Modern Battlefield Weapons

The sort of weapons one finds on a modern (i.e. 1900 or later) land battlefield, be it forest, desert or urban.

This will be split into weapons a soldier can carry and weapons that need a vehicle to transport them.

Pistols
The most common "sidearm" in modern military service is some model of semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine. Fulfilling functions from purely ceremonial to close-range self-defense to "fighting your way back to your rifle", pistols offer fair firepower at short range and are among the lightest, most portable firearms.

Note that there are, for historical reasons, some rather different attitudes in different militaries about these. In many European militaries prior to World War II, the pistol was symbolic of a commissioned officer's authority; it meant that if he drew it in battle, its purpose was to shoot one of his own soldiers for failing to obey orders, and the idea of actually using it to shoot at the enemy seemed in these military establishments rather strange. In some other militaries--the UK and US militaries come immediately to mind--due to 19th Century colonial warfare and warfare against the Plains Indians, the pistol was regarded as a vitally important instrument of close quarters combat. Which is why so many European armies prior to NATO issued tiny little .32 caliber pocket pistols to their officers, whereas the US and UK militaries favored big revolvers and/or big semiauto pistols in calibers beginning with a "4." The Germans, having observed this, and suspecting (correctly) that close quarters battle was going to be commonplace in the next big war, created the perennially popular 9x19mm pistol cartridge, which is still in use by NATO and many governments around the world, and the Luger pistol to use it, which isn't.

Military revolvers, though not unknown up until after World War II (and in both World Wars, the US military purchased revolvers from Colt and also Smith & Wesson due to insufficient production of the M1911 semiauto design), have all but disappeared from service, though even in the 1980s they were sometimes seen in use by the US Air Force and US Navy. Common examples include:


 * The German Luger P08, AKA Parabellum. Was the platform in which the extremely popular 9x19mm cartridge was introduced — after several false starts like 7.62x25mm. The cartridge's popularity endures long after original Lugers became collectors' items and museum pieces. The Luger was not uncommon, as such things go, until 1945, though even before the war the Germans were trying to replace it with more modern designs that were more reliable and less expensive to mass-produce. The Luger's steeply-raked gripframe angle was intended to force users to shoot with a locked wrist, which is thought by some to promote accuracy.
 * Luger's successor, P38, which actually was the standard German sidearm during the World War II. Accurate and reliable, but still somewhat expensive to manufacture. As it was chambered in the original 9x19 Parabellum cartridge is also was somewhat less powerful than its Allies' counterparts.
 * The Colt 1911 and all its variants. The US Military officially replaced it with a variant of the Beretta 92 in 1984, but a lot of soldiers were loathe to part with it. Still iconic and very popular in civilian hands, too. Still manufactured by Colt (and a host of others) even after a century (first model was adopted by the U.S Army in March of 1911). An early example of superb ergonomics, especially the M1911A1 model standardized in 1927. Designed by one John Moses Browning, a self-taught engineer with a fourth-grade education who designed a wide variety of sporting and military firearms, some of which are still in production today.
 * Many special forces units use their own funds to buy 1911's.
 * The Marine Corps has approved a new production version of the 1911 as an alternate sidearm for Recon.
 * The aforementioned Beretta 92, adopted as the M9 pistol. Chambered for the NATO-standard 9mm Parabellum cartridge, it soundly beats the Colt in magazine capacity and is supposed to be easier to control, but got something of a bad reputation from the initial order of magazines being badly manufactured. Kind of large and not always easy to use for people with small hands.
 * The pistol also had a bad reputation because the slide would break, causing injury or death to the person firing the pistol. This defect was fixed in later models. And then in 2003 the Army bought some magazines from the lowest bidder that had springs in them at the low end of the acceptable specs, which caused the magazines to jam and fail to feed when they got dirty with sand (which there's a lot of, in places like Iraq and Afghanistan). These problems have largely been fixed, but the reputation damage is done (especially amongst those who never wanted to give up the M1911 in the first place).
 * The SIG P228, adopted by the U.S. military as the M11 pistol, as an alternate service weapon for special operations forces, military police, security, and investigative services (it is smaller and more easily concealed in plain clothes than the M9, not to mention easier to use for people with smaller than average hands). Also chambered in 9mm, and used by numerous military and police organizations around the globe.
 * Pop culture appearance: Jack Bauer used one almost exclusively in the first two seasons of 24.
 * The Makarov (officially called PM). Used extensively in the Eastern Block. Considered more of a backup weapon than a full service pistol, mostly because it was designed as a police pistol and became military sidearm almost by accident. The Makarov is quite compact, chambered for a comparatively weak 9x18mm round and generally considered to be of somewhat rough manufacture. Still, with proper care and good ammo it's quite accurate and very reliable. It was introduced in the 1950s, replacing the Tokarev Model 1933 semiauto and Nagant Model 1895 revolver.
 * TT, AKA Tokarev, is a Soviet take on the enduring Browning design and is something of a cross between M1911 and Hi-Power, only in weird Soviet early-Thirties Art Deco trim. Uses a standard Soviet 7.62x25mm pistol round, which is actually a distant cousin of 9x19 Parabellum cartridge, and was one of its early variants, only having a lower caliber bullet and somewhat longer brass with bigger powder charge. It didn't offer much in stopping power, but due to powerful cartridge and low caliber it had exceptional armor-piercing capabilities. Still used infrequently today exactly because of that, despite being phased out half a century ago: it's able to pierce most light body armors.
 * The Glock 17. Though more familiar as a weapon coveted by both cops and gangsters, it makes for a fine military weapon. Entered service around 1980 and has been very widely exported. Beset by untrue rumors in the 1980s that it was "designed for terrorism" and "invisible to metal detectors and airport X-ray machines," stemming from the fact that it was the first popular design to use plastic (fiberglass reinforced nylon polymer, for the pedants out there) for the grip-frame instead of aluminum or steel; the rest of the gun IS steel, same as any other, however. Has a vocal Hatedom mainly for its nontraditional polymer construction and its steeply raked grip frame angle, reminiscent of the Luger, which is intended to promote more accurate shooting by forcing the user to lock his or her wrist more rigidly--whether this is an improvement, ergonomically speaking, seems to be rather subjective.
 * The Browning High-Power (or Hi-Power). From the same designer as the M1911, though after his death some aspects of the design were brought to their final form by his Belgian apprentice, Dieudronne Saive. Various marks of High-Power have been the standard sidearm of the British Army since the 1950s, and has been used by almost every military outside the Soviet Bloc that preferred 9mm to .45 at some point. Notable for being the first widely-accepted military sidearm to come with a magazine capacity over ten rounds. Also an early example of superb ergonomics.

Sub-Machine Guns
Appearing in the late stages of World War I, SMGs have had something of a tumultuous military history. Note that a submachinegun by definition uses pistol ammunition, which is much less powerful than rifle ammunition. This makes them it relatively easily controlled in full auto fire--there is less recoil, the muzzle rises less--but it limits their effective range to 150m or less, and the relatively low velocities mean the bullets do not penetrate light cover on the battlefield--such as car doors, building materials, etc.--nearly as well as more powerful ones do. This class of small arm was most common during the Second World War; shortly thereafter, it was supplanted by selective-fire assault rifles.

Although they were first considered to be the equivalent of giving every soldier his own machinegun, experience showed that the pistol calibers and detachable magazines used meant SMGs could not attain the range or sustained fire capability of proper machineguns, and the invention of intermediate caliber automatic weapons (the assault rifle, as famously coined by Adolf Hitler himself) pushed them away from their primary weapon role. Today, SMGs are seeing a sort of resurgence in two fields: first, as a special-operations weapon, as sound suppressors can make pistol-caliber weapons surprisingly quiet, and also in the form of the personal defense weapon, designed for easy use and chambered in new, recoil-light calibers to equip rear echelon personnel with more defensive firepower than pistols provide. Their historical uses, such as close-quarters battle, have been almost completely overtaken by assault rifles. Common examples include:


