Not saying you are wrong, but I did look up "belt fed assault rifle" out of curiosity, and found a few interesting results. The old FG 42, considered a fairly state-of-the-art gun for its time, is described as a rifle weapon with compact machine gun characteristics. There's also the ARES belt fed rifle, and a number of tacticool-esque upgrade kits for belt fed AR-15s.
I saw one picture that was apparently an AR-15 with a reduced barrel, pistol grip, and a bullet belt conversion that turned out more like a belt fed submachine gun (I thought it looked a little silly).
Just interesting to note that the ammo type, weight, and size don't always seem to classify a weapon as a machine gun.
There is no such thing as an assault rifle. Even legally there is no universal definition because it is a political label. You could easily call it a "defense" rifle, it doesn't change its array of roles.
Any fully automatic weapon is legally and practically called a machine gun. A fully automatic weapon firing subcaliber (handgun) cartridges are called Sub-machine guns.
A man portable automatic weapon with a high capacity (generally over the standard 30 rounds) is considered a Light Machine Gun (LMG), although this definition is somewhat arbitrary since mag fed rifles may change role from DMR to LMG simply by the choice of magazine (Similar categorization issue with "carbine" light weight rifle).
All belt fed rifles are considered LMG or MG by default. Seeing as this is man (girl) portable, I would classify this as a belt fed LMG.
Those predator belt fed packs are ridiculously stupid. All it takes is for a single link to slip or a malfunction and you lost access to your entire loadout vs just slapping in another nutsack. Whoever the army engineer that came up with this had too much spare time on his hands and too many 90s movies. Stoner tried this for his first foray into small arms with his AR-10 utilizing a removable 30 cal can on the back and it was simply found to be far bulkier and slower to replace overall than box mags. I guess you can see use in sustained fire for short periods such as ambushes or checkpoints, but in that case you mind as well utilize an actual MG or technical. I can probably see more utility with this pack slung over the shoulder than directly attached to your LBV (like some kind of belt fed bandoleer). Kind of treat it like a super ammo box and just drop it down wherever you lay your weapon and pick both up when done.
An assault rifle is a select-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate-caliber cartridge. More formally defined by the pedantic, assault rifle-defining institutional body or Internet forum of your choice, an assault rifle is a firearm fitting a definition back-formed around and shoehorned to fit what the definer already knows is an assault rifle, because letting sleeping heuristics lie is for squares.
It's become fashionable recently in the firearms community to declare that because "assault rifle" (also "battle rifle", etc.) is a category with fuzzy boundaries, it is thus an entirely meaningless category. This is, like most things that become fashionable in the firearms community, stupid, and would still be stupid on its own logical merits (or lack thereof), even if it didn't mean rejecting a generally useful, well-established term.
And as long as we're masturbating over terminology: 1. Assault weapon, not rifle, is a solely political/legal term, part of US law from 1994 to 2004 under the Assault Weapons Ban. 2. On the planet I live on, subcaliber rounds are not equal to handgun rounds, unless there's a 120mm handgun firing M829A3 I haven't heard about. 3. Belts fed from boxes do not feed from box magazines but belt/ammunition boxes.
An assault rifle is a select-fire rifle chambered for an intermediate-caliber cartridge. More formally defined by the pedantic, assault rifle-defining institutional body or Internet forum of your choice, an assault rifle is a firearm fitting a definition back-formed around and shoehorned to fit what the definer already knows is an assault rifle, because letting sleeping heuristics lie is for squares.
It's become fashionable recently in the firearms community to declare that because "assault rifle" (also "battle rifle", etc.) is a category with fuzzy boundaries, it is thus an entirely meaningless category. This is, like most things that become fashionable in the firearms community, stupid, and would still be stupid on its own logical merits (or lack thereof), even if it didn't mean rejecting a generally useful, well-established term.
And as long as we're masturbating over terminology: 1. Assault weapon, not rifle, is a solely political/legal term, part of US law from 1994 to 2004 under the Assault Weapons Ban. 2. On the planet I live on, subcaliber rounds are not equal to handgun rounds, unless there's a 120mm handgun firing M829A3 I haven't heard about. 3. Belts fed from boxes do not feed from box magazines but belt/ammunition boxes.
wew lad
@279okshap Definitely the definitions are fuzzy since they matured as small arms tech and preferences changed over time, and the classification is mostly arbitrary. However I would still argue at assault rifle is still equally as pointless of categorization as "carbine" since a select fire rifle chambered for an intermediate cartridge could easily be a LMG as quite a few LMGs are select fire these days. Assault rifle was never really given a formal definition as it wasn't viewed as an extension of the military's small arm selection, but a replacement of existing rifles. We officially call them "service rifles" being the primary small arm issued, but assault rifle has not been defined officially since it is a concept than a category. Similarly, assault shotgun, and assault pistol have been used, but they aren't really valid definitions as they are generally used for weapons of their categories that are use for combat (similar to tactical shotgun, tactical pistol, or combative shotgun, combative pistol). In other words, a differentiation between Mil/LE weapons and civilians and their "sporting" weapons. Definitely it isn't "wrong" but the definition is too broad to be useful. Kind of like "PDWs" (which is a marketing term that isn't used formally as far as I am aware).
Subcalibers by general definition would refer to sabots, but in reference to small arms they mean handgun calibers such as the 9mm, 40S&W, and 45ACP and other auto loading handgun cartridges. This differentiation was made primarily when law enforcement made a change from revolver cartridges to semi automatic designs. It was considered a sub-caliber because like intermediate rifle cartridges it was weaker compared to what it was replacing. This is also why we call sub-machine guns that rather than machine pistols. They fire a subcaliber round, but compared to true machine pistols, are not a handgun.
By talking about magazines determining difference between LMG and DMR, I didn't mean belt feds in that case but high capacity drum magazines. For example, an autoloading rifle with a heavy barrel and bipod could be considered a DMR or a LMG depending on if you switch out the optic and magazine. Previously the LMG had to have a quick change barrel, but the current concept to suppression is aimed fire rather than just grazing automatic fire, and we are firing at a slower rate for the same amount of effectiveness. Now semi automatic weapons can perform the roles of a LMG so long as their capacity is large enough. Lots of foreign LE departments have 40 round or Beta Mags (or those more reliable but expensive 60 round mini drums) offered for their rapid response teams as a kind of modular DMR/LMG response. The IAR program is a reflection of this evolution, although the high capacity magazines envisioned were never fielded as far as I know.
