SMGs of course are “submachineguns” because they’re generally full auto like other machine guns, despite firing pistol-caliber cartridges. However, my question is, why are “automatic rifles” not simply called a different form of machine gun? Surely every SMG and LMG isn’t smoothbore right? Why aren’t “assault rifles” just called “intermediate machine guns” or something of the sort when they’re fully automatic just like SMGs?
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Like a lot of inconsistent naming conventions, it’s for historical reasons. When John T. Thompson invented the Tommy Gun, full-size machine guns were the only commonly-known automatic weapons. Fully automatic ‘machine pistols’ firing handgun cartridges had only just come into usage. So Thompson named his new weapon the “sub machine gun” to reflect the fact that it fired a smaller cartridge than full-size machine guns. And the name caught on (although the MP38 and follow-ups, widely regarded as SMGs, were of course called machine-pistols in German). In the second world war, most of powers still considered fully automatic weapons unsuitable for the rank and file (something, something they would waste all their ammo, something) and produced submachine guns (including Thompson’s own!) for officers. Quickly, however, they realized that in the fast-moving combat of the war, automatic fire small arms were really handy.
The term “assault rifle” for describing an intermediate cartridge full-auto capable rifle has a kind of peculiar history as well. Some forward thinkers in the German army realized early on that the bolt-action semi-auto rifle was not the way of the future, and looked into replacing it with an intermediate cartridge. As handy as a submachine gun like the MP38, with more stopping power, was the idea. However, the orthodox elements in the army wouldn’t except that as a replacement for infantry rifles, and the prototype had to be labeled “Maschinenkarabiner”, a “Machine Carbine”, ‘carbine’ being a term for a rifle-shaped weapon firing smaller cartridges. The production version was initially called the “Maschinenpistole 43” as if it were a follow-up to the MP38, even though it fired a bigger cartridge and wasn’t a pistol by anyone’s definition. It was only after the battlefield effectiveness of the weapon was re-named a more fitting appellation as the first “Sturmgewehr” or assault rifle, in part, still, to distinguish it from the normal rifle. The StG 44 was quickly recognized as a very good and useful design by the Soviets it was used against, and eventually developed the AK-47, simply called ‘Kalashnikov’s automatic,’ in Russian but widely recognized as a descendent of the German “assault rifle” in the west.
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