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A personal weapon is a weapon that can be carried and employed by a single person, although their use may be restricted to specialist members of attack or defense teams. Some weapons are usually operated by two man teams, an aimer and a loader.
Personal weapons are employed by:
- Infantry in pursuit of objectives of war, both defensive and offensive.
- Military officers and aviators for self defense.
- Police forces on patrol.
- Hunters.
- Private guards.
- Bodyguards.
- Individuals for home defense.
- Participants in various martial arts.
Some examples and applications of personal weapons:
Antipersonnel weapons
These are intended to be used against other combatants.
Limited lethality weapons
These may be used to subdue an opponent with a lower risk of death when properly used.
Edged Weapons
Knife
Used where stealth is required or as a last resort.
Sword
Obsolete, these are now used for ceremonial and martial arts purposes.
Batting Weapons
War Hammer
See war hammer.
Club
A club is an asymmetrical stick of moderate length, swung from the light end, similar to a bat used in games. Easily formed from a tree branch this was probably one of the first weapons. May be relatively light for primary use as a walking stick. Also known by various ethnic names such as knobkerry or shillelagh.
Mace
A Mace is a club with spiked enancements.
Chopping Weapons
Hatchet
May be thrown or used offensively or defensively at close quarters (obsolete in modern warfare)
Axe
Now used mainly as a tool for constructing defenses (obsolete in modern warfare).
Halberd
The halberd combines features of a spear and an axe (obsolete in modern warfare).
Penetrating Weapons
Spear
This may be thrown or thrust (obsolete)
Pike
The pike is essentially a very long spear not intended to be thrown, this was used by pikemen to defend archers, infantry, musketeers etc. against horse cavalry (obsolete)
Bayonnet
Attached to a rifle, this allows the rifle to be used as a short spear for thrusting.
Bow and Arrow
This has the advantage of relatively long range and quiet (stealty) operation. Obsolete as a mass use weapon but still useful in stealthy covert operations. For such operations a complex compound bow may be used that includes special sighting devices. A modern crossbow may be used for the same tasks.
Crossbow
The crossbow may be used where Bow and Arrow are appropriate. It is especially suitable for use by less skilled or weaker weaponers and in confined spaces. This became an effective medium range weapon for use against metal plate personal armour. Also used in massive numbers as an area defense weapon in the protection of fortifications, propelling short arrows called bolts or fletchettes (fr. "little arrows"). In this use it was not aimed at a specific target but sent on a high, arcing path into masses of opponents. The crossbow is bsolete as a mass use weapon but is still used by some hunters, usually during special seasons that prohibit firearms. It is also an effective stealth weapon for special operations, though of limited range.
Handgun
Generally used by officers and guard captains for short range self defense in combat, rather than as an attack weapon. Historically a revolver this is now generally an automatic pistol. The seven shot Colt 45 Automatic (model 1911, 11.43mm) is exempliary of this type, although modern types tend to carry a greater quantity (more than a dozen) of the lighter 9mm rounds. Even when automatics were preferred for general military use during the 1960's U.S. Navy pilots were equipped with more reliable 38 cal. revolvers for self defense, loaded with tracer rounds for distress signaling.
Long Guns
Musket
The musket fires a round lead ball from a smooth bore and is loaded from the discharge end (and is so called a muzzle loader).
Early Long Rifle
Similar to the musket this fires a spherical or cylindrical bullet, but has a spirally groved barrel to spin the bullet to maintain its orientation through gyroscopic forces. With a cylindrical bullet there is less air resistance and so greater range.
Muskets, smooth bore pistols and early rifles are classified by the ignition mechanisim (called the lock) used to fire the weapon. These include matchlock, flintlock and wheellock types.
Breach Loader
The successor to the muzzle loader was the breach loading rifle. This has a much higher rate of fire.
Carbine
A lightweight repeating rifle typically used in guard duty.
Long Rifle
The Garand .30 caliber (7.65mm) of World War II is typical of this type. This has automatic loading from clips with automatic clip ejection. The German Mauser and U.S. Springfield were typical of earlier multi-shot clip loaded bolt action rifles.
Assault Rifle
The assault rifle was born in WW2 when the germans developped the STG44, thus revolutionning the battlefield. The main characteristic of the assault rifle is the usage of an intermediate cartrige, smaller and less powerful than those used in the Battle Rifle but with greater speed and power than those used in pistols and submachine guns. Depending on the model, an assault rifle effective range can go from 300m to 800m. The assault rifle is now the standard weapon used by infantry in the greatest part of the planet.
