Top ten greatest weapons in history

[Knifewounds]

The AK wasn't the first assault rifle, that would probably be the MP-43/MP-44/StG 44.

The Fedorov Avtomat is the precursor to the modern assault rifle.

I'm really tempted to go on a tyrannical rant about all the bullshit people are spewing in this thread and all the armchair soldier garbage being thrown around, but I really don't want to give myself an aneurysm so instead I'll just say this:

Just because you saw a Discovery Channel special about a weapon once doesn't make you an expert. Just because you own a weapon does not mean you know anything about that weapon. Just because you saw it on TV does not mean it's correct. Most of you probably don't even know how to swing a sword correctly nor spend enough time at the range to really have a firm grasp of firearms. It's safe to say most of you really shouldn't even be posting in this thread.

As a reply to the first guy. I never said the AK was the first assault rifle. Back to the second guy. I actually grew up around weapons. Hell the first time I shot a gun was when I was 6, and have been out at a gun range a little over a dozen times. I've gotten a very good feel for a handgun, and sniper rifle(I've fired other guns, but I don't have much practice with them). In the swords department I've been training with an assortment of bokken since around the time I fired my first gun, and still practice with the real things when I get a chance. So I know a little about what I'm talking about, but I'm far from being an expert however I still know more about this kind of stuff than most people who most likely did exactly as you say.

 

[Ldude893]

Before they invented clubs, swords and guns, there was only the hand.

 

[Mayonegg]

Um, no offence, but you sort of name specific 20th century weaponry, but sum up over 6000 years of human development with "bow and arrow". Even suggesting that bows and arrows are all the same would be like suggesting there's no difference in guns.

I'd put the English long bow and the Mongul composite bow on the list and maybe lower the katana's position.

It's an incredibly difficult list though, it's all relative to how the people fought. Some north African tribes could take out a man's eye (since they'd be wearing a helmet) from a great distance with a stone and sling.

 

[Knifewounds]

The "greatest" weapons in history were often not the best of their kind (assuming we can even settle on what "best" means). The greatest weapons were those who changed warfare the most. The AK-47, while a fine weapon in the right hands, is not the greatest--I'm sure others have been more reliable, or more accurate, or more powerful, or some combination of these. Neither was the AK-47 the first of its kind. But it was a revolutionary weapon in a lot of ways--partly because it was one of the most powerful firearms a revolutionary could reliably get their hands on. Cheap to manufacture, durable and long-lasting, any tiny insurrectionist could suddenly have an amount firepower in his hands that, only fifty years earlier, was restricted to a small gun carriage and water-cooling. That was the powerful lesson of the AK-47, and what makes it important.

In the Middle Ages the crossbow, although outperformed by the English longbow in rate-of-fire, and often range and accuracy, was closer to the AK-47 of its time. Pikes and other long pole-arms (which had been around for a long damn time, I might add), though too clumsy to be used as an individual weapon, let Flemish peasants defeat heavily-armed, armored, and better-trained French men-at-arms.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's actually more rare that the weapon itself is what really matters, it's the world it's born into--for every weapon that's changed the face of warfare, there's an arguably 'better' weapon that's ultimately done nothing (see: the Brown Bess musket versus the Ferguson Rifle in the American War of Independence). That's stating the obvious, but I think it's important to note in this sort of thread, which tends to devolve into weird apples-to-oranges comparison and mildly disturbing weapon-fanboyism.

"The katana is the best sword ebber, it's all about honor and being able to cut Korean children in half it's so sharp!"

"Nonsense, the katana is ineffective against mail, one of the earliest and least-developed of Medieval armors, clearly it is a sissy weapon for girly girls!"

Nice way to lose all credibility at the end their with your grade school logic. Btw you do know that western swords are completely ineffectual samurai armor as well right? Besides any sword will still break your bones through chain mail so that whole it wont cut through it argument wont matter when your in combat, and you find your rips getting broken by some random sword.

 

[TOGSolid]

sniper rifle

Protip, never say those two words when you're trying to make yourself sound like someone who knows what they're talking about.