 * The Heckler & Koch MP5 in all its variants. Perhaps the quintessential "modern SMG", its high accuracy and reliability made it very popular with many special operations units. The MP5SD variants with integral sound suppressor are prized for their quietness. Although the MP5 has been around since the 1970s, it is still extremely widespread, and still extremely popular with US law enforcement special units such as "SWAT" teams. Expensive and, according to some, overengineered (the roller-delayed blowback system is not cheap to manufacture), but it sells. There were in the 1990s plans to discontinue manufacture in favor of the lightweight, mostly plastic, simple straight-blowback UMP SMG, but it was too good a seller for HK to stop making them.
 * The MP40. Together with its predecessor, the MP38, this SMG equipped large portions of the German armed forces in the Second World War. Many millions were manufactured and they are still encountered around the world (for example, rumor has it that there are still tens of thousands of captured ones on racks in some French military arsenals, to be handed out to police and reservists in the event of Armageddon)
 * The Thompson SMG, in many variations. Although perhaps better known in its earlier models as the weapon of choice for Prohibition-era gangsters (with drum magazine, natch',) the military variants equipped the US Army and Marines in their fights during World War 2. Replaced from 1943 on by the much cheaper stamped sheetmetal M3 "Grease Gun" which remained in service until the mid-1990s as a weapon for tank crewmen and truck drivers, as it was much more compact than an M16.
 * The STEN, designed in the UK in the dark days of 1940, to be mass produced as cheaply as possible. It was manufactured in basement machine shops and village blacksmithies, and looked extremely crude, because it was--it had only four moving parts. But it worked well enough, and British Commonwealth soldiers used them for two decades after the war. It was so simple to manufacture, even with only hand tools, that clandestine machine shops turned them out by the tens of thousands for resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe during the war. Many but not all were designed to accept not only the 9mm ammunition but even the magazines of the MP40. The STEN has the slightly unusual feature of the magazine being inserted into the mag housing horizontally instead of vertically, so that the user may more easily adopt a prone position without a long magazine getting in the way.
 * The Sterling was the STEN's slightly more sophisticated successor in UK military service, entering service in the late 1950s and remaining in service until replaced by the L85 bullpup assault rifle in the 1980s. It shares the magazine-in-the-side layout of the STEN but it was much more carefully made--overengineered according to some, a single Sterling magazine with its unique roller bearing follower cost more to manufacture than a STEN gun.
 * The Uzi. An Israeli-made SMG that was progressively shrunk down into the Mini-Uzi and Micro-Uzi models, this 9mm Parabellum SMG equipped many militaries from the 70s onwards, but achieved even greater pop-cultural fame. Commonly mistaken for the similar-looking MAC-10 and its variants, which never enjoyed serious military adoption. Named for its creator, one Uziel Gal (born in 1923 in Weimar as Gotthard Glas), its layout and some of its internals are obviously inspired by the Czech Samopal-52 SMG but its construction is more economical, heavy stamped sheet metal instead of milled forgings.
 * The MAC-10 was the brainchild of Gordon B. Ingram in the 1960s and is often seen--at least when used as a movie prop--with Mitch Werbell's massive suppressor screwed onto the muzzle. It never saw much export or military sales, but lookalikes are still manufactured decades later. It used .45 caliber ammunition in the same magazines that the aforementioned M3 "Grease Gun" used, and, due to constraints on the weight and mass of the bolt that could fit in its tiny stamped sheetmetal receiver, cycled at 1200+ rounds per minute, making it a bit of a handful in full-auto fire, unless one had that big suppressor on the front to hang onto.
 * This was a purpose built gun for foreign special forces, the Problem? right after production started the U.S. passed laws banning the sale of suppressors to foreign governments. Since this was the main selling point of the gun Gordon was left with a crapload of guns to sell, mounting debts and a civilian market.
 * The Glock 18. The only Glock pistol that is fully automatic. Uses 9x19mm Parabellum rounds. This gun is ported to reduce recoil, which had been a major problem with other submachine guns.
 * The Shpagin PPSh41 aka the "Pah-Pah-Shah" after its Russian spelling. Somewhat inspired by the Finnish M31 "Suomi" SMG manufactured by the millions in Russia during the Second World War, it has become fairly common around the world and examples were even captured from Iraqi troops in the 2003 war. Very distinctive looking with its perforated sheet metal handguard, drum magazine, and rifle-like wooden buttstock, the "Russian banjo" was given out by the million to Soviet clients during the Cold War. A further simplified version, the even cruder and uglier (but, unexpectedly, more accurate and reliable) Sudayev PPS43 (and the Chinese copy thereof, the K50M) was mass produced in Russia from 1943 until the 1950s (and copies in other countries were still being manufactured into the 1980s and possibly longer), however it was not exported so much and is therefore rather less commonly encountered around the world today. Both used the old Soviet 7.62x25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge. Both were replaced in service by the AKM assault rifle around 1960 (which is itself a pretty commonly encountered weapon worldwide today).
 * Probably belonging in the same category, tactically at least, with these is a new classification first appearing around 1990, which the manufacturers usually call a "PDW," Personal Defense Weapon. It is intended for use by rear area and support troops, such as combat engineers and truck drivers, and is intended to be shorter, lighter, and handier than an automatic rifle, yet still capable of penetrating the soft body armor that is becoming increasingly common on the modern battlefield. They use small-caliber, high velocity cartridges, sometimes with hardened steel-core projectiles, to make them more capable against armor, and the cartridges are generally just barely small enough that they can design a handgun around them, but pistols using the ammunition were created later. Oh, and the high-velocity cartridges have flatter trajectories, giving them much longer effective range than the WWII generation of pistol-caliber SMGs. The two most common examples today are the Fabrique Nationale P90, which has had some export success since it was introduced in the early 1990s, and the later Heckler & Koch MP7, which hasn't proven quite so popular.

Shotguns
This is really almost exclusively a US military phenomenon. Since US intervention in the Phillipines at the end of the 19th Century, US infantry units generally, and the US Marine Corps in particular, have issued shotguns to selected infantrymen whenever they have anticipated having to do a lot of house-to-house fighting, or close-quarters work under jungle conditions. Several models have been issued, most of them adapted from civilian hunting shotguns, but with barrels shortened, extended magazine capacity and mounting hardware for bayonets added on, so-called "trench guns." They are short-range weapons, really at their best within 40 meters, but within that distance quite astonishingly effective, even by 21st Century standards--and specialized types of ammunition, so-called "breacher rounds," have been created permitting the shotgun to be used as a tool for blowing hinges off doors in order to permit Dynamic Entry. Most are manually operated "slide action" designs, which means the user must pump the forend back and forth to eject fired cases, cock the mechanism, and load a fresh round, with fixed tubular magazines that must be loaded one cartridge at a time through a spring-loaded gate in the bottom of the receiver. They have always been very popular with US law enforcement, also, who still call them "riot guns" even though it's been generations since the last time police officers in the US fired into a mob that refused to disperse. For military purposes, the most popular antipersonnel round is "buckshot," originally created in the late 19th Century for hunting medium to large game, and not greatly changed since then; these cartridges hold a stack of big heavy lead balls, big enough to be pistol bullets in their own right. There has been considerable experimentation with flechettes, miniature grenades, and other, more exotic types of ammunition in an attempt to boost the shotgun's already considerable lethality further, but they keep coming back to buckshot, because it's really inexpensive to manufacture and works really well.

Bolt-action Rifles
Most common in the First World War, and used by most nations until well after the Second World War (indeed, in the US, Remington and Smith-Corona made M1903A3 Springfields until 1944, as there was a perception that more modern semiauto weapons could not be produced quickly enough; lots of them ended up being used for training, issued to National Guard units, and after the war given out as military aid to South Korea and other US allies), these weapons were created at the end of the Victorian Era. Most have a bolt handle on the right, which a right-handed user rotates upward to unlock, then pulls back to eject the fired casing, pushes forward to load the next cartridge into the chamber, then rotates the bolt handle back down to lock the breech. There were three different designs that were most common: the Mauser model 1898, copied in the US as the M1903 Springfield (really; after World War I, the US government had to pay reparations to the Mauser company for using their design without permission) and in Japan as the Arisaka. The British had the Lee-Enfield (ironically enough designed by an American, one James Parrish Lee). The Russians had the Mosin-Nagant Model 1891, created by a Russian and a Belgian, whose design sparked a whole slew of lawsuits and hearings. The French had the Lebel and later the MAS36. This is not to say that other nations didn't also have similar designs, but these were the ones commonly found on battlefields in the early and mid part of the century; the Mauser designs were extremely widely exported, and the Model 1898 was the AK47 of its day--it can be found on Third World battlefields even in the present day. By 21st Century standards they seem extremely primitive, and almost comically long and heavy, but they were accurate and powerful, simple and rugged, and extremely resistant to abuse and neglect. They could be quite astonishingly deadly in skilled hands, and were rugged enough to use as a very effective bludgeon when ammunition ran low. Some nations still issued these into the 1960s (and the Russians had tens of millions of Mosin-Nagants left over from the Second World War put away in arsenals that they didn't start selling off as surplus until after the year 2000), but more modern designs eventually supplanted them. The bolt-action mechanism is still very popular for target rifles and hunting rifles in the present day--and has been since the 1920s.

Battle Rifles
Following WW 2, NATO adopted the 7.62mmx51 round--a World War I style "full power" rifle cartridge--at the behest of the USA. Paired with maturing designs of man-portable automatic weapons, this created the distinctive class of battle rifles, which are chambered in full-power rifle calibers. Most are capable of full-automatic fire, but the recoil is prohibitive and so this capability was rarely used. Common examples include:


 * The M14 rifle. Somewhat ill-fated, this variant of the Garand rifle that had equipped the US Military during WW 2 came into service at the end of the 1950s. It was generally considered a good weapon, but the full-auto capability was removed from most rifles and they only served briefly in Vietnam before being replaced by the M16 assault rifle. Today, the M14 has gained a second life as semi-automatic precision rifle.
 * The M1 Garand was the predecessor to the M14, designed during the 1920s by Canadian-born engineer John Cantius Garand. It was mass produced in the US from 1939 to 1956, and several million were manufactured, almost all built to use the big old .30/06 cartridge, which it used in clips of eight loaded into the top of the action. The Garand was reliable, powerful, rugged, and accurate, and well liked by the troops, if distressingly expensive to manufacture by Depression-era standards. One could consider the M14 to be a product-improved Garand, nearly identical but for the adoption of a twenty-round detachable box magazine, the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge, the chrome-lined chamber and bore, the White short-stroke gas piston system, and the milling of mounting fitments on the left side of the receiver for a telescopic sight. Even today Garand rifles are often found in places like the National Match every summer at Camp Perry, Ohio, where people compete at the thousand-yard line with iron sights.
 * The Heckler & Koch G3. Working from a design developed by Mauser engineers at the tail end of WW 2 and further refined when they went to work for Francisco Franco in Spain after the war, the G3 was Heckler & Koch's first big success (previously they had been a manufacturer of precision machine tools and sewing machine needles) and introduction to their use of the roller-locked breech system which is also used in the MP5 SMG. Widely adopted by militaries in Western Europe and a very popular export item all over the Third World (and is currently issued in the militaries of both Iran and Mexico, to take two examples), and eternal rival of...
 * The FN FAL. This Belgian rifle is generally considered the equal of the G3, and both rifles were in fierce competition for adoption in many countries. The UK abandoned their own experiments with novel rifle designs and calibers in favor of a purely semi-automatic version of the FAL, which they used into the mid-1980s including against Argentine FALs in The Falklands War (not the only bit of equipment shared by both sides). At one point, circa 1985, the FAL was the second most common military rifle in use on the planet, the most common being the AKM. Affectionately nicknamed the 'the right arm of the Free World'. The US also very nearly adopted the FAL in 1955, but at the last moment went with the M14 instead.
 * Soviet Union actually beat everyone except US, and fielded not one but two different battle rifles before the WWII, Tokarev's SVT and Simonov's AVS, the latter of which, with its selective fire, had even lead Nazi generals to think initially that Soviet soldiers are armed with LMGs. But these, while very advanced and accurate for their day, were even more complex and expensive than Garand rifle, and USSR wasn't even near US' production capabilities at the time. So when the WWII finally reached Soviet soil, these two were largely abandoned for much cheaper and more practical SMGs. Still, they, especially SVT, found a major success as sniper rifles.

Battle rifles have recently undergone a kind of resurgence, by Western forces who've adopted designated marksman tactics, giving one squad member a longer ranged weapon that can more easily pierce cover. This is suspiciously similar to the Russian concept of a squad sniper. They also started dusting them off because the current standard assault rifle round in the NATO, the 5.56x45mm, has issues with stopping power in the current theater of war.

