User:Marty in the Leb/sandbox

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A service rifle (or standard-issue rifle) is a rifle a military issues to regular infantry. In modern militaries, this is typically a versatile and rugged battle rifle, assault rifle, or carbine suitable for use in nearly all environments. Most armies also have service pistols or side arms to accompany it.

History


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, or 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, 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 spelt the end of gunpowder warfare and led to a jump in small arms development. Many armies now adopted bolt-action repeating rifles such as the Norwegian Jarmann M1884, the Norwegian Krag–Jørgensen adopted by Denmark in 1886 and by the United States in 1892, the Swiss Schmidt-Rubin (1889), the German Gewehr 98, and the Mosin–Nagant used by Imperial Russia from 1891.

In the 20th century, gas-operated firearms (use of a fired cartridge's gas emissions to automatically rechamber rounds into the breech once a bullet had been fired, as well as expelling the old cartridge) became standard. Some of the earliest examples of these were most prominent in the Second World War, however, some examples exist from the First World War and were usually semi-automatic. The most prominent of which was the American-made M1 Garand, first brought into service with the United States in 1936. These rifles usually fired a "full-sized" cartridge, such as the .30-06 Springfield or .303 British, as opposed to an intermediate rifle cartridge.

The first selective-fire service rifles firing intermediate cartridges were introduced still during the Second World War, with the German StG 44. Upwards of 400,000 StG44 were produced during 1943 and 1945, but it was too late in the war to be adopted as Germany's main service rifle. This design, dubbed "assault-rifle" after the German name Sturmgewehr, was widely imitated after 1945.. Modern service rifles largely retain the technology developed in the 1950s.

Haiti



 * The Haitian Army was disbanded by the United States and replaced in 1915 by the Gendarmerie d'Haïti. The Haitian Army was again disbanded in 1995.

Tibet

 * Tibet was de facto independent from 1912 until the 1950s, and fielded the Tibetan Army