 

[Knifewounds]

Um, no offence, but you sort of name specific 20th century weaponry, but sum up over 6000 years of human development with "bow and arrow". Even suggesting that bows and arrows are all the same would be like suggesting there's no difference in guns.

I'd put the English long bow and the Mongul composite bow on the list and maybe lower the katana's position.

It's an incredibly difficult list though, it's all relative to how the people fought. Some north African tribes could take out a man's eye (since they'd be wearing a helmet) from a great distance with a stone and sling.

Idk I'll do another list like this with a bit more research, but it'll be more specific so I can avoid people looking for loop holes in my list design.

 

[Knifewounds]

Before they invented clubs, swords and guns, there was only the hand.

So people killed each other with handjobs?

 

[Knifewounds]

The AK wasn't the first assault rifle, that would probably be the MP-43/MP-44/StG 44.

The Fedorov Avtomat is the precursor to the modern assault rifle.

I'm really tempted to go on a tyrannical rant about all the bullshit people are spewing in this thread and all the armchair soldier garbage being thrown around, but I really don't want to give myself an aneurysm so instead I'll just say this:

Just because you saw a Discovery Channel special about a weapon once doesn't make you an expert. Just because you own a weapon does not mean you know anything about that weapon. Just because you saw it on TV does not mean it's correct. Most of you probably don't even know how to swing a sword correctly nor spend enough time at the range to really have a firm grasp of firearms. It's safe to say most of you really shouldn't even be posting in this thread.

So long as that rant wasn't directed at me. The StG44 thing was more because I wasn't willing to burn the time to verify, hence the probably. Though, now that I think about it BAR is another possible contender.

It wasn't directed at you, it was a rant directed to everyone else. Sorry if you got that impression.

Most people haven't even heard of the Fedorov Avtomat. Hell, for a while I thought the StG44 was the first until I did some reading about assault rifles. The Avtomat was a select fire, shoulder fired weapon with a detachable, 25 round box magazine that fired the 6.5x50 Arisaka round. The Avtomat launched in 1915 making it the earliest weapon of this sort ever made.

uhh, no I didn't. Yes I do like anime, but I know whats real, and whats not. What I do know from my experiences with a katana is that it is far from being as weak as that. I took apart a rusty junkyard car with it before it started getting dull. Calling it useless in a battle outside of duels isn't true ether. After all Miyamoto Musashi took on a clan of samurai while using the kenjutsu technique that involves wielding two katana (all of which is documented history) Uhh, in hind sight most swords usually do get dull pretty fast so its hardly worth dwelling on.

You're trying to sound impressive. It's not working. Musashi founded the two sword technique known as Niten Ichi-ryū. Kenjutsu is a general term that means the Art of the Sword and encompasses various traditional Samurai sword arts.

Musashi won his fights because the way he fought was his own. The people he fought could not think outside the box due to the rigidity of their traditional training which allowed them to be easily picked apart.

Am I, not really. I just wanted to add a fancy word. Still my point on the katanas versatility shows with my Masashi example.

 

[88chaz88]

Anyone who makes this kind of list and forgets the longbow doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[Aur0ra145]

Okay, I'll post.

#10 Stone Spear Point - Look at the Clovis people.

#9 Long bow - oh yeah.

#8 percussion cap rifles - revolutionized warfare.

#7 Center fire cartridges - yep, hello bolt action rifles and all modern long arms.

#6 Maxim machine gun - yep, changed warfare yet again

#5 Tanks - the advent of Armour has had enormous repercussions across all military's today.

#4 Airplanes - Yeah, completely changed warfare forever

#3 Aircraft Carrier - projection of power much?

#2 Cruise missiles - so you can reach out and tough somebody.

#1 Nuclear Weapons - Cold war anyone? Largest impact on modern history.

That's a very fair and accurate looks at the progression of weaponry.

Much better than the 'Herp ees kewl sord C' attitude I keep reading in this thread.