Assault Rifles
Perhaps the main man-portable firearm since WW 2, assault rifles are full-automatic capable firearms firing intermediate calibers, such as the 5.56mm x45 NATO or the 5.45/7.62mm x39 Soviet rounds. While still doctrinally intended to be fired mostly in well-aimed single shots, assault rifles combine the low recoil of SMGs with more range and stopping power; the relatively lightweight ammunition also allows an infantryman to carry twice as much or more ammunition than previous designs. The all-rounder of battlefield weapons. More range and power than a submachinegun, though less portable. Less range than a sniper rifle, though more portable and featuring a higher firerate. Common examples include:


 * The AK-47 and all its descendants. Memetically tough and nigh-indestructible, this weapon family entered mass production around 1960 and is widespread around the world and has more licensed copies / unlicensed knock-offs than can be easily recounted, including some in use by Western-aligned nations (designs based on it but not outright copies have been manufactured in Israel, Switzerland and South Africa, among other countries, while Finland directly licensed AKM from USSR, though it later introduced its own modifications). According to some estimates, more than thirty million AKM and AK74 pattern rifles have been manufactured worldwide since 1960. Often crudely made--the definitive mass-produced variations in Soviet service, the AKM (in 7.62x39mm caliber, appearing in 1960) and AK74 (in 5.45x39mm caliber, appearing in 1974) have a receiver made from stamped sheet metal riveted together and most often a buttstock and handguard cut roughly from plywood, even the military issue ammunition in these calibers is usually loaded in lacquered steel cases instead of more expensive brass (though the bores, chambers, and gas cylinders are usually chrome-lined to reduce wear and protect them from corrosive primer residue)--the design is considered much more reliable but less accurate than...
 * The M16, living proof that if you work at something long enough, it eventually becomes great. Plagued by mismanagement (and deliberate sabotage) in its early years and a general dislike of the fact its stock and handguard are plastic; as well as the small caliber (5.56mm NATO) it is chambered in, compared to the earlier 7.62x51 chambering of the M14. Changing ammunition specs without telling the weapons designer and cheaping out on the weapon itself? Bad. Giving it to troops fighting in the jungles of Vietnam and claiming that it didn't need to be cleaned? Very bad. Fortunately, the M16 survived those horrible first years and has eventually become a widely adopted and copied weapon itself, though much like the Beretta 92 pistol, it still has a vocal Hatedom. The now steadily more popular M4 variant is described under Carbines. More expensive to manufacture than most competing designs, it uses a hinged two-part receiver made from lightweight aircraft aluminum alloy.
 * The Heckler & Koch G36. Cool Gun of the beginning 21st Century, it was not particularly innovative (indeed, mechanically the internals are a pretty close copy of Eugene Stoner's old AR18, designed circa 1965) but well-executed. Made mostly of lightweight plastic, and with a built-in optical sight, it seems to be well liked by the troops and is becoming a very popular export. The military forces that bought the G3 also looked at this, but most procurement was delayed well into the glut of new rifle designs spawned from the War On Terror. Anyone thinking about a Heckler & Koch now has probably turned to the 416, a hybrid between the inner workings of the G36 and the outer appearance of the M16 family.
 * The L85, also known as the SA80, the standard assault rifle of the British military and pretty good demonstration that anything the Yanks can do, the Brits can do better worse Up to Eleven. A bullpup design (this means the operating mechanism and magazine are located in its buttstock instead of in front of the user's right hand, this to make the weapon more compact), it suffered from staggeringly bad quality control and reliability problems, especially in sandy conditions. Despite its limited international presence, it turned up in Firefly and one scene in the Battlestar Galactica reboot. Most of its more egregious faults were corrected by Heckler & Koch after battle experience in Desert Storm, and it's now regarded as highly accurate but still a little persnickety. It's very obviously a bullpup conversion of an AR18, which was still under patent protection when it was designed.
 * The Steyr AUG is another bullpup, originating in Austria in the late 1970s, and thus far having limited success in export sales, the only big buyer so far being Australia. It has even more plastic in its construction than the G36. Even its magazines are transparent plastic, so that the user can see at a glance how much ammo they contain. Many still find it very futuristic-looking, even though it was introduced in 1977. It has a built-in telescopic sight instead of iron sights, as well as easily-swappable interchangeable barrels allowing the operator to switch between an SMG-sized assault barrel and a suppression-oriented bipod barrel in seconds.
 * The first such weapon to appear was the German StG44, and it was for it that the term "assault rifle" was coined. It was a short and handy--well, compared to a K98, anyway--selective-fire automatic carbine using detachable 30 round box magazines and a distinctive-looking stubby little 7.92x33mm cartridge. The Germans manufactured several tens of thousands of them during the Second World War, and they were well liked by troops in the field, but the weapon was expensive to manufacture and they never produced enough of them to make any real difference in the outcome of the war. After the war the captured ones were sold off around the world as surplus and are still sometimes encountered in the Middle East and the Third World.

Carbines
Originally simply a shortened rifle for cavalry, engineers, etc., who wasn't expected to advance in lines at enemy position, but still needed something for self-defense, essentially an ancient PDW. Today they are something of a historical anomaly, most weapons here being spiritual successors of the M1 Carbine fielded by the US Military during World War 2 as a light automatic weapon for paratroopers and the like. (A similar thought process to what launched the Personal Defense Weapon trend; see submachine guns.) Examples include:


 * The M1 Carbine, as mentioned. Chambered in a unique caliber that approached the intermediary cartridge ideal of assault rifles, yet very compact and light, it was intended to be used by truck drivers, vehicle crewmen, combat engineers, etc., and proved very popular with paratroopers. One variant, the M3, is notable for being fielded with one of the first portable nightvision optics late in World War II. Oddly enough, not long after the war, a simple straight-blowback open-bolt SMG was designed in the Dominican Republic to use its ammunition and magazines, suggesting that it may have been just slightly overengineered.
 * The AKS-74U, a compact version of the AK-74. Small enough to double as a submachine gun, it was intended for use by truck drivers, armored vehicle crewmen, etc., but its compactness made it very popular with Russian Special Forces troops. Notable for its huge muzzle flash, like...
 * The M4, the end result of decades of compact M16 variants that never quite caught on. However, the M4 is steadily replacing full-size M16s in US service now, being more maneuverable and compact - important for a military that spends a lot of time riding in vehicles and clearing tight urban spaces. The U.S. Army has adopted the M4 as its primary issue variant of the M16. And like the AKS-74U, it was originally intended for truck drivers and armored vehicle crewmen, then the Spec Ops guys demanded them because they liked the handling qualities. M4 carbines mostly these days have a rail mount built into the top of the receiver to mount an optical sight of some kind, and iron sights are generally relegated to emergency use if something goes wrong with the optical sight. They may also have rail mounts built into or even replacing the handguards, allowing the user an easy way to mount flashlights, laser sights, etc.
 * Before the AK, there was the Simonov SKS semiauto carbine, which was the platform in which the AK's 7.62x39mm cartridge was introduced in 1943. This was essentially a carbine version of Simonov's AVS battle rifle without the full-auto. The Russians didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for a design they regarded as a stopgap and only mass-produced them for a few years, but the Chinese and several Soviet allies in Eastern Europe made copies by the tens of millions and exported them all over the world; the Chinese still export them today. It is perhaps a bit heavy and clunky for what it is, and almost all examples are loaded from the top with a stamped sheet metal stripper clip like something from before World War I, but it has a good reputation for ruggedness and reliability, and not a few have been sold in the US, where they have become in some areas fairly popular as deer hunting rifles. It is one of the most popular firearms among Canadian civilians as it's falls into the least restrictive licensing category and Chinese imports keep it cheap and ammo is widely available. In Russia itself, it's also sold as a hunting rifle, and popular in this quality, but sometimes this carbine can be encountered in the hands of a VOHR security guard (VOHR is a state-owned security guard service, as opposed to ChOPs, private security firms), but also as a ceremonial parade weapon due to its distinctive old-fashioned looks that's better suited to fancy arms maneuvers. Very commonly encountered around the world, they are also commonly issued weapons for police and prison guards in China.

Grenade Launchers
These began appearing in the 1960s. They are rifled weapons, often but not always bolted onto a rifle underneath its barrel, firing a projectile normally 30mm to 40mm in caliber, rather than an actual hand grenade. They are relatively low velocity direct-fire weapons that lob their smallish shells in a high arc with an effective range of up to a few hundred meters, but are surprisingly accurate. These have appeared in both Eastern and Western armies, though are somewhat less common in Eastern armies. The rounds have a relatively small bursting radius due to relatively small caliber but are highly lethal within that radius. Most common around the world today is the US M203, introduced in the early 1970s and designed to be bolted onto an M16 rifle or M4 carbine, slung under the rifle's barrel. Antipersonnel HE-fragmentation rounds are most common but others exist, from colored smoke for signaling or target marking purposes to shaped charge armor-piercing rounds capable of destroying a light armored vehicle.

Prior to purpose-designed grenade launchers, there were "rifle grenades," which used contraptions bolted onto the muzzle of an infantry rifle that used a special type of blank cartridge to launch a modest-sized shell, most commonly a light shaped-charge antiarmor round but antipersonnel HE-frag was also common. They have been around since between the World Wars, and there is still a NATO spec for rifle grenades, but they fell from favor in the 1960s in favor of more modern "grenade launcher" type weapons. In some Eastern countries they are still in common issue; Poland and the former Yugoslavia, for example, still issue rifle grenades widely.

Light Machine Guns, Squad Automatic Weapons, and Heavy Machine Guns
Here we begin to see the real "teeth" of infantry formations, so to speak. In World War II a German rifle squad might have had eight men with a mix of bolt-action K98 rifles or MP40 submachineguns, plus a two-man team with an MG42 light machine gun. Statistics showed that in most engagements, for the squad 90%+ of ammunition expended in firefights went through the MG42.

Perhaps some exposition is in order. In modern (by which we mean the tactics developed during the Second World War) fire-and-movement small-unit infantry tactics, the rifle is a secondary weapon.

On the defensive, the purpose of the riflemen is to keep the SAW and LMG teams from being outflanked or overrun. In meeting engagements or on the offensive, the SAW and LMG teams set up a base of fire and suppress enemy units and enemy positions (perhaps with mortars laying down a smokescreen to isolate the objective and prevent enemy units nearby from being able to support the defenders), while the riflemen and SMG gunners form a maneuver element to approach the enemy position under cover of fire and then assault it at close quarters, often with grenades.

