Summary
Infantry: weapons
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Extract
Guilding the rifle?
In the current military world it happens very seldom to see a rifle without something affixed to it, as today's fighters try to acquire an edge over their opponents, increasing their accuracy in order to augment their lethality and reduce ammunition consumption. Suppressive fire remains always an option in numerous situations, but aimed fire is supported by an increasing number of additional systems that are attached to the weapon, giving way to what is often referred to as the 'Christmas tree effect'.
The downturn of installing add-ons to a rifle is that obviously the centre of gravity will be affected and the weight will increase, and saying weight means inertia when traversing the rifle, especially if the add-on weight is far from CG, which means that compared to the naked rifle it will take a few milliseconds more to trail the muzzle towards the target. A trade-off between speed and precision has to be made, accessories manufacturers being very keen in trying to reduce as much as possible weight, volume and, when applicable, power consumption. The interface between the accessory and the rifle normally comes in the form of a rail, the most widely used t...See the full content of this document
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