Though I'd probably include the creation and manipulation of tempered steel on weaponry. Probably shove that in at #8 before percussion caps. Because the move from stone to the different metals had a massive impact on war.

I will give you that, and you are correct. But my expertise on weapons extends from firearms. Additionally this was a top 10 thread, probably extending to modern times, so I said what mostly likely made up our progradtion to today. Though, had it been top 15, I would have considered more of the advent of metals and the bronze age, as well as ships of the line and things of that nature. Though, in shaping the world today, I believe my list to do a decent job of showing the progress of weapons for modern history mainly extending from the 1850's and onward.

Cheers mate

 

[Aphroditty]

The "greatest" weapons in history were often not the best of their kind (assuming we can even settle on what "best" means). The greatest weapons were those who changed warfare the most. The AK-47, while a fine weapon in the right hands, is not the greatest--I'm sure others have been more reliable, or more accurate, or more powerful, or some combination of these. Neither was the AK-47 the first of its kind. But it was a revolutionary weapon in a lot of ways--partly because it was one of the most powerful firearms a revolutionary could reliably get their hands on. Cheap to manufacture, durable and long-lasting, any tiny insurrectionist could suddenly have an amount firepower in his hands that, only fifty years earlier, was restricted to a small gun carriage and water-cooling. That was the powerful lesson of the AK-47, and what makes it important.

In the Middle Ages the crossbow, although outperformed by the English longbow in rate-of-fire, and often range and accuracy, was closer to the AK-47 of its time. Pikes and other long pole-arms (which had been around for a long damn time, I might add), though too clumsy to be used as an individual weapon, let Flemish peasants defeat heavily-armed, armored, and better-trained French men-at-arms.

I guess what I'm saying is that it's actually more rare that the weapon itself is what really matters, it's the world it's born into--for every weapon that's changed the face of warfare, there's an arguably 'better' weapon that's ultimately done nothing (see: the Brown Bess musket versus the Ferguson Rifle in the American War of Independence). That's stating the obvious, but I think it's important to note in this sort of thread, which tends to devolve into weird apples-to-oranges comparison and mildly disturbing weapon-fanboyism.

"The katana is the best sword ebber, it's all about honor and being able to cut Korean children in half it's so sharp!"

"Nonsense, the katana is ineffective against mail, one of the earliest and least-developed of Medieval armors, clearly it is a sissy weapon for girly girls!"

Nice way to lose all credibility at the end their with your grade school logic. Btw you do know that western swords are completely ineffectual samurai armor as well right? Besides any sword will still break your bones through chain mail so that whole it wont cut through it argument wont matter when your in combat, and you find your rips getting broken by some random sword.

I'm sorry, what? I was mocking both positions. The idea that, simply because the katana was developed in a different culture and thus was ineffective against European armors, it was an inferior weapon, is patently ridiculous. As is the opposing rationale. This is more clearly reflected in my edit. Still, you might have noticed that those two lines were in quotes, and came right after I mentioned "weapon-fanboyism."

I mean, obviously the fucking katana is ineffective against metal link--it was developed to combat a different kind of armor, hence its extremely fine edge. Most, if not quite all, swords were ineffective against metal link, and in fact with padding (mail was never worn without at least a padded gambeson beneath it) chain was also surprisingly good against the blunt-force trauma you describe. But beyond all that, I doubt a katana would be optimal at delivering blunt-force trauma--as I understand it the sword is mainly intended as a cutting weapon, and not so adept at bludgeoning. Of course if you get anyone with a real good thwack across the ribs with a piece of steel they'll damn well feel it, but if it comes down to thwacking there are better swords for it than the katana.

No, a katana is not the best sword ebber, anymore than the zweihander is. Katanas were right for Japan, zweihanders were right for parts of Europe.

 

[Mayonegg]

Um, no offence, but you sort of name specific 20th century weaponry, but sum up over 6000 years of human development with "bow and arrow". Even suggesting that bows and arrows are all the same would be like suggesting there's no difference in guns.

