A shotgun is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small spherical projectiles called shot, or a single solid projectile called a slug. Shotguns are most commonly used as smoothbore firearms, meaning that their gun barrels have no rifling on the inner wall, but rifled barrels for shooting sabot slugs are also available.
A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.
The Objective Individual Combat Weapon or OICW was the next-generation service rifle competition that was under development as part of the United States Army OICW program; the program was eventually discontinued without bringing the weapon out of the prototype phase. The acronym OICW is often used to refer to the entire weapons program.
The M203 is a single-shot 40 mm under-barrel grenade launcher designed to attach to a rifle. It uses the same rounds as the older stand-alone M79 break-action grenade launcher, which utilizes the high-low propulsion system to keep recoil forces low. While compatible with many weapons, the M203 was originally designed and produced by the United States military for the M16 rifle and its carbine variant, the M4. The launcher can also be mounted onto a C7, a Canadian version of the M16 rifle; this requires the prior removal of the bottom handguard.
Caseless ammunition (CL), or caseless cartridge, is a configuration of weapon-cartridge that eliminates the cartridge case that typically holds the primer, propellant and projectile together as a unit. Instead, the propellant and primer are fitted to the projectile in another way so that a cartridge case is not needed, for example inside or outside the projectile depending on configuration.
The M79 grenade launcher is a single-shot, shoulder-fired, break-action grenade launcher that fires a 40×46mm grenade, which uses what the US Army calls the High-Low Propulsion System to keep recoil forces low, and first appeared during the Vietnam War. Its distinctive report has earned it colorful nicknames, such as "Thumper", "Thump-Gun", "Bloop Tube", "Big Ed", "Elephant Gun", and "Blooper" among American soldiers as well as "Can Cannon" in reference to the grenade size; Australian units referred to it as the "Wombat Gun". The M79 can fire a wide variety of 40 mm rounds, including explosive, anti-personnel, smoke, buckshot, flechette, and illumination. While largely replaced by the M203, the M79 has remained in service in many units worldwide in niche roles.
A combat shotgun is a shotgun issued by militaries for warfare. The earliest shotguns specifically designed for combat were the trench guns or trench shotguns issued in World War I. While limited in range, the multiple projectiles typically used in a shotgun shell provide increased hit probability unmatched by other small arms.
The AGS-17Plamya is a Soviet-designed automatic grenade launcher in service worldwide.
The GP-25 Kostyor ("Bonfire"), GP-30 Obuvka ("Shoe") and GP-34 are a family of Russian 40 mm under-barrel muzzleloaded grenade launchers for the AK family of assault rifles. The acronym GP stands for Granatomyot Podstvolnyj, "grenade launcher" in Russian, and was adopted by Soviet forces in 1978. They were first seen by the West in 1984, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In current usage, a riot gun or less-lethal launcher is a type of firearm used to fire "non-lethal" or "less-lethal" ammunition for the purpose of suppressing riots or apprehending suspects with minimal harm or risk. Less-lethal launchers may be special purpose firearms designed for riot control use, or standard firearms, usually shotguns and grenade launchers, adapted for riot control use with appropriate ammunition. The ammunition is most commonly found in 12 gauge shotguns and 37mm or 40 mm grenade launchers.
The Advanced Individual Combat Weapon (AICW) was an Australian prototype combination assault rifle and grenade launcher developed as a technology demonstrator. The AICW combined a standard 5.56 mm assault rifle based on the successful F88 Austeyr with a superposed load grenade launcher developed by Metal Storm.
The AA-12, originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun, is an automatic combat shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson. The most prominent feature is reduced recoil. The current 2005 version has been developed over 18 years since the patent was sold to Military Police Systems, Inc. The original design was the basis of several later weapons, including the USAS-12 combat shotgun. The shotgun fires in fully automatic mode only. However, the relatively low cyclic rate of fire of around 300 rounds per minute enables the shooter to fire individual rounds through the use of short trigger pulls. It is fed from either an 8-round box magazine, 20-round drum magazine, or a 32-round drum magazine. The charging handle is located at the top of the gun and does not reciprocate during firing.
An automatic grenade launcher (AGL) or grenade machine gun is a grenade launcher that is capable of fully automatic fire, and is typically loaded with either an ammunition belt or magazine.
INDUMIL is a Colombian-based military weapons manufacturer. The company is run by the Colombian government.
JSC Arsenal AD is a Bulgarian joint-stock company based in Kazanlak, engaged primarily in the manufacture of firearms and military equipment. It is Bulgaria's oldest arms supplier.
Military use of combat shotguns through the 20th century has created a need for ammunition maximizing the combat effectiveness of such weapons within the limitations of international law. 12-gauge has been widely accepted as an appropriate bore diameter to provide an effective number of projectiles within an acceptable recoil. Early 12-gauge popularity for sporting purposes produced a large number of repeating firearms designs readily adaptable to military purposes.
AGS‑40 Balkan is a Russian 40 mm caseless automatic grenade launcher and successor to AGS-17 and AGS-30, introduced and adopted by the Russian military.
The LG5 is a semi-automatic grenade launcher developed by Norinco and introduced in 2011. The launcher's designation "QLU" stands for "light weapon - grenade (Liúdàn) - sniper (Jūjī)" in Chinese military coding standard.
