"assault rifle" for "avtomat"?

[Loren A. Billings]

> Shtirlits strelyal po ocheredi.  Ochered' upala.

And there are others:
... v upor. Upor upal.
... v slepuyu. Slepaya upala.


And on to more serious (and deadly) issues, Kevin Windle wrote:

> If the context of the phrase quoted 'avtomatnaia ochered' ' was WWII,
> and the weapon in question a PPSh (Shpagin), Thompson, Sten or similar,
> 'submachine gun' would be fully appropriate, these being neither rifles
> nor machine guns.

The point is that an _ochered'_ is the effect of automatic fire. Any weapon
capable of such fire will create such a relatively uniform array of holes.

> For later weapons such as the AK47, the term 'assault rifle' seems to
> be standard.

These are separate issues. Various weapons can fire on auto: many modern
rifles, machine pistols, and even machine guns. (Generally, the weapons with
_machine_ in their name take ammo in belts that are fed into the side of the
weapon. Assault rifles have magazines that feed loose rounds.) What I'm
trying to say is that a particular weapon can be both a(n assault) rifle,
because of the weapon's purpose, and an automatic weapon, based on its
ability to fire continuously.

Getting back to Russian, _vintovka_ 'rifle' is quite dated; _avtomat_ is
probably what is used today. (Rifling is the corkscrew grooves on the inside
of the barrel that allows the round to spin rather than tumble. That
property is separate from how fast the rounds are fired. Hence the root
/vint/ 'twist' in the Russian term.) Most modern soldiers in the Anglophone
world would probably say _rifle_ still. Hey, I'm trying to keep the
discussion relevant to SEELangs!

Later, --Loren Billings

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