I'd put the English long bow and the Mongul composite bow on the list and maybe lower the katana's position.

It's an incredibly difficult list though, it's all relative to how the people fought. Some north African tribes could take out a man's eye (since they'd be wearing a helmet) from a great distance with a stone and sling.

Idk I'll do another list like this with a bit more research, but it'll be more specific so I can avoid people looking for loop holes in my list design.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with most of that list in terms of 20th century weaponry. Maybe because I'm more interested in ancient weaponry I notice its absence more. Maybe I get bored of 20th century warfare because every damn fool has an "expert opinion" on WW2, whilst dismissing its predecessor, and every CoD player is an expert on guns. /generalisation

In terms of modern warfare, C4 would have to be up there methinks. Mid 1800s Gatling Gun for an honourable mention? Cannon was ridiculously useful, especially at sea...I'm just spitballing.

 

[thingymuwatsit]

Not easy to use, or efficient, but cool as hell on ice: the kusarigama.
Look it up. It is a dagger ON A FREAKING CHAIN. It could only be cooler if it was electric, and on fire.

 

[WolfThomas]

Okay I'll buy into this thread, in no particular order are my following choices:

The sword in general, it's almost only weapon solely designed for killing other people. Other weapons maybe adapted to war like axes and even modern rifles. But all of them have some origins as tools for working, hunting or survial. But not a sword, you don't chop trees with one or hunt animals with one, you kill another man with one. Developed across the world from frozen Scandinavia to flourishing Rome to baking Arabia and all the way to yes even Japan (though I'm not a katana fan). Also a fantastic social symbol when you consider how much more metal it requires than an axe or spear.

The Bow, yes I guess I'm being vague here, but ever since main saw birds fly, he wanted to harness their feathers to project a piece of rock or steel into another living creature. Special mention to the long bow.

There's a special spot in my heart for these two weapons, firstly the Fergusion rifle, a breach (technically screw) loading rifle, that you could fire lying down invented in...1776. This was a gun that could shoot 2-3 times farther (200-300yards) than a musket and 2-3 times faster (average 7 shots a minute). It was too expensive and comlicated to debut properly during the American revolution. But think of the fate of the world (and Napeleon) if any of the great powers had replaced their muskets with this.

The Girandoni Air Rifle, a gun more complicated than the famous Henry Repeater, made fifty years earlier (1779). Firing smokeless, with the force of a modern .45ACP, it had repeated fire for about 30 shots and a magazine that held 20. Let down by the difficutlies in reloading (required 400 turns). But simply the idea of a repeater when people were still using muskets, marvellous. But had it really took on, maybe today the idea of powder weapons would be a mere novelty.

AK47 for obvious reasons.

The bayonet for turning every soldier into both spear/pikemen and ranged killer.

The machine gun, tanks and planes for ending warfare as people knew it.

Well that's ten nine, I got kind of bored towards the end.

Edit: I missed the bit by being crewed by only one man, meh can't be bothered changing.

The shield led to the advent of phalanx fighting, which led to highly advanced tactics. Phalanx fighting allowed alaxander the great to conquer a huge amount of territory and ironically allowed the greeks, most notably the spartans, to defeat the invasion of persia.

I was tossing up on adding this one, for your points as well as considering it was the backbone of Roman fighting and significant in dark ages combat, in particular the Saxon and Viking "shield walls".

The AK wasn't the first assault rifle, that would probably be the MP-43/MP-44/StG 44.

The Fedorov Avtomat is the precursor to the modern assault rifle.

I thought the Fedorov was more of a precursor battle rifle, because it didn't fire an intermediate cartride.

 

[Daverson]

Based on my own views and preferences, someone (ok, "everyone") is probably going to disagree with at least one of them (ok, "all of them"). I'm more biased towards personal weapons (mainly rifles), so a don't expect to see tanks or fighter planes here. Hell, even I'm going to disagree with some of these, I know exactly 5 seconds after I hit the "post" button, I'm going to think "Why didn't I put XYZ" in there!?

