Assault rifle (dNetHack)
| ) | |
|---|---|
| Name | assault rifle |
| Appearance | broken crossbow |
| Damage vs. small | 1d2 |
| Damage vs. large | 1d2 |
| To-hit bonus | +2 |
| Weapon skill | firearm |
| Size | one-handed |
| Base price | 1000 zm (+10/positive enchant) |
| Weight | 40 |
| Material | iron |
- For the weapon in SLASH'EM and its derivatives, see assault rifle (SLASH'EM).
An assault rifle is a type of firearm that appears in dNetHack, notdNetHack and notnotdNetHack. The assault rifle is a medium-size futuristic launcher, making it one-handed for most medium-sized and larger heroes, and uses the firearms skill. It is designed for use with bullets, silver bullets, blood-bullets, and blood-spears.
The assault rifle has a default material of iron, and appears as a broken crossbow for heroes in most roles when unidentified—Anachrononauts, Androids, Pirates, and Undead Hunters will instead see the unidentified item as an "unfamiliar long gun".
Generation
Anachrononauts and Androids start each game with knowledge of the assault rifle's appearance.
Assault rifles are not randomly generated, though they can be found in bones and can only be wished for by Tourists. They cannot be created by smithing unless the hero is an Undead Hunter that knows their appearance.
Several assault rifles can be found on the Anachrononaut quest: A chest in the northeastern-most hall of the base on the Anachrononaut quest home level contains 4 assault rifles, and 3 more rifles are each randomly placed around the locate level and goal level at level creation. These also appear on the Android quest, though the assault rifles in the chest only have a 1⁄2 chance each of generating.
Deep ones and deeper ones generated in the future (i.e. the Anachrononaut quest and Android quest) have a 1⁄6 chance of being generated with an assault rifle as their firearm weapon and 3 different stacks of bullets as ammo, with the properties of the assault rifle itself dependent on which monster is given one: deep ones will have fully eroded submachine guns, while deeper ones will have submachine guns with 1 level of erosion and an enchantment ranging from +1 to +4.
Description
The assault rifle has a range of 20 squares with a base rate of fire of 5, and has a +2 to-hit bonus.
When wielded by a hero who is Skilled or better in firearms, assault rifles gain the "focus fire" expert trait.
Origin
An assault rifle is a select-fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine, and generally trades accuracy at extreme ranges for higher rates of fire and lighter cartridges (enabling soldiers to carry more rounds). Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II: the first to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42 that is generally considered the first popular selective-fire military rifle, and the modern usage of "assault rifle" refers to firearms sharing the same basic characteristics as the StG 44.
Designs for assault rifles that use the modern definition date back as far as 1915 with the Fedorov Avtomat, one of the world's first operational automatic rifles designed by Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov, and considered by some to be an "early predecessor" or "ancestor" of the modern assault rifle. The term "assault rifle" itself is generally attributed to Adolf Hitler, who used the German word Sturmgewehr (which directly translates to "assault rifle") as the new name for the MP 43 (or Maschinenpistole, meaning "machine pistol"), subsequently known as the Sturmgewehr 44.
Allied propaganda suggested that the name was chosen for propaganda purposes, but the main purpose was to differentiate the Sturmgewehr from German submachine guns such as the MP 40. However, some other sources suggest that the Heereswaffenamt was responsible for the name Sturmgewehr, and Hitler had no input besides signing the production order; he was initially opposed to the idea of a new infantry rifle, as Germany lacked the industrial capacity to replace the 12,000,000 Karabiner 98k rifles already in service, only changing his mind once he saw it first-hand.
While NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles immediately after World War II and during the Cold War, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and submachine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.
