Carbine in the context of "Bayonet"

Light cavalry comprised lightly armed and armored cavalry troops mounted on fast horses, as opposed to heavy cavalry, where the mounted riders (and sometimes the warhorses) were heavily armored. The purpose of light cavalry was primarily raiding, reconnaissance, screening, skirmishing, patrolling, and tactical communications. Prior to the 17th century they were usually armed with swords, spears, javelins, or bows, and later on with sabres, pistols, shotguns, or carbines.

Light cavalry was used infrequently by Ancient Greeks (who used hippeis such as prodromoi or sarissophoroi) and Ancient Romans (who used auxiliaries such as equites Numidarum or equites Maurorum), but were more common among the armies of Eastern Europe, North Africa, West Asia, Central Asia, and East Asia. The Arabs, Cossacks, Hungarians, Huns, Kalmycks, Mongols, Turks, Parthians, and Persians were all proficient horse archers.

A submachine gun (SMG) or sub-gun is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automatic firearm with notably less firepower than a machine gun (hence the prefix "sub-"). As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns.

In the 20th century, the submachine gun was developed during World War I (1914–1918) as a close quarter offensive weapon, mainly for trench raiding. At its peak during World War II (1939–1945), millions of submachine guns were made for assault troops and auxiliaries whose doctrines emphasized close-quarter suppressive fire. New submachine gun designs appeared frequently during the Cold War, especially among special forces, commandos and mechanized infantrymen. Submachine gun usage for frontline combat decreased in the 1980s and 1990s.

A handgun is a firearm designed to be usable with only one hand. It is distinguished from a long barreled gun (i.e., carbine, rifle, shotgun, submachine gun, or machine gun) which typically is intended to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder. Handguns have shorter effective ranges compared to long guns, and are much harder to shoot accurately. While most early handguns are single-shot pistols, the two most common types of handguns used in modern times are revolvers and semi-automatic pistols.

Before commercial mass production, handguns were often considered a badge of office — comparable to a ceremonial sword – as they had limited utility and were more expensive than the long barreled guns of the era. In 1836, Samuel Colt patented the Colt Paterson, the first practical mass-produced revolver, which was capable of firing five shots in rapid succession and quickly became a popular personal weapon, giving rise to the saying, "God created men, but Colt made them equal."

The Heckler & Koch MP5 (German: Maschinenpistole 5, lit. 'Submachine gun 5') is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including selective fire, semi-automatic, suppressed, compact, and even marksman variants. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous militaries, police forces, intelligence agencies, security organizations, paramilitaries, and non-state actors.

Attempts at replacing the MP5 by Heckler & Koch began in the 1980s, but despite functional prototype weapons having promising performance, a formal successor did not enter commercial production until 1999, when Heckler & Koch developed the UMP. However, despite being more expensive, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two designs, because of its preexisting widespread use, design familiarity, and lower recoil due to its roller-delayed action as opposed to the UMP's straight blowback action.

The Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC, Irish: Constáblacht Ríoga na hÉireann; simply called the Irish Constabulary 1836–67) was the police force in Ireland between 1822 and 1922, when all of the island was part of the United Kingdom. A separate civic police force, the unarmed Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), patrolled the capital, while the cities of Derry and Belfast, originally with their own police forces, later had special divisions within the RIC. For most of its history, the ethnic and religious makeup of the RIC broadly matched that of the Irish population, although Anglo-Irish Protestants were overrepresented among its senior officers.

The RIC was under the authority of the British administration in Ireland. It was a quasi-military police force. Unlike police elsewhere in the United Kingdom, RIC constables were routinely armed (including with carbines) and billeted in barracks, and the force had a militaristic structure. It policed Ireland during a period of agrarian unrest and Irish nationalist activity. It was used to quell civil unrest during the Tithe War, the Young Irelander Rebellion, the Fenian Rising, the Land War, and the Irish revolutionary period.

An intermediate cartridge is a rifle/carbine cartridge that has significantly greater power than a pistol cartridge but still has a reduced muzzle energy compared to fully powered cartridges (such as the .303 British, 7.62×54mmR, 7.65×53mm Mauser, 7.92×57mm Mauser, 7.7×58mm Arisaka, .30-06 Springfield, or 7.62×51mm NATO), and therefore is regarded as being "intermediate" between traditional rifle and handgun cartridges.

As their recoil is significantly reduced compared to full-power cartridges, fully automatic rifles firing intermediate cartridges are relatively easy to control. However, even though they are less powerful than a traditional full-power cartridge, the external ballistics are still sufficient for an effective range of 300–600 metres (330–660 yd), which covers most typical infantry engagement situations in modern warfare. This allowed for the development of the assault rifle, a type of versatile selective fire small arms that is lighter and more compact than traditional battle rifles that fire full-power cartridges.

A carabinier (also sometimes spelled carabineer or carbineer) is in principle a soldier armed with a carbine, musket, or rifle, which became commonplace by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. The word is derived from the identical French word carabinier.

Historically, carabiniers were generally (but not always) horse soldiers. The carbine was considered a more appropriate firearm for a horseman than a full-length musket, since it was shorter in length, weighed less, and was easier to manipulate on horseback. Light infantry sometimes carried carbines because they are less encumbering when moving rapidly, especially through vegetation, but in most armies the tendency was to equip light infantry with longer-range weapons such as rifles rather than shorter-range weapons such as carbines. In Italy and Spain, carbines were considered suitable equipment for soldiers with policing roles, so the term carabinier evolved to sometimes denote gendarmes and border guards.

A long gun is a category of firearms with long barrels. In small arms, a long gun or longarm is generally designed to be held by both hands and braced against the shoulder, in contrast to a handgun, which can be fired being held with a single hand. In the context of cannons and mounted firearms, an artillery long gun would be contrasted with a field gun or howitzer.