#10- Slostin Heavy Machine Gun
I'll admit, I don't actually know much about this, what I do know, is that's it's a 14.5mm (.57 cal, think .50, but bigger) Gatling gun. That alone should justify it's election as "President of the Earth and commander of space", but I have a feeling it'd still be in service if it didn't have a huge flaw I don't know about...

#9 - M4 Sherman
It was a toss-up between this or the T34. I'm a decadent westerner, so I choose the Sherman (it did see action in the Red Army, but not in the same numbers as the T34, so that helps too). It's was one of the two tanks that beat back the Nazi "wonderwaffe" (such as the infamous Tiger). While the tank gets the slot, the real "greatest weapon" here was the crew and support structure behind them.

#8 - AK-47 (and derivatives, but not clones, because they usually suck. Especially the Chinese ones, I mean, seriously, it's a [redacted] AK! How the hell do you make it so it breaks! That's not just bad engineering, that's being superhumanly good at bad engineering!)
I'd be lynched if I didn't have this here. . I do like the new "AK-9" quite a lot though.

#7 - FN FAL (L1A1 SLR, C1A1, T48, G1 and countless other designations)
"The right arm of the Free World", used by almost every NATO nation and ally except the US (the FAL did get a T designation "T48", and was found to be equally as effective as the T44, which went on to become the M14, due to it's ease of manufacturing in the US) and Germany (similar reasons to US, except H&K was denied rights to manufacture the FAL as the "G1", so the Bundeswehr decided to adopt the Spanish CETME rifle as the "G3", which H&K then used to build the famous "MP5" submachine gun, then be dicks and sue everyone who ever referred to it by ever, in retrospect, that was probably a good call by FN).

#6 - Plank, with nail
There's something about bashing someone's head in with one of these that just gets to you, you know? If you'll excuse the pun, it can't be beat. (what? Why are you all looking at me like that?!)

#5 - M134
Find someone who can argue with 4,000 7,62 NATO (.308) rounds a minute (for those who "don't maths", that's over 50 'big' bullets a second), and I'll find you a sober Irishman.

#4 - Armalite AR-15 (and derivatives)
While names like the AK-47 and StG.44 may get thrown around a lot when it comes to assault rifles, the AR-15, while originally suffering some pretty big design flaws, was one of the first to provide the versatility that has become a staple of modern assault weapons (a category it's still a leader in)

#3 - Short Magazine Lee Enfield "SMLE"
Not as effective as some rifles, but it won us, not one, but two world wars. If the FAL was the "defender of the free world", the SMLE was the rifle the free world was built on.

#2 - AN602 "Tsar Bomba"
Highest yield nuclear device detonated to date. It had a 2.3km blast radius. I don't mean the shockwave, fallout or anything else there, that's the size of the actual explosion. The total magnitude of destruction would be around 35km. That's just... D=

#1 - Diplomacy
Why go to the fuss of killing someone, when you can get them to kill themselves? That my friends, is true power.

 

[Sebenko]

#10- Slostin Heavy Machine Gun
I'll admit, I don't actually know much about this, what I do know, is that's it's a 14.5mm (.57 cal, think .50, but bigger) Gatling gun. That alone should justify it's election as "President of the Earth and commander of space", but I have a feeling it'd still be in service if it didn't have a huge flaw I don't know about...

If you're going for gattling weapons firing big-ass ammo, what about the GAU-8?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger

 

[Jimbo1212]

Throughout the course of our history we've constantly been inventing new ways to kill each other in more brutal, devastating ways, precise, and hilarious ways. We've made a lot of great & deadly weapons in our history haven't we? Anyways, those weapons that are on my top ten list will be graded by how good its design is, and how innovative, or devastating it was in its era of warfare.


Note 1: The weapons will be judged by their own merits, and by how well they do at the job they're made for.

Note 2: that I'm not going to include any weapon that cannot be manned by more than a single person.

Note 3: My grammar sucks sometimes, so you'll have to forgive me for that.

