Double Taps needs YOUR help!!!!

Okay guys, i've been in a hole lately and finally last night I had an epiffany and relized nobody can help me better than my friends at AA.

Situation: I have a 15 paragraph paper due on MONDAY which I have barely started. It's for English and it's a research paper. The subject: rifles that the US military has adopted. In order. Too. From the very first musket to the M16 we use today. I have been having trouble finding ANY info on it, I have very little.

This thing I worth more than our FINAL. I appreciate all and any help, thanks guys.

Your best bet is to go to a site like about. com or somthing like it...start with the current weapons used..and it will tell you what it replaced and why...then go to that weapon and so on till the trail goes cold. You wont find much for the revolution and cival war as in these wars people usualy supplied thier own weapons or they went without due to a shortage in production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_individual_weapons_of_the_U.S._armed_forces#Rifles


Here's what I think (Most modern to oldest):

M16 (Present) <- M16A1/A2 or M14 (Vietnam) <- M1 Garand (WWII) <- Enfield Rifle or Springfield (WWI) <- Sharps Rifle I think... (Civil War) <- I have no idea (Revolutionary War)

Here's a rough estimate from WWI on.

WWI - Springfield '03 (don't know much else, sorry)
WWII - Springfield '03, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, BAR, M1928/M1/M1A1 Thompson
Korea - " "
Vietnam - M1/M1A1 Thompson, M1 Garand, M14, XM177E1, XM16, M16A1, AR15, M60, Remington 700 and other civilian hunting rifles as sniper rifles (small numbers of Springfield '03s are also seen)
Persian Gulf - XM177E2, M16A1/A2, M40A1, M60, FN MINIMI (M249 SAW MK1), M240/A
Somalia - CAR15, M16A2, M21, M24, M60, FN MINIMI, M240A
War on Terror - M162/A3/A4, M4A1, SCAR-L, M40A3, M60, M240A/B, FN MINIMI, M60

The term "Rifle" is very ambiguous, so I only went with assault rifles.

By the way, the FN Minimi's military designation is the M249. I didn't think we still used M16A2's in actual combat situations....

br55ftw wrote:

By the way, the FN Minimi's military designation is the M249. I didn't think we still used M16A2's in actual combat situations....

I know, just wanted to teach everybody something new today!

Yeah, the Marines still use a few A2's here and there. I'm not entirely sure if any of them are in combat zones right now, but I know some of them are at bases throughout the world. My cousin always says, "As long as it kills people, we'll probably use it!"

The Marines are like the red-headed step-child of the US Armed Forces - they get all the crap nobody else wants, haha.

Technically speaking, handguns are considered "rifles". Do they not have rifled barrels?

Thank you ALLL!!!! keep it up guys I'm lovin all of you!! Only problem is we have to cite our work, and I can't use Wiki. so any cites you can give me would help, even if you didn't use them its just something to cite.

br55ftw wrote:

The term "Rifle" is very ambiguous, so I only went with assault rifles.

Yes, I am only doing rifles and muskets.

Spl. Durkee wrote:

Technically speaking, handguns are considered "rifles". Do they not have rifled barrels?

They are not rifles by any technicality. Rifled barrels just means the barrel has grooves in it that spins the bullet, cannons have rifling too and they are by far rifles.

The rifles used during our revolution were all over the place, we really had no standard rifle and used whatever we could. The Brits Brown Bess was probably the most standard rifle in the entire war for both sides. Not sure what was used during the war of 1812. Civil War featured the Henry repeating rifle towards the latter part of the war. In the Spanish war we were using Krag (spelling?) rifles and captured German Mauser's we picked up from the Spaniards. WWI also featured the BAR to small extents as well as the Thompson if you want to call that a rifle. And don't forget the M14 is still in wide use among snipers. I have a gun book i can probably look through and find the names of the rifles used during the Civil War.

The thing about wiki is..they all have sources xD click on the little number thing next to it and it will take you to a main source website that you can use

Yeah don't use anything directly from Wiki unless you can follow the source and use that. Best not to use Wiki to much though, most teachers and college professors frown upon using it for research period.

Oh yeah the standard rifles (more or less) used by the Union forces seems to the US Army Model 1816, 1842, 1855, and 1861. I wish my English professor would give us a research topic like this. We have to pick from several lame and overdone topics.

iliveforthis99 wrote:

WWI also featured the BAR to small extents as well as the Thompson if you want to call that a rifle.

No, the Thompson wasn't completed until after the war and failed to be mass-produced until 1928. And if I remember correctly, the BAR also did not make it into the field in time.

Jarhead999 76 65 wrote:

No, the Thompson wasn't completed until after the war and failed to be mass-produced until 1928. And if I remember correctly, the BAR also did not make it into the field in time.

I think he meant "WWII." Was the M2 in use during WWI, or was that afterwards?

Afterwards. The MaDeuce came about in the 20s

[quote="Jarhead999 76 65"]

iliveforthis99 wrote:

Spl. Durkee wrote:

WWI also featured the BAR to small extents as well as the Thompson if you want to call that a rifle.

No, the Thompson wasn't completed until after the war and failed to be mass-produced until 1928. And if I remember correctly, the BAR also did not make it into the field in time.

Mhmm yeah maybe. Could of sworn the Thompson was used by British tommys to a small extent for trench clearing. I think i may be thinking of the trench broom shotgun instead. The BAR did see action though very very late in the war at the Meuse-Argonne offensive.