produce and lighter, at the expense of accuracy. The M3 was commonly referred to as the "Grease Gun" or simply "the Greaser," owing to its visual similarity to the mechanic's tool.
The PSL is a Romanian designated marksman rifle. It is also called PSL-54C, Romak III, FPK and SSG-97. Though similar in appearance, mission and specifications to the SVD Dragunov, the PSL rifle is mechanically completely different as it is based on the RPK light machinegun, with its internals simply being scaled up to accommodate the more powerful 7.62×54mmR cartridge.
The 9×18mm Makarov is a pistol and submachine gun cartridge developed in the former USSR. During the latter half of the 20th century, it was a standard military pistol cartridge of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, analogous to the 9×19mm Parabellum in NATO and Western Bloc military use.