_______________________________________________________

Honorable mentions:

Any kind of flintlock, wheel lock & Matchlock gun: These where truly very innovative weapons that changed the course of warfare, and projectile weaponry forever, but I cannot call them great weapons. They could only fire one shot at a time, and took forever to reload, and could frequently misfire due to jamming, and weather conditions. While they're completely devastating when someone gets shot by them, and replaced the bow & arrow their many issues keep them from making it on this list.

Claymore Sword: This is a great weapon. When your swinging it around you feel like you can chop cows in half with it. unfortunately it had to compete with an even greater sword for the list, and it lost. Apologies to Scottish people everywhere.

LeMat Revolver: Its was a revolver that held 9 shots, and a central shotgun chamber. That's awesome. To bad its been buried into obscurity(the LeMat in RDR doesn't do it justice)

Intercontinental ballistic Missiles: This is the most powerful weapon made in existence however I cannot add a weapon that's never, and never should be, used.

______________________________

#10. The crossbow: If I were to best describe the usefulness of the crossbow in a single sentence I'd say" The crossbow is the weapon that made it possible to turn any civilian into a deadly warrior" With a crossbow you don't need to spend years of training to learn how to use a bow, and arrow, but instead you only needed to have the strength to pull back a string, load a bolt, point, and shoot. The simple mechanical design made it easy for anyone to pick up, and use. That and the bolts are deadly in their own right. However it was never able to kill off the bow & arrow because a trained archer could fire off several more arrows than a crossbow.


#9. Bowie Knife: This is the knife that practically coined the term "Now that's a knife!" for it large size. The Bowie Knife is one of the few knives I know of that could actually decapitate someone in on swing. Not only that. It can be used for just about everything that involves survival, and in my book a great weapon can be your greatest tool.


#8. M1911A1: This gun give birth to the modern pistol design, and could arguably be considered the greatest innovation in pistol history. With almost 100 years of military service there no doubt that the M1911A1 has some amazing lasting power behind it. So what makes this gun so great? Well, because it was the first magazine-fed handgun, and it was fired powerful 45. caliber rounds. So why is it so low on the list you may ask? Well, it does have an issue with jamming, and its recoil hinders its accuracy which bumps it down several notches.


#7.Thompson Submachine Gun: The Chicago typewriter was loved by soldiers, and criminals for its its ergonomic design, compactness, large 45.ACP cartridge. Its effectiveness in WWII, and the prohibition era is attributed to its high rate of fire making it perfect for spray & prey drive by's, and trench sweeping. The down side of its design is that it's not an accurate gun, but it compensates by unleashing a wall of lead towards whatever poor unfortunate Nazi or North side gangster that happens to be on the wrong end of its barrel.


#6. The Halberd: Don't we all love having choices? Being able to choose skewering your enemy like bloody shish kabobs. Choosing to take a mighty swing across your enemies gut thus spilling his gastric intestinal tract all over the war torn landscape, or simply choosing to flip your weapon around to swing a sharp pointy blade capable of getting into those hard-to-reach vitals of those hard-to-kill armored bastards. Ah, yes, freedom to kill exactly what you get from a Halberd. The innovation in its design helped it to be one of the most valued weapons on the battlefield until the advent of gunpowder.


#5. M1 Garand: "The Greatest Battle Implement Ever Devised" by General George S. Patton. Do I need to go on? Fine, well the Garand was a product of almost twenty years of research and development which part of the reason this became such a great weapon. It was accurate, it was semi-automatic, and fired powerful 30-06 rounds. The Garand could essentially do everything an infantryman needed during the time of WWII.


#4. RPG7: I really couldn't make this list without add one weapon that made things explode could I? It's a modern day bazooka. Its cheap, easy to use, and a reliable antitank weapon. Ya, that's not a scary weapon at all is it. Anyways, when I was looking for devastating weapons this was the epitome of destructive power. Its design has kept it as the go to antitank weapon for 3rd world countries terrorist, and revolutionaries.