The idea of every squad having a portable automatic weapon of some kind is another custom originating in the Second World War. Vast numbers of designs have been issued. Currently the most common are probably the FN "Minimi" 5.56mm belt-fed LMG, which the US issues as the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, or the Russian RPK series of magazine-fed LMGs, which have been manufactured in several calibers and look like very large AK-47s. Historically the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (yet another creation of John Moses Browning), or BAR, was a magazine-fed design very common in US service between 1918 and 1965, and it was also very widely exported. The Russians used and widely exported the RPK, as well as the older RPD (very similar to the RPK but belt-fed, declared obsolete due to higher manufacturing costs). The UK used the magazine-fed "Bren" LMG from the 1930s until around 1980, in reserve units. All weapons in this class have been exported very widely and can be found anywhere in the world.

The LMG/SAW is distinct from the HMG, the Heavy Machine Gun, not only due to weight, but also in that the latter is normally either a stationary weapon perhaps mounted on a tripod and served by a crew, perhaps in a bunker or pillbox, or carried by a vehicle. The HMG tends to be of larger caliber, and/or designed for higher sustained volumes of fire (such as the many watercooled World War I designs with the cooling jackets full of water surrounding their barrels). There are also a number of belt-fed automatic grenade launchers that have entered service since the mid-1980s; their weight, their high rate of ammo consumption, their long effective ranges, and their normal use as stationary crew-served weapons means that tactically they belong to the same class as the HMG and will be used in the same manner.

There are machine guns that are called General purpose machine guns. They are better when mounted on vehicles, but can be used by infantry. They are air-cooled machine guns firing rifle cartridges such as the 7.62×51mm NATO or 7.62×54mmR Russian. The bad thing is the weapons heavy weight (FN MAG, also known as M240 is 22.3 pounds or 10.1 kg as the new light version made in 2010) making them hard to carry for long distances, the good thing is that weapon iron sights on some models are up to 1.6 km or 1 mile and some models like the MG-3 have a AA rear sight.

Sniper Rifles
The ultimate weapon whenever you need to reach out and touch someone a few paces away. And "a few paces" really means half a mile, if not further--if the rifleman has the skill to use it effectively at such distance (the record is over 2 kilometres). And "touch" means decapitate. Normally fitted with a telescopic sight of some kind rather than iron sights. Often but not always using a bolt-action mechanism of some kind. Some of the more common ones are:


 * The M24, standard 7.62 NATO bolt-action sniper rifle as fielded by the United States Army. The USMC maintains them under the name M40A3. A variant on the Remington 700 hunting rifle.
 * The M21, a less-standard 7.62 NATO semi-auto sniper rifle built off of the previously mentioned M14. Also fielded by the United States Military
 * The Dragunov, the Soviet Union's take on a semi-auto sniper rifle, though it's really more of a "designated marksman"s rifle, as it was USSR who introduced the concept.
 * The VSS Vintorez, while not nearly as long-ranged as the other examples, is better known for being integrally silenced and very, very lethal. Upon discovering the armor-piercing qualities of the gun's special 9x39mm bullets, Western military intelligence personnel shat bricks.
 * The L115A1 Long Range Rifle (or Arctic Warfare Magnum as the manufacturer calls it), the British sniper rifle of choice. Currently has the longest confirmed sniper rifle kill at 2,475m (1.538 miles).
 * The M82 Barrett, your characteristic BFG, this is a .50 caliber rifle most often used for materiel disposal and interdiction of light armored vehicles and has been used at distances of two kilometers and beyond. This weapon stands on the border between "anti-personnel" sniper rifles and...

Anti-Tank/Anti-Materiel Rifles
This class of weapon was commonplace from between the World Wars until it became obvious that a man-portable rifle, even if it was as big and heavy as one man could carry, even using armor-piercing bullets, could not do much against modern tanks, which was around 1942. Various European armies had them in calibers up to 20mm. Most were single-shot or bolt-action. The Russians had a semiauto 14.5mm antitank rifle called the PTRS.

Such weapons still can do little against the composite laminate armor of a 21st Century main battle tank, however their utility against other types of targets, such as light armored vehicles, trucks, Scud missiles being fueled up with dangerously unstable rocket fuel, jet fighters parked in the open in front of the hangar, radar/antenna installations etc., have caused the concept to make something of a comeback since 1990 or so. Currently weapons in this class are generally called AMRs (Anti-Materiel Rifles) and there is a certain degree of overlap in design, function, and application with the largest-caliber (.50 caliber and up) sniper rifles.

Both the ATR and AMR generations of this kind of weapon tend to weight enough to make firing them without steady support all but impossible, and absolutely require a crew of two for portability of rifle itself and necessary ammunition just because one man can not be expected to carry it for any prolonged period of time and retain physical fitness to accomplish a shot. Most are easily disassembled into major components (usually barrel/reciever/peripherals) on the field for that very reason. In short, an AMR is to an ordinary sniper rifle roughly what an HMG is to a LMG/SAW.

Please note the spelling is correct. In a military context, the spelling for supplies and equipment is "materiel," not "material."

Flamethrowers
These appeared in World War I and were in widespread use until the 1970s. They were extremely heavy and unwieldy, using tanks of compressed gas to propel a stream of burning napalm at a target up to 40 or 50 meters away. The US Marine Corps made very heavy use of them in jungle fighting in the South Pacific during the Second World War, but flamethrowers have become much less common since then, for various reasons--like, their limited range, the extreme weight, and advances in technology providing more efficient methods of dealing with stubborn bunkers and machine-gun nests, like laser-guided artillery shells, infantry rocket launchers with thermobaric/fuel-air-explosive warheads, and so on. Flamethrowers are still manufactured in some countries but the US military has not issued them since the 1970s, and by the 21st Century their extreme weight, and also the high level of training necessary so that the user won't be more of a danger to himself and the friendly troops around him than to the enemy, have made them an uncommon sight in the present day.

Contrary to popular belief, most flamethrowers used by militaries did not violently explode if hit by a bullet. The propellant gas was not flammable, and as MythBusters showed, it is very difficult to set off a tank of gasoline by shooting it with a gun... and gasoline is MUCH easier to ignite than the jellied fuel used in flamethrowers. The trooper was in far more danger of being perforated himself because the bulky flamethrower getup both drew fire and made it harder for him to move freely to take cover or defend himself. Flamethrowers depicted in movies generally lack the "Supersoaker stream of flame" quality that combat flamethrowers had.

Shoulder-Launched Ordnance (Bazookas and RPGS)
Tank armour improved rapidly during World War II, as both sides introduced larger and heavier tanks. Infantry anti-tank rifles became ineffective as the high velocities needed to penetrate tank armour required impractically large rifles, such as the 150lb Japanese ‘type 97’. Fortunately a new development in explosive charges gave the infantry a new weapon to fight tanks. High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) warheads were small, and did not need to be fired at high velocity to cause damage—the warhead was shaped and lined to punch a jet of molten metal through any armour it hit. These warheads have been continuously improved since the war, and are even now the only way to kill tanks without a giant cannon.

Germany, Japan, the UK, and the US each invented different ways of getting the warhead to its target. These uses of and principles behind these weapons are often misunderstood by laymen (particularly reporters), so an explanation is called for.

The British PIAT (projector, infantry, anti-tank) used what was essentially a spring-triggered mortar to lob a 3lb bomb, on the theory that much of the recoil would be absorbed by recocking the giant spring. Many British veterans with gimpy shoulders will tell you that this was not always the case. The effective range was short, but the bomb was fairly powerful.

The Americans developed the M1 Bazooka—a long but light long reloadable tube with a rocket in it. Recoil was reduced by the simple principle of letting all the exhaust escape out the back of the weapon, creating a huge cloud of hot gas behind the firer, which both gave away his position and severely hurt anybody stupid enough to stand right behind him, but gave the weapon an impressive effective range. Theoretically the rocket was supposed to finish burning by the time it left the tube. Many American veterans without eyebrows will tell you that this was not always the case. The bazooka was issued in improved versions until the 1970s.

For once, the Germans went with an elegantly simple design—the panzerfaust (tank fist...er) was simply a disposable steel tube from which a black-powder charge threw a bomb with fins to a similar range as the PIAT. Short-ranged, but very cheap and powerful, improved versions of this weapon were built right up to the end of war, long after anti-tank gun production virtually ceased. The Germans also adapted the American bazooka to make the panzerschreck (tank terror)—with somewhat longer range.

The Japanese, lacking in both wartime production capacity and sense of self-preservation, invented an interesting expedient—the “lunge mine,” or "anti-tank spear." This was a primitive HEAT warhead on the end of a pole, with an effective range of less than 12 feet. This was obviously disposable. Many Japanese veterans in unmarked graves will tell you that the user was, too.

The Russians didn’t get into the game until after the war, when they developed the RPG-2—essentially a reloadable version of the panzerfaust. It was later replaced by the now-iconic RPG-7, which added a rocket motor set to ignite after traveling 10 meters, increasing the range. This system gives the weapon a very strange trajectory and counter-intuitive behavior in wind (it steers into the direction of a crosswind), making it very hard to aim. Nevertheless, the weapon is a favorite of insurgents all over the world, who use it either at close range, or as a long-range area-bombardment weapon. It should also be able to be fired safely from within buildings. Many Iraqi veterans with singed beards will tell you that this is not always the case. Incidentally, RPG actually stands for Ruchnoy Protivotankoviy Granatomyot, or hand-held anti-tank grenade launcher. Rocket Propelled Grenade is a backronym.

The US also from around 1967 until around 1990 universally issued the little M72 66mm "LAAWS" ("Light Anti-Armor Weapon System") single-shot disposable antitank rocket launcher, which fired from a disposable launch tube made first from waxed cardboard, then later--in response to complaints that the cardboard deteriorated from moisture in the field--from waterproof fiberglass and plastic. In the late 1980s it was felt that the 66mm round was not big enough to damage the newest generation of Soviet tanks, so it was scaled up and redesigned for an 84mm round of Swedish design, which entered service in 1990. The "AT-4" rockets are still US military issue today.

