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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It mostly has to do with the invention of the term. At the time, armies had their “battle rifle” which every soldier used. Then The machine gun came out. It needed to be massive to safely handle the forces produced by a full sized rifle cartridge, as a result they needed 2-3 men to effectively operate them.
Soon the Thompson and similar machine guns came out. They used a significantly smaller pistol or “sub-caliber” round as compared to the larger machine guns in order to shrink the machine gun to a man portable size. Thus they were dubbed the “sub machinegun”.
Around the same time we were experimenting with other sizes of rounds. Thus the adoption of the term “medium machinegun” and “heavy machinegun.” However, the main soldier still used a semi automatic or bolt action “battle rifle”.
It wasn’t until after World War II had ended that we started arminf whole squads with fully automatic capable weapons. By then the naming conventions had been firmly established.
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