The main characteristics of Assault Rifles compared to Battle Rifles are : Less Recoil, Less Weight, Less Penetration, Less Range, Bigger magazine capacity, Faster Rate of Fire
Compared to Submachine Guns : More Recoil, Heavier, More Penetration, More Range
The two most well known Assault Rifle in history are probably the Russian AK-47 designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov and the American Colt M16, originally designed by Eugene Stoner.
Submachine Gun
A submachine gun is a weapon designed to fire a pistol cartridge in automatic mode and is supposed to be used in close quarters battle, where an assault rifle would be too bulky and may have too much penetration. The best examples of submachine guns are the WW2 Thompson_submachine_gun, the HK MP5 and the FN P90.
Light Machine Gun
An example of the light machine gun would be the M249 Minimi used in Iraq by the U.S. army. A light machine gun (LMG) is a weapon capable of firing rapid bursts at the enemy to provide covering fire to friendly troops.
Sniper Rifle
Sniper Rifles are weapons designed to fire at an enemy with extreme precision. Sniper rifles usally fire a bigger cartridge than the assault rifle to have more range and penetration. Examples of those sniper rifle would be the M24, M40, Barrett M82 and the Dragunov SVD.
Shotgun
Useful only at short range this is used in close quarter assaults such as employed in trench warfare or in urban assault situations. The principle advantange is that due to the short range and the conical scatter of shot, precise aiming is not required, while shot is less likely than bullets to penetrate lightweight plaster walls, limiting unintended casualties (collateral damage).
Grenade Launcher
This may be an auxiliary barrel on an assault rifle or may be an accessory for use with a rifle. In the latter case, a blank round (a cartridge without a bullet) is used to generate the propelling gas to launch a grenade.
Hand Grenade
Hand grenades are thrown. A soldier will typically carry two or more of these. A fuse with several second's delay is activated when the weapon is released.
Fragmentation Type
An explosive charge is contained within a rigid shell scored so that it breaks into small fragments propelled at high speed. This increases the effective radius of the weapon. The standard U.S. military M67 fragmentation grenade kill radius is 5 meters, wounding radius 15 meters and danger radius up to 150 meters.
Concussion Type
An explosive charge is intended to shock with a concussive pressure wave. This may be combined with high intensity flash powders with the intent of disorienting the opponent. The limited effective range offers greater safety to the person employing this weapon.
Antimateriel weapons
Similar to sniper rifles, they are very large caliber weapons used primarily to destroy lightly armored or unarmored targets, or unexploded ordnance.
Flame Thrower
The flamethrower propels a burning stream of flammable fluid. Primarily used against occupied fortifications.
Improvised Weapons
Molotov Cocktail. A thrown device, this uses flammable fluid in a breakable container and an ignition source which may be contact operated or ignited before throwing.
Anti-aircraft Weapons
The sophistication of an infra-red tracking missile has been miniaturized to produce the FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missile and others of similar light weight and short range. Other types include the Soviet SA-7 and the British Javelin.
Anti-structure Weapons
Satchel Charges
Explosives intended to be placed or thrown at short range against defensive structures or to destroy materiel useful to the enemy.
Antitank weapons
Present Day
Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG)
The rocket propelled grenade was designed as an anti-tank weapon, but nowadays it is often used as a general purpose weapon. In addition to ground vehicles, it has been effectively used against infantry and even helicopters.
Fires a large shell that resembles an artillery shell, propelled a by a rocket. The rocket stops burning when it leaves the tube, so the operator isn't injured. It vents out the back of the weapon, eliminating recoil. While recoilless rifles were invented in World War 2, one variant, the Carl Gustav rifle, is still in use today.
Anti-tank Weapons no longer in use
This is essentially similar to a rocket propelled grenade but carries a shaped charge, intended to penetrate substantial armour. It was first used in 1943 by Germany.
An unguided rocket, launched from a long shoulder carried tube, carries a shaped charged to the target. This is not strictly a personal weapon as it is operated by a team of two — a loader and a sighter-operator. It was used by United States forces in World War II and the Korean War.
Develeped by Germany, by copying the bazooka, the panzerschrek had much greater armor piercing capability.
The "Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank" was used by the United Kingdom from 1943 to 1950. It was notable in propelled its charge with a spring instead of a rocket.
A large rifle designed to penetrate tanks, used in World War I and World War II. In World War II, they were only useful against lightly armored vehicles.
See also
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