Almost all modern short-range anti tank weapons use some variant of the Bazooka or ‘recoilless gun’ principle (rocket burning entirely with the firing tube). To enable firing from within buildings, some modern designs use methods such as counter-mass to reduce the back-blast. Warheads have become heavier and more complex—some have two HEAT charges in a row to defeat explosive armor, for example. Other warhead types have been developed for purposes other than killing tanks, such as the building-collapsing thermobaric SMAW-NE. The Predator SRAW uses an inertial-guidance system to counteract crosswinds and increase accuracy. Almost all new weapons are very expensive, heavy, and require specialist training.

Recoilless Rifles

 * These weapons, somewhat resembling rocket launchers, fired a projectile and vented their propellant gases to the rear--and as they burn all of their propellant at once, they create tremendously more severe backblast than rocket launchers. Developed and fielded during the Second World War in US service, they came in a variety of calibers, the single most common of which in US service after the war was the 106mm M40 introduced around 1954, which was just a bit too large and too heavy to be readily man-portable and so was most often seen on a pintle mount in the back of a Jeep, though they could be and often were dismouned and set up on heavy tripod mounts also. They were heavier than rocket launchers of equivalent caliber, but more accurate. They are not common today in First World armies, their places having been usurped in the antiarmor role by antitank guided missiles and in the infantry support role by grenade launchers, though jeeps and similar vehicles with an M40 recoilless rifle on the pintle mount in the back are still in service in the militaries of many nations.The M67 90mm recoilless rifle was for a time in the 1960s and 1970s a platoon-level asset in US infantry units, intended as a medium-range antitank weapon to supplement the LAAWS rockets and also a direct-fire infantry support weapon firing HE and antipersonnel flechette ammunition, but they were unpopular in service (due largely to the fact that it weighed almost forty pounds unloaded) and no one missed them very much when they were replaced by the Dragon ATGM in the mid 1970s (though some reserve and training units kept theirs until around 1990). Many militaries still issue these, and the military of the Phillipines often mounts the M67 on a pintle mount on a jeep as a mobile fire-support system.
 * They were mainly intended as antiarmor weapons and the most common ammunition type is HEAT shaped-charge antiarmor. They had a secondary direct-fire infantry support role and usually had at least a few HE rounds available to them as well. Antipersonnel flechette rounds were also available in some calibers.
 * Other powers didn't go for this concept very much, though the US systems were very widely exported during the Cold War, and are still in widespread use worldwide, the M40 106mm in particular. The Russians in the 70s and 80s made a 73mm recoilless rifle they never exported, the SPG-9, and only issued to elite paratrooper units, used by the battalion's antiarmor platoon. The British in the 1950s devised a 120mm recoilless rifle nicknamed the "Wombat" that was normally mounted on a Land Rover, as an antiarmor weapon, but it, like the M40 in US service, was replaced by guided missiles as quickly as it became practical to do so. Many British Commonwealth infantry units do still issue an 84mm weapon of Swedish origin (the same whose ammunition was adapted to the AT4 and SMAW) that their tables of organization & equipment call a recoilless rifle, but from an engineering perspective it's more of a rocket-assisted round, and the Carl Gustav 84mm is probably better listed with bazookas and similar portable rocket launchers.

Handheld Surface to Air Missile Systems aka MAN Portable Air Defense Systems (MANPADS)
Designed for shooting down choppers, big cargo planes taking off or landing or for assassinations, these are short-range (usually) heat-seeking missiles carried by a single person. You'll get a loader/spotter along with them too. You switch on, point, wait for the fire control system to give you the loud beep in the headphones meaning it has a positive target lock, and fire. There's little recoil either as the missile accelerates when it is clearer. It is advisable not to stand in front of a wall though when launching one. Please also note these things weigh about 45 pounds (20 kilos).

You can also mount these onto attack choppers.


 * NATO's first successful entry into this category was the infrared-homing American-made FIM-43 Redeye, which entered service around 1964. Like all first generation MANPADS it was largely limited to the "tail chase" of aircraft that have already passed over and was easily confused by flares and the sun.
 * The better-known classic NATO example, the FIM-92 Stinger, which entered service in 1981, many examples of which were provided to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, where they got a reputation for extreme lethality, at least when employed against Russian helicopter gunships and ground attack aircraft.
 * The UK fielded a command-guided portable SAM in the 1970s, the Shorts Blowpipe, which was replaced in service around 1985 by a man-portable SAM called the Javelin (not related to the US military's newest lightweight ATGM by the same name). The Javelin was in turn replaced by the Starstreak in 1997. The British missiles are unusual in that they are all some kind of command guided, like most wire guided anti-tank missiles. Not that they used wires.
 * In the late 1980s the French developed a man-portable IR-homing SAM called the "Mistral" independently, which has enjoyed some success in export sales
 * The Soviets started with the Strela/SA-7 "Grail," which was... inspired by Redeye missiles acquired in Vietnam. Appeared in 1967 and was immediately exported to the North Vietnamese, among others.
 * The modern Russian version is the Igla/SA-18 "Grouse".
 * The Chinese have manufactured a copy of the SA-7 and SA-18, the HN-5 and QW-1, which they export in large numbers as well.
 * All of these weapons create a significant backblast upon firing.

Mortars
These are short to moderate range indirect-fire (which is to say, normally they are fired at targets the crew cannot see, while someone speaks to them with a radio to describe the target and its location and give them information to correct their aim) artillery pieces, and all but the largest are designed so that the crew can disassemble them and carry them cross-country on foot, along with ammo for them, and reassemble them in a new location. Mortars are far less expensive than guns or howitzers, and have a shorter range.

Mortars are very simply constructed, very inexpensive weapons. Typically they have fixed firing pin at the bottom end of the barrel, and are loaded and fired by dropping a live round tail-first into the tube.

Modern mortars first appeared in World War I, and usually have ranges of several kilometers, longer for larger caliber ones. They are normally smoothbore weapons firing a shell that has fins at its rear to stabilize it, though rifled mortars have also been manufactured. They are inexpensive and ubiquitous. Their strength is low cost and portability, their weakness is that they tend to have much shorter range than conventional tube artillery of equivalent caliber.

They range in caliber from 50mm up to 120mm commonly, and larger mortars up to 240mm exist but those larger than 120mm require wheeled carriages and must be towed behind vehicles.

81mm is the most common caliber in Western armies, and 82mm is the most common caliber in Eastern armies. Small 50mm to 60mm mortars may be company-level assets--that is to say, attached to an individual infantry company--whereas anything 81mm and larger is likely to be concentrated in a mortar battery that may be attached to an infantry battalion, in Western armies, or in Eastern armies, one or more mortar batteries may belong to a motorized infantry regiment, possibly even a mortar battalion of three batteries.

Mortars deliver high-angle plunging fire and can be very accurate, if the gun crew and the forward observer team are sufficiently skilled. The most common ammunition type is HE, and mortar rounds typically have more explosive filling proportional to their weight and therefore wider bursting radii (they throw fragments further) than conventional artillery rounds of equivalent caliber. Mortar rounds also can deliver smoke-producing chemicals to lay down a smokescreen rapidly, or even poison gas.

Antitank Guided Missiles (ATGM)
First appearing around 1960, but not used on a large scale in combat until the Yom Kippur War of 1973, these weapons brought about fundamental changes in the tactics of mechanized warfare. Inexpensive (at least compared to the tanks that are their targets, anyway), readily portable, extremely accurate, and lethal out to a range measured in kilometers, they allowed infantry units equipped with them, assuming they had time for the crews to set them up in positions giving them good fields of fire, to inflict severe damage upon attacking tank formations out to about as far away as the tanks could shell them with their main guns, making coordination with infantry and artillery even more important than it previously was.

Books could be written about the systems in use. There have been many generations of them with different guidance systems (command guidance over a fiberoptic cable is a favorite, as is laser guidance; fire-and-forget weapons using thermal TV imaging and high-resolution millimeter-wave radar sensors are also beginning to appear), but all are commonplace, especially in wealthier armies. A characteristic they tend to share is that they usually do not work very well at all within a minimum range they need to stabilize and arm the warhead, perhaps around 100m for most designs, requiring the continued use of portable antiarmor rocket launchers to cover this gap.

Most are designed to be carried in the field and used by a team of two to three men, but some are lighter, and some are so heavy that they're normally found on vehicles only.

These devices likewise create significant backblast upon firing.

These weapons replaced recoilless rifles in the antiarmor role.

It is important from a tactical perspective that the launcher and/or launching vehicle must normally remain motionless at least until the missile strikes its target, as the gunner must still in most instances guide the missile and bouncing along cross-country will usually not help his aim.

Many Western infantry-issue antitank guided missile launchers these days have thermal imaging (FLIR) night-vision sights built in, especially on vehicles.

The most common of the 1960s types was probably the wire-guided Russian 9K11, which NATO calls the AT-3 "Sagger." Egyptian and Syrian troops used these in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to maul Israeli armored units, until the Israeli tank pilots figured out how to deal with them, after which the chance of the missile to actually hit the intended tank dropped to less than 2%. Extremely widely exported, it may even in the 21st Century be the most common portable ATGM in the world, despite the fact that it is extraordinarily difficult to use well.

A likely candidate for second most popular is probably the wire-guided Franco-German MILAN which entered service in the early 1970s, which has likewise been very widely exported around the world for decades.

Some of the newest generation Western fire-and-forget ATGM designs are smart enough, fast enough, and agile enough that they can also function as portable SAMs, at least against helicopters at low altitudes, provided the target aircraft is not moving too fast.

Vehicle Transported Systems
These weapons may need a vehicle to move them about- or are part of a vehicle in their own right.

Anti-Aircraft Artillery (AAA or Ack Ack or Flak)
Some such weapons fire explosive shells, timed to explode at a set height, releasing coloured smoke to help aiming. These weapons were primarily used in the two World Wars, coming to be considered largely obsolete afterwards due to jet aviation. Others use conventional MG or small caliber HE ammunition. AAA made a comeback in the 1960s due to heavy Western use of helicopters in counterinsurgency brushfire wars in Asia and Africa; helicopters were and remain tremendously vulnerable to AAA at low altitudes.

Most of these systems can double up as a More Dakka version of HMG or artillery against ground targets, and many were indeed used in this role ever since WWII? see the famous German "88" example below. Impressive caliber coupled with high-to-incredible fire rate make them a legitimate threat to both infantry and lightly armored vehicles.

