Submachine gun/ Comapct assault rifle debate
 

See on a lot of pages where a rifle caliber gun is called a SMG since its small, like aks-74u is commonly called a SMG, ive seen "colt 733 smg"?

I say any rifle caliber caliber is a rifle, pistol caliber is a SMG. Should we put an official ID policy up?

I personally agree about that. Unfortunaly you do get some weapons that do blur the line as they are a rifle converted to a pistol caliber.

Well something like that Colt AR-15 in 9mm should be called an SMG because it fires pistol ammo.

Then we got the Cx4 Storm, which has been called a rifle, but it fires pistol rounds.

Pistol carbine seems like it would be an appropriate nomenclature.

That might have something to do with Colt marketing the CAR-15 series as Sub-Machine guns despite them not technically being SMGs.

Before it was called the Sturmgewehr 44, it was called the Maschinenpistole 43. Even the AK-47 was originally issued as a submachine gun, with the SKS being the primary infantry rifle. So confusing.

I agree with K9870 - if it was based on a full-size assault rifle, and it fires the same ammo, it's still a rifle, not a subgun. Even if the weapon's role is basically quite similar to a subgun role. But it is true that manufacturers themselves have not always respected this definition - not only with the Colt 733, but also the Daewoo K1.

Very true. The Chinese even specifically called their AK-47 copy the "Type 56 submachine gun"; they kept using AKs in the subgun role long after the Soviet states had made AKs into their standard infantry rifles.

Well it was called MP, meaning machine pistol to disguise it from Hitler because he didn't like the idea of the ammo that it used...until he saw it in action and renamed it the "Storm Rifle".

I think with the Chinese, what they call it in the language was just a mistranslation because they didnt have a word for Assault Rifle.

Uh, not Storm rifle. Even though in Germanic Dictionaries, the noun for Sturm can mean "storm/Gale/Tempest" it also means "attack or Assault". Everyone assumed Hitler meant "Assault" not "bad weather" when he named the rifle.....

Angriffgewehr 44 doesn't quite have the same punch to it.