A carbine is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was a Soviet and Russian lieutenant general, inventor, military engineer, writer, and small arms designer. He is most famous for developing the AK-47 assault rifle and its improvements, the AKM and AK-74, as well as the RPK light machine gun and PK machine gun.
The 7.62 mm caliber is a nominal caliber used for a number of different cartridges. Historically, this class of cartridge was commonly known as .30 caliber, the equivalent in Imperial and United States Customary measures. It is most commonly used in hunting cartridges. The measurement equals 0.30 inches or three decimal lines, written .3″ and read as three-line.
The StG 44 is a German assault rifle developed during World War II by Hugo Schmeisser. It is also known by its early designations as the MP 43 and MP 44. The StG 44 was an improvement of an earlier design, the Maschinenkarabiner 42(H).
An automatic rifle is a type of autoloading rifle that is capable of fully automatic fire. Automatic rifles are generally select-fire weapons capable of firing in semi-automatic and automatic firing modes. Automatic rifles are distinguished from semi-automatic rifles in their ability to fire more than one shot in succession once the trigger is pulled. Most automatic rifles are further subcategorized as battle rifles or assault rifles.
Vasily Alekseyevich Degtyaryov was a Soviet and Russian engineer who specialized in weapons design. He was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour in 1940.
Personal defense weapons (PDWs) are a class of compact, magazine-fed automatic firearms that are typically submachine guns designed to fire rifle-like cartridges. Most PDWs fire a small-caliber, high-velocity centerfire bottleneck cartridge resembling a scaled-down intermediate cartridge, essentially making them an "in-between" hybrid between a submachine gun and a conventional carbine.
A battle rifle is a service rifle chambered to fire a fully powered cartridge.
The Fedorov Avtomat or FA is a select-fire infantry rifle and one of the world's first operational automatic rifles, designed by Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov in 1915 and produced in the Russian Empire and later in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. A total of 3,200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured between 1915 and 1925 in the city of Kovrov; the vast majority of them were made after 1920. The weapon saw limited combat in World War I, but was used more substantially in the Russian Civil War and in the Winter War. Some consider it to be an early predecessor or ancestor of the modern assault rifle.
Sergey Gavrilovich Simonov was a Soviet weapons designer who is considered one of the fathers of the modern assault rifle.
The PTRS-41 is a World War II-era semi-automatic anti-tank rifle firing the 14.5×114mm cartridge.
Georgy Semyonovich Shpagin was a Soviet weapons designer. He is best-known as the creator of the PPSh-41, a submachine gun that saw widespread use by the Red Army on the Eastern Front. He also worked with fellow Soviet weapons designer Vasily Degtyaryov on the DShK, a heavy machine gun, shortly before the start of World War II.
The 6.5×50mmSR Arisaka is a semi-rimmed rifle cartridge with a 6.705 mm diameter bullet. It was the standard Japanese military cartridge from 1897 until the late 1930s for service rifles and machine guns when it was gradually replaced by the 7.7×58mm Arisaka.
An intermediate cartridge is a rifle/carbine cartridge that has significantly greater power than a pistol cartridge but still has a reduced muzzle energy compared to fully powered cartridges, and therefore is regarded as being "intermediate" between traditional rifle and handgun cartridges.
An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and submachine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.
The AS-44 is a series of prototype Soviet assault rifles designed and developed by Alexey Sudayev in 1944—1945, they were produced in limited numbers and tested in 1944—1945, but its development ended in 1946 due to the death of its designer.
The 7.62×39mm round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the global proliferation of the AK-47 rifle and related Kalashnikov rifles, as well as the SKS, RPD, and RPK light machine guns.