An often underestimated virtue of these systems is that they are vastly simpler to understand and operate, no small advantage when one considers that, especially during the Cold War, so many proxy conflicts took place in which one or both sides employed illiterate Third World peasant conscript soldiers. The subtleties of electronic warfare, or, for that matter, how to find an "ON" switch that might be labeled in Russian or Chinese, were often lost on conscripts who had little or no technical background or technical education (and before you laugh, how many readers here could find a "dummy load" switch labeled in Russian, or a "single sideband mode" button labeled in Chinese?). But shooting machine guns at the enemy airplane? That's much easier to comprehend, and much easier to train troops lacking a technical background to do.

Firing rates vary - many are examples of More Dakka.


 * The classic WW 2 example is the 8.8 cm Flak (Flugzeugabwehr-Kanone) fielded by Nazi Germany, who also found it extremely effective against tanks. Matter of fact, on the field "88"s were just as likely to be assigned to anti-tank artillery role as to actual AA duty.
 * Skyshield, a Swiss-built automated system has two 35mm cannons.
 * The M55 quad .50 caliber HMG was mounted on a trailer, and had a hydraulically rotating turret for the gunner. It was manufactured in the US from the Second World War into the early 1950s and exported widely.
 * Electrically driven Gatling autocannon have been very popular in this role since the 1950s. Towed 20mm gatling autocannon are still in service with some US airborne and airmobile units, and were often used in Vietnam for perimeter defense on firebases. Weapons in this class tend to be able to supply very high volumes of fire, which can be useful against more things than airplanes.
 * Bofors of Sweden has exported an antiaircraft gun system using 40mm autocannon since 1934, using either single or more commonly dual guns on the carriage. Some of the newer ones have radar, though most do not. The twin Bofors 40 is very commonly encountered around the world.
 * Possibly the single most common type found around the world today is the old Russian ZPU-4, which is a lightweight (light enough to tow behind a jeep or the Russian equivalent thereof, anyway) wheeled towed mount with four KPV 14.5mm heavy machine guns on it, introduced in 1949. It has no radar, no rangefinder, just iron sights. It is normally operated by a single gunner (though for obvious reasons there is normally a gun crew of about half a dozen, to help set it up and take it down, haul cans of ammo to it and help load it, etc). It was replaced decades ago in Soviet service by the ZU-23, a dual 23mm autocannon on a very similar wheeled mount. Both were exported very heavily indeed during the Cold War and are commonplace all over the world today. Iraqi troops made very heavy use of both designs during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, but mainly against Iranian human wave assaults rather than aircraft.

Tactical Surface To Air Missiles
Short-range missiles designed as a second line or last line of defence around particular targets. Usually road-mobile or even truck-mounted, but you'll still need to bring a search radar with you.


 * The Soviet/Russian Osa/SA-8 "Gecko", which is put on a modified APC and carries its own fire control radar on said vehicle. There is also the SA-9, usually deployed as part of a pair with a ZSU-23, which was designed to share the ZSU-23's radar by connecting the vehicles with a data cable.
 * The Russians designed dozens of such systems in multiple technological generations and produced them by the tens of thousands, because their doctrine relied on SAMs and AAA rather than air superiority to give their troops at the front lines protection from air attack.
 * In the 1970s and 1980s, the US Army fielded the M48 "Chapparal," a tracked chassis with launchers for four otherwise off-the-shelf AIM-9 "Sidewinder" air-to-air missiles. These were withdrawn from service in the early 1990s.
 * In the 1970s, there was a joint Franco-German developed mobile battlefield SAM called the "Roland" developed. Various tracked and wheeled and even towed launchers were developed for it, most all carrying four of the distinctive-looking, smallish pointy-looking missiles on launch rails. It has been very widely exported for more than thirty years and appears to be quite efficient and effective.

Strategic Surface To Air Missiles
Long-range missiles designed as a first-line of defense for an entire region or country. Semi-active or active radar guided, these missiles are designed to go a long distance and/or a great height very quickly.

Some of these missiles can engage tactical ballistic missiles. In the past, these often carried nuclear warheads, to be sure of a kill.


 * The U.S. MIM-104 PATRIOT system, which entered service in the late 1980s has an ABM capability in its later forms.
 * The Patriot replaced the MIM-72 HAWK which was introduced in the late 1960s and stayed in service, in improved form, until the early 1990s. The HAWK was very widely exported and remains very common around the world today.
 * The Soviet/Russian S-300 family, which is road-mobile.
 * The older semi-mobile S-75/SA-2 "Guideline" family, which were very effective in The Vietnam War, mainly for forcing mission cancellations and low-altitude flying that led to encounters with AAA.

Artillery
Heavy guns usually of caliber 105mm and larger (though a 75mm of French design from World War I was very widely exported and was very common around the world before around 1980), fired in indirect mode with ranges of many miles, artillery has dominated the modern battlefield since World War I. The guns are large enough that they have crews of many men and must either be towed behind a truck or built into a self-propelled armored vehicle for better mobility. Howitzers are lighter in weight and shorter in range, with shorter gun barrels, and can often be carried by helicopter. Field guns are heavier and longer-ranged with longer barrels. They normally fire high explosive shells designed to burst into lethal fragments on impact, though since World War I artillery shells have also been used to deliver poison gas; with other chemicals they can be used to lay down instant smokescreens to hinder visibility on the battlefield. Artillery is used to bombard enemy positions prior to an attack against them, and to drop into enemy units as they move across open ground toward a defensive position. And the unit in the defensive position can, of course, call for artillery to bombard enemy units attempting to attack it as well (one military term for this is "final protective fire"). Artillery is also used for harassment. Artillery bombardments can go on for days; during World War I, some continued for months, three rounds per minute per gun, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

On 20th Century battlefields, artillery caused 90%+ of all battlefield deaths and injuries. Machine guns and all forms of small arms fire were responsible for less than 5%, for comparison.

Since the 1970s new types of artillery rounds have become available, particularly in Western armies. (Though the Soviets kept up with their own munitions) There are ICM rounds, Improved Conventional Munitions, which burst a short distance above the ground and discharge a cargo of dozens of live grenades. There are the closely related FASCAM rounds, which allow minefields to be laid by artillery in much the same manner. And there are CLGP munitions, laser-guided artillery shells (the laser is normally operated by the forward observation team that is spotting for the artillery barrage). Starting in the 1990s SADARM (Sense and Destroy ARMor) munitions appeared, where each shell carries a pair or more of sensor-fuzed submunitions designed to detect armored vehicles and fire an explosively-formed penetrator at the vulnerable top.

Soviet artillery tactics teaches that some howitzers, particularly the D-30 122mm caliber ones, are to be used as antitank guns in emergencies, and shaped-charge HEAT rounds are available for them. The D-30 has direct-fire sights and is regarded as very accurate in the direct-fire role.

Antitank guns
These weapons, closely resembling indirect-fire artillery pieces, had their heyday in the Second World War. Since the war everyone but the Russians went in other engineering directions for filling this tactical niche. These weapons were normally either high-velocity tank guns or some other weapon with high velocity, such as a heavy antiaircraft gun, adapted to a towed mount similar to that used by artillery, intended to be towed up to the front line, put in a place where they could support a defensive position and had good fields of view and good fields of fire, and then, if there was time, dug in and carefully camouflaged in the hopes that they'd get the first shot off at an enemy tank. On the offensive anti-tank guns would be deployed on an open flank to cover an advancing unit from a counterattack by tanks. The virtues of this kind of antitank gun are that the gun and ammunition are cheap, as well as adaptable for use as conventional artillery. The weaknesses are that they require large crews, are quite horribly vulnerable to hostile artillery fire or air attack once they are spotted, and are rather lacking in mobility.

During the Second World War the US fielded a variety of conventional antitank guns of this type but was dissatisfied with their performance, and even during the war introduced recoilless rifles with an eye to possibly replacing them. After the war the US, and US allies that bought a lot of US exported weapons, went first with recoilless rifles in this role, then guided missiles.

The Russians, on the other hand, after the war, kept on making antitank guns. When they introduced the T54 and T55 tanks in the 1950s, with their 100mm guns, they also immediately began manufacturing a 100mm antitank gun using the same weapon on a wheeled towed carriage. In the 1970s, when they introduced tanks with 125mm main guns, they did the same thing--and these are still in service, but now with laser rangefinders. The Russians also have laser-guided antitank missiles that are launched through the gun tube on tanks, which they also issue in limited quantities to the antitank gun units. The Russian 100mm antitank guns have been fairly widely exported, the 125mm have not.

The Russians have also since the 1960s used the D-30 122mm howitzer as an antitank gun in emergencies, or more specifically they teach its employment in this role to their clients.

Self Propelled Anti Aircraft Weapons
Eseentially a modified APC with anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine guns or short-range surface to air missiles on. May have a radar unit stuck on it. These go back to World War I, though typically before the 1960s these systems utilized only the Mark One Eyeball for target acquisition and fire control.

Have proved to be very effective against low-flying targets- the Israelis had most of their losses in 1973 to these weapons, while 12.7mm and 14.5mm machine guns destroyed a lot of US choppers in Vietnam.


