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The AAI ACR was a prototype flechette-firing assault rifle built for the US Army's Advanced Combat Rifle program of 1989/90. Although the AAI design proved effective, as did most of the weapons submitted, the entire ACR program ended with none of the entrants achieving performance 100% better than the M16A2, the baseline for a successful ACR weapon.
AAI's design was the least technically advanced. The flechette gun portion was somewhat heavy, but fired at 2400 rpm. Their grenade launcher was a simple single-shot weapon; their semi-automatic version was not ready in time for testing. The conclusion of the testing was that none of the weapons were ready for development into a combat system.
Ultimately, automatic rifles would become standard in military usage, as their firepower was superior to that of a semi-automatic rifle. However, both semi-automatic and bolt-action rifles are still widely used today in military service in specific roles, such as designated marksman rifles , which prioritize accuracy over volume of fire.
Semi-automatic-only rifles like the Colt AR-15 are not assault rifles; they do not have select-fire capabilities. Semi-automatic-only rifles with fixed magazines like the SKS are not assault rifles; they do not have detachable box magazines and are not capable of automatic fire.
The Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR) was a United States Army program, started in 1986, to find a replacement for the M16 assault rifle.Under the stress of battle the average soldier with an M16 may shoot a target at 45 meters, but hit probability is reduced to one out of ten shots on target by 220 meters.
The origin of the term is not clearly known and is the subject of much debate. In the past, the names of certain military weapons used the phrase, such as the Rifleman's Assault Weapon, a grenade launcher developed in 1977 for use with the M16 assault rifle, [20] or the Shoulder-launched Multipurpose Assault Weapon, a rocket launcher introduced in 1984.
A semi-automatic rifle is a rifle that fires a single round each time the trigger is pulled, and uses some of the energy from that firing to load the next round. Semi-automatic rifles are also known as self-loading rifles ('SLR') or auto-loading rifles .
Assault rifles are full-length, select fire rifles that are chambered for an intermediate-power rifle cartridge that use a detachable magazine. Assault rifles are currently the standard service rifles in most modern militaries. Some rifles listed below, such as the AR-15, also come in semi-auto models that would not belong under the term ...