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Aservice rifle (orstandard-issue rifle) is arifle amilitary issues to its regularinfantry. In modern militaries, this is generally a versatile, rugged, and reliableassault rifle orbattle rifle, suitable for use in nearly all environments and is effective in mostcombat situations. Almost all modern militaries are issuedservice pistols assidearms to accompany their service rifles. The term can also be used to describe weapons issued by non-military forces, such aslaw enforcement orparamilitaries.
If the issued weapon is not a rifle or carbine, but instead a different type of firearm intended to serve in a specialized role such as acombat shotgun,submachine gun, orlight machine gun, it is called aservice firearm orservice weapon.
Firearms withrifled barrels existed long before the 19th century, but were not widely used until the mid-19th century in conflicts such as theCrimean War andAmerican Civil War. Thus, rifles in the early 19th century were for specialist marksmen only, whilst ordinary infantry were issued less accuratesmoothboremuskets which had a higher rate of fire, with bore diameters as high as 19 mm (0.75 inch). Early "service rifles" of the 1840s and 1850s, such as the SwissInfanteriegewehr Modell 1842, the BritishPattern 1853 Enfield, and the AmericanSpringfield Model 1840 andSpringfield Model 1855 were all muzzleloading muskets.
Ordnance rifles were introduced in the 1860s and 1870s, with the FrenchChassepot Model 1866, the SwissPeabodyGewehr Modell 1867, and the PrussianMauser Model 1871. In the United States, theSpringfield Model 1873 was the firstsingle-shot breech-loading rifle adopted by the United StatesWar Department for manufacture and widespread issue to U.S. troops.
The development ofPoudre Bsmokeless powder in 1884, introduced with the FrenchLebel Model 1886 rifle, spelt the end ofgunpowder warfare and led to a jump in small arms development. By the beginning ofWorld War I, all of the world's major powers had adopted repeatingbolt-action rifles, such as the BritishLee–Enfield, the GermanGewehr 98, and the RussianMosin–Nagant.
During theSecond World War, the United States adopted theM1 Garand, which was the first widely adopted semi-automatic rifle that was brought into military service in 1936. Despite advancements in rifle technology, the United States was the only country to adopt asemi-automatic rifle as their primary service rifle. While other countries did develop semi-automatic rifles later on and used in limited numbers during the war. For comparison, Germany produced 402,000Gewehr 43 rifles, compared to 14,000,000 of theKarabiner 98k (a shortened variant of the Gewehr 98).[1][2] However, it was during the war that Germany also produced theStG 44, which is capable of controllable fully automatic fire from a 30-round magazine with the newly developed7.92x33mm Kurz intermediate rifle cartridge. After the war, the StG 44 was of particular interest to the Soviet Union, whoseAK-47 was derived heavily from the German design.[3] In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States developed and produced theM16 rifle, cementing the applicability of theassault rifle as an effective and versatile combat weapon for future conflicts.