 * In World War II and Korea, the US fielded the "M16" (no relation), a halftrack vehicle with quad .50 caliber machine guns in a hydraulically powered turret in the back. It had no radar, no fire control computers, just the gunner's eye and skill. Some of these remained in service in foreign countries until the 1980s. In Korea they were often used as mobile fire-support platforms, rolled up to the front lines to fire into Chinese human wave assaults at close range, which is another kind of job to which vehicles in this class tend to be admirably suited. Some of these quad .50 HMG turrets were attached to flatbed trucks instead.
 * The Russian ZSU-23-4 Shilka, with 4 23mm autocannon and a "Gun Dish" fire control radar. About 6,500 built in all and widely exported. Some versions can be connected to a SA-9 "Gaskin" SAM launch vehicle with a data cable allowing them to share use of the former's radar.
 * Britain had Crusader AA tanks in World War Two, but they were largely unneeded when they arrived in 1943.
 * The infamous US Bradley has the Linebacker version, with a launch box containing four Stinger missiles has replaced the usual dual launcher for TOW IIB wire-guided heavy antitank missiles.
 * Prior to Linebacker, there was the M163 "Vulcan," using the same 20mm Gatling autocannon as is mounted on jet fighter aircraft, mounted in a turret, with radar and fire control computers to assist the gunner, the turret mounted on top of an old M113 armored personnel carrier. There was a towed version for airborne and airmobile units also. The Vulcan is still in front-line service today, alongside the Linebacker, though it is more often used in a direct-fire fire-support role. The Israelis still use the M163, which they call the Machbet, with the addition of a launch box with tubes for four Stinger SAMs bolted to one side of the turret.
 * And prior to the Vulcan was the M42 "Duster," which was basically just a WWII-surplus Chaffee light tank chassis with a powered turret on top, armed with two Bofors 40mm autocannon. It had a hydraulically operated turret but no rangefinder, no radar, just the "Mark One Eyeball," a.k.a. "steam gunnery." They entered service in 1952 and the last ones were withdrawn from US Army National Guard units in 1988. Those deployed to Vietnam tended to be used more for close range fire support than anything else. Like other vehicles in this class, it excelled at this sort of task, quite apart from the purpose for which it was designed. Widely exported, they are still found here and there around the world.
 * In the 1980s the US miltary spent a lot of money on a replacement for the Vulcan that ended up being abandoned due to software problems that could not be overcome, the M247 "Sergeant York." This was cobbled together from the Bofors 40mm autocannon from the 1950s M42 "Duster" light SPAA mounted on the hull of an obsolescent M48 tank, with radar and fire control system from a mothballed F4 Phantom jet fighter bolted to the top of the turret. Everything but the fire control system actually worked pretty well. It represented an admirable attempt to cut costs by using off-the-shelf technology, but the radar system was never designed for use on a ground platform and they were quite never able to get the software to work. The costs mounted year by year with no obvious progress (it was remarked at the time that even bolting on the crude 1960s radar and fire control computers of the M163 "Vulcan" would have been a significant improvement) and eventually in 1985 the program was quietly cancelled. Cancellation was politically possible because US military doctrine tends to assume air superiority as a given, so SPAA and SP SAM systems are a much lower priority than they are in many other militaries. That, and also some of the research did result in improvements for the radar and fire control system of the old M163.
 * An interesting note was that the Sergeant York was given the "go-ahead" to be canceled because the Defense Intelligence Agency provided the program managers with the proper ammunition..in the form of a false threat assessment.
 * In the late 1970s, the Germans built the Flakpanzer Gepard, a tracked vehicle on a Leopard tank chassis, with a purpose-designed radar and fire control system and a pair of very-high-ROF electric 35mm autocannon. It does not appear to have been used in combat but the specs are impressive and in testing it appears to be quite efficient at its job. The Gepard was what the M247's developers claimed they could deliver at a fraction of the cost, but failed.
 * The U S Avenger air defense system, introduced in the late 1980s. A one-man turret mounted in the back of a HMMWV with 2 quad tube launchers for Stinger missiles, a radar guidance system and a single coaxial machine gun for ground targets. Still in widespread service with the U S military.

Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
These systems are mobile trucks with a frame attached to them that holds multiple artillery rockets. These are designed for area attacks and to ripple-fired in quick succession. Usually utilised in groups, they are a common method of delivering a Macross Missile Massacre and can in some cases fire about 50km (i.e. over the horizon).

Using these on towns is highly frowned upon- Russia accused Georgia of using MLRS weapons on towns during their 2008 war.


 * The US MLRS system can carry 12 227mm rockets or two short-range ballistic missiles. Formerly known as the General Support Rocket System (GSRS), leading to the delightful "Grid Square Removal System" backronym. The normal round for MLRS is an ICM-DP (Improved Conventional Munition, Dual-Purpose) rocket containing over six hundred very efficient little multipurpose (shaped charge antiarmor/antipersonnel/incendiary) grenades but laser-guided and GPS-guided versions with a single large HE warhead have been developed.
 * The great granddaddy of them all was the Russian BM-13 "Katyusha," designed just before the Second World War, with launch rails for sixteen 132mm artillery rockets usually bolted onto the back of a Studebaker truck provided via Lend-Lease from the US, with a maximum useful range of 5400m (5.4km, or, if you prefer, about three and a half miles).
 * The Soviet/Russian BM-21 Grad ("Hail", appropriately enough) can fire 40 122mm rockets about 20 kilometres (12 miles). It was developed in the early 1960s and was very widely exported for decades; it is ubiquitous in Third World armies.
 * Eastern rocket artillery systems are cheap, designed to be used massed in huge numbers to saturate a broad target area with fire, as the individual launchers are rather less accurate than field guns. Western rocket artillery systems are more expensive and more accurate. Most Russian rocket artillery systems have only plain HE and chemical smoke rounds available; ICMDP rounds only became available for them fairly late, and not in all calibers; the expense of manufacturing them means that usually there will not be many available to any given unit, and they will generally be saved for special targets that justify the expense.
 * The Russians have always loved these, and have manufactured them since before World War II in a dizzying array of different designs and calibers, from 82mm up to 300mm. During the Cold War this type of system was considered by Soviet planners ideal for chemical warfare as a battalion of eighteen launchers could saturate a target area a kilometer or more across with nerve gas rockets in well under a minute.

Short-Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBM)
A large missile with a range under 500 km (300 miles), these weapons are designed for long-distance deep strikes against hardened targets i.e. concrete bunkers. Older versions aren't much use unless they're carrying nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, but the newer ones have radars on to help ensure an accurate hit.

Unless you happen to have an anti-ballistic missile system to hand (which not many people do), these weapons are effectively unstoppable (assuming they strike their intended targets, do not explode in flight or on the launch pad, etc., which some early systems were very prone to--supposedly fewer than half of German V-2 rockets fired made it back to the ground, much less struck within ten miles of their intended targets). They are carried on road-mobile Transport Erector Launchers (TEL), which can be reloaded, making them very hard to take out- witness the difficulties the US had during the Gulf War. During the Iran-Iraq war, Iraq used these to great effect (mostly on civilian morale) on Iran during the "war of the cities".


 * The original SRBM was the A-4 from Nazi Germany, more commonly known as the V-2.
 * The classic SRBM is the R-17/SS-1 "Scud", a liquid-fuelled missile developed by the USSR and widely exported with local modifications in some cases, such as in Iraq and North Korea.
 * The 1980s successor to "Scud" was the OTR-23 Oka/SS-23 "Spider" with a range of 400km. Was eliminated under the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty to appease the West.
 * A modern Russian system is the Iskander/SS-26 "Stone", which is carried in pairs.
 * Pakistan has developed the Hatf 2 SRBM, also known as the Abdali.
 * The US MLRS system can carry two MGM-140 ATACMS (Army TACtical Missile System) missiles with a range in one form of 300 km (186 miles).

Anti-missile Systems
Designed to shoot down missiles before they strike.


 * Israeli Arrow and Lightning anti-missile missiles
 * American Phalanx electric Gatling gun, nicknamed "R2-D2s" due to their shape (and yes, some Brits have seen them and called them "Daleks" instead). The Royal Navy, and a number of other navies worldwide, use them too. There are a number of other takes on the same idea, including the Spanish Meroka, Turkish Sea Zenith, Dutch Goalkeeper, Chinese Type 730, Russian AK-630 and the Italian DARDO. They're collectively known as CIWS, for close-in weapons system. Russia, in typical Russian fashion, has designed one that has not one, but two 30mm Gatling guns and eight short-range missiles on a single turret. If Gatling is good, More Dakka is better.
 * The US (and a number of its allies) are also beginning to mount the more capable RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile as a point defence weapon, replacing the older gun systems.
 * US RIM-66 Standard. Though originally a medium-range anti-aircraft system, it does double-duty against cruise missiles and anti-radiation missiles, too. (Also ships, but that belongs elsewhere). A newer version, SM-3, can also engage ballistic missiles. Its maximum range has gotten longer, and its minimum range shorter, over the years. The Standard is also notable for its humongous warhead (by SAM standards), and was originally designed to be able to use a tactical nuclear warhead if circumstances warranted.
 * US Evolved Sea Sparrow. Essentially an AIM-7 Sparrow bolted onto a ship, then hacked, kluged and modified until it's more like the little brother of Standard.
 * The Patriot Missile System also has anti-ballistic missile capability, though it was not originally designed with this in mind.
 * Before Patriot, in the 1960s, the Nike-SPRINT antiballistic missile system was designed in the US, again with an optional tactical nuke warhead.
 * Russian 9K311 Tor missile system. Though designed as a short-range anti-aircraft missile, it can engage cruise missiles, anti-radiation missiles and even bombs and artillery shells.
 * Russian Rif/Fort (NATO calls it SA-10 "Grumble" or SA-N-6 "Grumble" depending on whether it travels by land or by sea). Also a long-range AA missile that does double-duty as an anti-missile system.
 * Some tanks have anti-missile systems. They generally use radar to find the incoming missile and launch some sort of countermeasure. The Soviets made the first system in the late 70's. The Russians and Israelis have fielded a couple of systems and the US has one under development.

Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC)
The bulk of soldiers in the 20th century had to march between engagements or ride in canvas-covered trucks. Neither of these stand up particularly well to air raids or artillery strikes, so the APC was developed as a battlefield taxi. They can ride in ships or planes for maximum rapid response. The primary design division among APCs is wheeled versus tracked propulsion.

These are not designed for a direct battle, though they may deploy several hundred meters to the rear of the infantry unit they belong to in order to give fire support with their machine guns. Generally only armed with machine-guns, although some carry anti-tank guided weapons (though this tends to be more a feature of IFVs rather than APCs). Many can swim and the modern ones are generally protected against chemical weapons attack. Their armor tends to be relatively thin compared to a tank, and is often cast aluminum or magnesium alloy instead of steel.

Despite every new generation of this breed offering the same promise of increased passenger safety, every notable conflict so far proved otherwise. A combination of subpar, compared to a tank, armor and a premium package of targets inside always made APCs a target of choice for any anti-tank weapon in reach. This explains a phenomen commonly seen on combat footage: infantry riding ON the armor instead of INSIDE it. While this strips them of bulletproof armor, it also greately increases their chances of survival in case of RPG (or anything more) hit or driving over a mine. Another way to combat this inherent problem, mostly seen in US armor nowadays, is to reduce the size and passenger capability of APCs from "squad-sized" to "ATV-sized", proportionally decreasing the maximum casualties of a single blown veihcle.


