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Concept
Service rifle
Summary
A service rifle or standard-issue rifle is a rifle a military issues to its personnel, typically to its regular infantry. In modern militaries, this is generally a versatile and rugged assault rifle, carbine, or battle rifle, suitable for use in nearly all environments and effective in most common combat situations. Most militaries also have service pistols that are issued as sidearms to accompany their service rifles. The term can also be used to describe weapons issued by non-military forces, such as police or paramilitaries.
If the issued weapon is not a rifle, but instead a different type of firearm intended to serve in a specialized role—such as a submachine gun, machine gun, or shotgun—it is called a service firearm or service weapon.
History of the firearm
Firearms with rifled barrels existed long before the 19th century but did not become widely used before the end of the American Civil War. Thus, rifles in the early 19th century were for specialist marksmen only, whilst ordinary infantry were issued less accurate smoothbore muskets which had a higher rate of fire, with bore diameters as high as 19 mm (0.75 inch). Early "service rifles" of the 1840s, such as the Prussian Dreyse needle gun (1841) and the Swiss Infanteriegewehr Modell 1842, were technically still muskets.
Ordnance rifles were introduced in the 1860s, with the French Chassepot (1866) and the Swiss Peabody Gewehr Modell 1867. In the United States, the Springfield Model 1873 was the first breech-loading rifle adopted by the United States War Department for manufacture and widespread issue to U.S. troops.
The development of Poudre B smokeless powder in 1884, introduced with the French Lebel Model 1886 rifle, spelt the end of gunpowder warfare and led to a jump in small arms development. By the beginning of World War I, all of the world's major powers had adopted repeating bolt-action rifles such as the British Lee–Enfield, the German Gewehr 98, and the Russian Mosin–Nagant.
During the Second World War, the United States adopted the M1 Garand, first brought into service in 1936.
Official source
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