3#. Bow & Arrow: A weapon that's lasted the course of civilization its self deserves nothing less than a high spot on this list. The power, and ingenious simplicity of its design was able so effective that it was still able to hold its own against the firearms all the way up to the mid 19th century until cartridge based multi-shot guns came to be.


#2. AK47: I mentioned earlier that the crossbow was effective because anyone could use one. Well that goes double for the AK. There are thousands of kids who are armed with an AK in Africa, and the middle east who can handle this thing like a pro. Not to mention that it packs one hell of a punch with its 7.62 rounds, and its indestructible design, though it is still not extremely accurate. This rifle will endure any punishment you give it. Its become more than a weapon of armed conflicts. Its become an icon, that's left its mark on human history, and the modern world.


#1. The Katana: There is no such greater weapon than that which can feel as an extension of the person who's using it. In that light the katana as a sword, and a weapon is perfection. It has perfect balance, precise control, its has great strength while still being flexible, and its shape, and sharpness combine create a powerful edge. It is every bit a slashing sword as it is a stabbing, and thrusting one. Honestly I believe it is impossible to create a sword as perfect as the katana.

Um, what about the machine gun? You know, the weapon that changed warfare forever as it completely removed the advantage of numbers as found in WW1 and against many African nations.

Also, the MP44 as this was the first assault rifle in history which the AK 47 was based on.

 

[thahat]

big snip

you have the garand, and the AK, but not the ak's grandaddy the mp44 (stg44)?
bit strange

 

[Starke]

sniper rifle

Protip, never say those two words when you're trying to make yourself sound like someone who knows what they're talking about.

Same here. There's guns, like the WA2000, the SG1, the M21 or the SVD that you can really only describe as sniper platforms, but "sniper rifle" isn't a term I've ever heard coming from the mouth of someone who knew what they were talking about.

Most people haven't even heard of the Fedorov Avtomat. Hell, for a while I thought the StG44 was the first until I did some reading about assault rifles. The Avtomat was a select fire, shoulder fired weapon with a detachable, 25 round box magazine that fired the 6.5x50 Arisaka round. The Avtomat launched in 1915 making it the earliest weapon of this sort ever made.

Yeah, I had to look it up, when you mentioned it because it didn't ring a bell. Given the production run sizes, and that it was pre-revolution, I can see why. We're talking about an era in Russian history when the shit hit the fan in about eighty ways at once.

The StG44 comment was because I wasn't thinking, if I had I would have recalled the BAR, but life goes on, and then you forget something and make a fool of yourself, right? Still, that 6.5mm round is a weird one, which makes me wonder, would you class it as a battle rifle today or an assault rifle?

So people killed each other with handjobs?

And it was horrible. Horrible, I say.

As a reply to the first guy. I never said the AK was the first assault rifle.

No, that was someone else I was responding to who also put the AK on their list... I think.

EDIT: Nope, it was aimed at you. Consider yourself blessed. Also remember that not all AKs fire 7.62. The AK-74 and all its little woodland death friends that followed it switched over to 5.45mm. That said there was a run of AKs chambered for 5.56mm. The primary goal was so they could ship the things to NATO countries and sell them there. I'm not sure how well that project worked out for them.

Back to the second guy. I actually grew up around weapons. Hell the first time I shot a gun was when I was 6, and have been out at a gun range a little over a dozen times. I've gotten a very good feel for a handgun, and sniper rifle(I've fired other guns, but I don't have much practice with them).

That reminds me, the last time I was on the range with a buddy's eight year old nephew. See, my buddy and I both trusted that if his brother would put a loaded .38 in the hands of a kid they'd know what they were doing, right? Noooo. I almost took a round in the knee because the little bastard didn't have nay comprehension for where he was pointing the fucking thing. So what I'm saying is just because you were on the range as a wee sport doesn't mean anything.

So I know a little about what I'm talking about, but I'm far from being an expert however I still know more about this kind of stuff than most people who most likely did exactly as you say.

You may think you have more credibility, and you may have more experience than most, but you have a phenomenal ability to say things that undermine your credibility the most. See: Sniper Rifle.