 * The US M113 (called the ACAV in Vietnam when used as a scout vehicle by armored cavalry units), in production since around 1960 and still in widespread service worldwide.
 * The Russian BTR60/70/80/90 series, which are wheeled and amphibious.
 * The German Fuchs (Fox) in all of its over nine thousand variants.
 * The US Stryker. A modular design is still in development which would allow the Stryker to serve as a command & control vehicle, a recon vehicle, an engineering vehicle, a combat ambulance, or even a version with a NATO standard 105mm tank gun. Among the many controversies surrounding the Stryker is that just about every one of those variants is not easily transportable by cargo plane, rendering one of the key advantages of the vehicle moot. The base model is the relatively lightweight M1114, an eight-wheeled armored car APC very similar to the Russian BTR-80, but lacking the 14.5mm HMG turret.
 * The US MRAPs, Mine Resistant Armored Patrol vehicles, designed solely for the purpose of surviving roadside IED attacks. Contentious debate remains as to whether they are worth the money.
 * New Israeli designs counteract the problem of subpar armor by actually using tanks; the Achzarit was a converted version of captured T-54 and T-55 tanks, while the from-scratch Nammer is essentially a Merkava with the turret ripped off, and the weight savings put into actually giving it heavier armor than a main battle tank.

Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV)
A more modern iteration of the APC idea, these are designed to take a squad into battle and then give them support fire, with a heavy direct-fire gun of some kind (sometimes a light tank gun, sometimes an autocannon; the Russian BMP-3 has both) and one or more machine guns, often but not universally with launch tubes or launch rails for antitank guided missiles also. Still universally being less armored then tanks, IFVs retain the "juicy target" disadvantage of APCs.


 * The US M2 Bradley, it was subject to horrible corruption throughout its development and countless production defects in the 1970s, but seems to have performed well enough once the kinks were worked out. It is one of the more heavily armed and armored examples in service today; the turret has a 25mm autocannon and a 7.62mm machine gun, and there are a pair of launch tubes for TOW IIB wire-guided heavy antitank missiles on the side of the turret as well. Derided by some servicemen that it looks too much like a tank, too tall and carries too little infantry.
 * The British Warrior. Rather susceptible to roadside bombs. Similar to the Bradley, but with a bigger 30mm gun and usually no ATGM capability.
 * The Russian BMP series introduced in the 1960s, with continuous evolution and improvements since then, each version more heavily armed and armored than the previous one. The BMP-1 and BMP-2 were exported very widely during the Cold War era. Both are popular for their amphibious capability, not always a feature in IFVs. The BMP-1 had a 73mm gun and machine guns plus a launch rail for the 9K11 Malyutka/AT-3 "Sagger," the BMP-2 had 30mm autocannon and machine guns plus a launch tube for the laser-guided 9M113 Konkurs/AT-5 "Spandrel," and the BMP-3 is even more heavily armed, with a 100mm main gun in addition to the autocannon, and as also amphibious.
 * Ironically, due to the inherent problems of riding into battle inside an APC/IFW outlined above, the BMP, originally Boyevaya Mashina Pehoty (literally translating to IFW), is informally but universally known as Bratskaya Mogila Pehoty (Infantry Common Grave) in Russian Army. It's not to say the thing itself is not respected, for the fire support it can provide roughly equals to a tank.
 * The Russian BTR-90 belongs here also. It is the old eight-wheeled BTR armored car APC chassis, but with a new turret. Instead of the old turret with the 14.5mm HMG, it has the turret of a BMP-2 IFV: 30mm autocannon, coaxial PKT MMG, and launch tube for the laser-guided AT-5 "Spandrel" ATGM, plus night vision optics for the gunner. That level of armament puts it in firmly in the IFV class itself.

Tanks
What intimidates people? A Big Fucking Gun. What's even more intimidating than that? A Big Fucking Gun aimed by computer/radar/laser assisted fire-control computer that can land the shell in one square foot of real-estate from two miles away, attached to a turret mounted on a tracked vehicle bristling with machineguns and grenade launchers, all encased in nigh-impenetrable steel and ceramic armor, inexorably bearing down upon your puny little concrete bunker despite machine-gun fire, light cannon, and flamethrowers.

You Can Panic Now

In reality, tanks are nowhere near invulnerable as the Russians learned to their dismay in Afghanistan. In asymmetric warfare, a tank becomes a bullet magnet, and lots of small explosives (or just one really really big one) can destroy a tank (if not always kill the crew). In short, a tank is basically one big juicy gas-hog of a target and needs to be babysat by infantry in close range and urban combat. In a desert, field or other open environment, however, there is very little that can touch them short of aircraft, other armor, artillery and anti-tank missiles.

One other limitation: Try hauling 40-tons of tank across a damaged bridge (or a wooden pier, or any other non-reinforced structure). Hilarity Ensues.

It is important to note that a tank differs very much in purpose and design from a self-propelled artillery vehicle like the M109 or the Russian 2S1. Self-propelled artillery pieces are designed to sit many kilometers behind the front lines and fire in indirect mode only. A tank, by contrast, is intended for use at the front lines and always fires its gun in direct fire mode. Tanks as a rule tend to have much, much heavier armor than self-propelled artillery.

Tactically speaking a tank is a vehicle combining both road and cross-country mobility significantly superior to that of men on foot with a direct-fire crew-served large-caliber heavy weapon adaptable to both the antiarmor and infantry support roles, protected by armor at least sufficient to protect against the most common battlefield threats, which are artillery shell fragments and small arms fire. Would a wheeled vehicle designed for the same purpose and that could perform the same tasks be a tank? What if it had its big gun mounted pointing forward in the hull in a semi-fixed orientation with just ten or fifteen degrees of traverse to either side, instead of a turret? What if it uses some kind of big rocket launcher instead of a cannon? Is it still a "tank" or should it have a different name? That's a matter of some debate; there have long been debates about the terminology, "assault howitzer," "tank destroyer," "fire support vehicle," and so on have been applied to such designs.

Note that since the 1980s tanks, especially Western designs, have tended to get very impressive sensor and fire control suites: thermal imaging/FLIR for driver, gunner, and commander, laser rangefinders, ballistic computers that take into account everything from the tank's own movement to target movement to wind to relative humidity and supply a firing solution that can sometimes give first-round hits out to three kilometers and beyond. Post-1980 tanks, especially Western designs, tend to have extremely tough and resistant Chobham type composite laminate armor. Eastern Bloc designs had the similar treatment, only without thermal sights until 1992.


 * Starts with the pinnacle of Cold War tank R&D, the M1A2 Abrams Tank of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps
 * And ends with the bigger, nastier, tougher British Challenger 2.
 * The other side didn't have it all too bad either, even though the T-72 and T-80 were designed for costly frontal assaults.
 * This was also true of western tanks expecting a European Theater of operations--larger West Germany fully expected to be able to bleed smaller, less-populous East Germany dry in prolonged tank battles, and probably weren't mistaken.
 * Frontal assaults were seen as the least preferred method of offensive action in non stereotyped Soviet tactics, so Soviet tanks would damn well use a lot of maneuver and swarm the enemy rather than doing something completely stupid. Also to note is that unlike NATO tanks, Soviet tanks were intended to be used primarily in wrecking NATO's rear-area infrastructure rather than dueling head-to-head with enemy armor.
 * Even if they were much lighter than Western tanks, T-80's and other Soviet tanks developed after it were often equipped with reactive armor (basically a steel plate sandwich with a high explosive filling, intended to detonate when struck by antitank weapons, forcing the outer steel plate outward and high velocity at an angle to the incoming weapon, hopefully deflecting it or reducing its penetration), which made them durable enough to compete with their otherwise tougher Western counterparts (some reports even state that the reactive armor was powerful enough to deflect depleted uranium rounds) Even earlier vehicles like the T55 and T62 got fitted with reactive armor by the late 1980s.
 * Kontakt-5 reactive armor was able to defeat 1980s-era 120mm projectiles like M 829 A 1 and was also capable of defeating precursor warheads on the earliest tandem-charge anti-tank missiles.
 * Definitely putting the modern in modernity, the T-80 was also the testing platform for the Arena active protection system--essentially, a radar system linked with several projectile cannons mounted about the turret that could shoot down anti-tank missiles, rockets, and even certain tank shells. While never produced in large quantities, Arena itself is an upgrade of Drozd which was deployed in Afghanistan, and currently has no comparable NATO equivalent.
 * Doesn't Arena also incorporate lasers that can also (theoretically) blind and burn out the laser seeker heads on some missiles?
 * Many, if not all Russian tanks, even older models like T55s and T62s used by reserve units, also at least have the lasers and fire control circuitry installed to fire laser-guided antitank missiles through the gun tube. The missiles are expensive, and it is rare for an individual tank to carry more than four or six of them out of a total of 40 or 45 total main gun rounds. The Russians developed these because they felt that even with laser rangefinders the accuracy of the main gun armament was lacking out past 2km.
 * Actually, the missiles were intended to be used to take out anti-tank missile platforms (helicopters, and ATGM-equipped vehicles) from beyond their effective range rather than any inaccuracy of the main gun.
 * Possibly the single most common tank in the world today is the Chinese Type 1969, a copy of the Russian T54. Widely exported, it is very inexpensive, as tanks go.
 * The Brits, Germans, French, Chinese, and Israelis got into the tank business as well.
 * The German Leopard 2 rivaled the Abrams in terms of power and weight, and currently uses the same NATO standard 120mm main gun.
 * Correction: the latest versions use a slightly bigger gun.
 * Longer gun actually, which helps the fired projectiles achieve higher muzzle velocity.
 * Israel modified a great many American M-60 tanks (not the machineguns) in addition to creating homebrew modifications of captured T-55 and T-62 tanks (the "Tiran" series, no longer in service in Israel, but most were sold off to various Latin American countries in the 1990s). The modified M60s, which are called the Mag'ach in Israeli service, are still in use by reserve armor units. The current versions are the Mag'ach 7 and Mag'ach 8 with explosive reactive armor tiles, thermal sights, laser rangefinders, computerized fire control systems, and the latest thing in 105mm HVAPFSDSDU ammunition (the Mag'ach 8 has a NATO standard 120mm gun and has been exported to Turkey, who call it the M60T), they are not in the same class as a Merkava III (their current top-of-the-line tank, generally regarded as world-class) or an M1A2, but when operated by skilled and motivated crews they are still regarded as capable of contributing significantly on the 21st Century mechanized battlefield.