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This definition is confusing to me:

An assault rifle is a selective fire (either fully automatic or burst-capable) rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. It should be distinguished from the US legal term assault weapons.

The term burst-capable is undefined. The Encyclopedia Brittanica definition you refer to seems to imply that both automatic and semiautomatic rifles can be considered assault rifles, and that is consistent with dictionary usage and gun publication usage that I've seen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan.robie (talk • contribs) 22:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Have added text necessary to clear up the confusion among the various technical terms (fully automatic, burst capable, and semi-automatic.) Hope this helps. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 23:12, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Burst mode" might be a better description? Anyway, weapons capable of burst mode fire a set number of rounds per trigger pull when set to burst mode (e.g. three for the M16A4) and I think the Encyclopedia Britannica just counts burst mode as another form of automatic fire. Most assault rifles that have burst modes also have fully automatic modes (rounds are fired as long as the trigger is held down). The US changed their M16s from the trigger group safe-semi-auto to safe-semi-burst (M16A2) after experiences in the Vietnam War, the thinking was that surprised or panicked soldiers would hold down the trigger and empty their magazines prematurely, but IIRC the M16A2/M16A4 are still assault rifles as the burst mode enables the rifle of approximately the same rate of fire as a fully rifle you just have to keep pumping the trigger.--Sus scrofa (talk) 00:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Assault rifle is an outdated term. The only reason it pops up is because the anti gun crowd believes the term will scare people. The military doesn't call any of their rifles assault rifles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Numkie (talk • contribs) 03:15, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article is a "vital" one? What does that mean? And how do bots determine an article is vital? Lightbreather (talk) 04:04, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bots don't determine it, but a bot may have tagged the article based on some humans determination. "Vital" just means its a topic which should have a high quality article associated with it (IE, the concept is important). It says nothing about the current state of the article. "Level 4" means the concept is considered one of the top 10,000 topics. "Firearm" itself is vital, with the sub articles of assault rifle, handgun, machinegun, musket, rifle and shotgun being sub articles. All of which are subarticles of Projectile Weapons. There is no purpose to the "vital" designation except to bring extra attention to the article. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Right. Editors determined that "Assault rifle" is a "level 4 vital article", and the bot tagged it as such here on the talk page. Further reading:

• Wikipedia:Vital articles
• Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Frequently Asked Questions
• Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/Technology

— Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:14, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will check them out. I just wanted to know when and where "editors determined that 'Assault rifle' is a 'level 4 article.'" Lightbreather (talk) 23:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As far as who, what, why, when, and where -- or at least, to get a bit more information -- check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Vital Articles. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:19, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Not sure if there was discussion or something to go along with the original addition, but I did find [2] and [3] Gaijin42 (talk) 00:32, 7 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An anonymous user added "allegdly" (sic) to the sentence about Hitler coining the term Sturmgewehr. The edit was subsequently removed by User:RAF910 with the note "U.S. War Department publication is a reliable reference". That may be so, but:

1. The source webpage itself says As with all wartime intelligence information, data may be incomplete or inaccurate,;
2. It's written like propaganda in the source document;
3. There doesn't appear to be a scan of the source document available for verification, the only source is transcribed;
4. The German wiki entry says it's unclear who named the weapon, and suggests it may have been General Erich Jaschke;
5. No other source can be found which supports the claim that Hitler named the weapon.

I'm not saying Hitler didn't name it, but I think having the word allegedly in there is a good idea.

--Dziban303 (talk) 11:41, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

AIUI, the weapon was named by a group of generals (maybe Jaschke) for political reasons to appease Hitler (rather than Hitler himself coming up with the name).

Hitler was a lousy general and tactician, in particular because he was still thinking in terms of a WWI trench mentality. He thought that rifles were for taking slow aimed shots across No Man's Land. He didn't like machine pistols for front line combat, as he saw their small cartridges as pointless. He didn't like the early goals of what would become the Sturmgewehr, or the Maschinenpistole 43 as it then was. Remember that this is using the Kurz round.

So as all good German generals learned to do, they pandered to Hitler's biases. Hitler did like Sturmtruppen, again from his WWI mentality. So rename it from Maschinenpistole to Sturmgewehr and play up to his fixed thinking. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:21, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Encyclopedia of Military Technology and Innovation, p. 25 "Minor changes, and Hitler's personal endorsement, brought the new name 'Sturmgewehr 44' in 1944"

The Encyclopedia of Weapons of World War II, p. 218 "In 1944 Hitler rescinded his opposition to the MP 43 and bestowed the more accurate designation of Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) upon the weapon."

So there's two sources that say that Hitler named it Sturmgewehr. Might be that the authors confused Hitler's approval of the name with him coining it, but this is what the sources say nonetheless.--Sus scrofa (talk) 14:51, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That second source (can't read the first one) says that it was renamed from Maschinenkarbine (which is the idea Hitler didn't like) to Maschinenpistole (MP40s already existed, so weren't a novel idea) to appease or hide from Hitler. It was then renamed a second time, to Sturmgewehr, and that was the rename by Hitler. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Towards the end of 1944, a further term was given to the weapon: this, StG44 (for Sturmgewehr - 'assault rifle' - 44), is said to have been bestowed upon the rifles by a well-satisfied Adolf Hitler. At any rate, it more adequately describes the rifles' role. the weapon was originally designated as a machine pistol - or submachine gun - in order to circumvent Hitler's directive that development of rifles was to cease and production of machine pistols stepped up: by calling the weapon an MP the production figures thus appeared in the 'MP' columns of the monthly production reports boosting the figures, and disappeared from the rifle columns." (Military Small Arms of the 20th Century, 7th Edition, Ian V. Hogg, page 243).

As for the idea the Hitler "was still thinking in terms of a WWI trench mentality. He thought that rifles were for taking slow aimed shots across No Man's Land. He didn't like machine pistols for front line combat, as he saw their small cartridges as pointless." is absolute nonsense (see above reference). Hitler was obsessed with new tactics and weapons. He was a champion of blitzkrieg, V weapons, air warfare, paratroopers, tank warfare, etc...and especially the production of all types of machine guns.--RAF910 (talk) 03:01, 15 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]