Rifle in the context of Cordite

Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of actively changing their skin pattern and colours, whether for camouflage or for signalling. It is possible that some plants use camouflage to evade being eaten by herbivores.

Military camouflage was spurred by the increasing range and accuracy of firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill. In the 20th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the World War I. On land, artists such as André Mare designed camouflage schemes and observation posts disguised as trees. At sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the target's speed, range, and heading. During and after World War II, a variety of camouflage schemes were used for aircraft and for ground vehicles in different theatres of war. The use of radar since the mid-20th century has largely made camouflage for fixed-wing military aircraft obsolete.

Shooting sports are a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities which focus on shooting accuracy, precision and speed. Shooting is the art of using ranged weapons, mainly firearms and airguns, such as handguns, rifles and shotguns, and also bows/crossbows.

Shooting sports can be categorized by equipment, shooting distance, targets, time limits and the degree of athleticism involved. Shooting sports may involve both team and individual competitions, and team performance is usually assessed by summing the scores of the individual team members. Due to the noise and high impact energy of the projectiles, which can be lethal, shooting sports are typically conducted at either designated permanent shooting ranges or temporary shooting fields in areas away from human settlements.

In military organizations, a colour guard (or color guard) is a detachment of soldiers assigned to the protection of regimental colours and the national flag. This duty is highly prestigious, and the military colour is generally carried by a young officer (ensign), while experienced non-commissioned officers (colour sergeants) are assigned to the protection of the national flag. These non-commissioned officers, accompanied in several countries by warrant officers, can be ceremonially armed with either sabres or rifles to protect the colour. Colour guards are generally dismounted, but there are also mounted colour guard formations as well.

A bayonet (from Old French bayonette, now spelt baïonnette) is a knife, dagger, sword, or spike-shaped melee weapon designed to be mounted on the end of the barrel of a rifle, carbine, musket or similar long firearm, allowing the gun to be used as an improvised spear in close combat.

The term is derived from the town of Bayonne in southwestern France, where bayonets were supposedly first used by Basques in the 17th century. From the early 17th to the early 20th century, it was an infantry melee weapon used for both offensive and defensive tactics, usually when charging in mass formations (human wave attacks). In contemporary times, bayonets are considered a weapon of last resort, and are rarely used in combat, although they are still used for ceremonial purposes (e.g, military parades).

A carbine (/ˈkɑːrbiːn/ KAR-been or /ˈkɑːrbaɪn/ KAR-byn) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.

The smaller size and lighter weight of carbines make them easier to handle. They are typically issued to high-mobility troops such as special operations soldiers and paratroopers, as well as to mounted, artillery, logistics, or other non-infantry personnel whose roles do not require full-sized rifles, although there is a growing tendency for carbines to be issued to front-line soldiers to offset the increasing weight of other issued equipment. An example of this is the M4 carbine, the standard issue carbine of the United States Armed Forces.

A grenade is a small explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade generally consists of an explosive charge ("filler"), a detonator mechanism, an internal striker to trigger the detonator, an arming safety secured by a transport safety. The user removes the transport safety before throwing, and once the grenade leaves the hand the arming safety gets released, allowing the striker to trigger a primer that ignites a fuze (sometimes called the delay element), which burns down to the detonator and explodes the main charge.

Grenades work by dispersing fragments (fragmentation grenades), shockwaves (high-explosive and stun grenades), chemical aerosols (smoke, gas and chemical grenades), fire (incendiary grenades) or a jet of molten metal (anti-tank grenades). Their outer casings, generally made of a hard synthetic material or steel, are designed to rupture and fragment on detonation, sending out numerous fragments (shards and splinters) as fast-flying projectiles. In modern grenades, a pre-formed fragmentation matrix inside the grenade is commonly used, which may be spherical, cuboid, wire or notched wire. Most anti-personnel (AP) grenades are designed to detonate either after a time delay or on impact.

A monopod, also called a unipod, is a single staff or pole used to help support cameras, binoculars, rifles or other precision instruments in the field.

Under arms describes a state of military readiness (actual or ceremonial). Typically, troops are considered "under arms" when they are in uniform, on duty, and carrying a weapon (rifle, side-arm, or sword), as opposed to being in uniform, on duty, but not carrying a weapon.

Soldiers not actually carrying a weapon but wearing a service belt or web gear associated with carrying weapons may be considered to be symbolically "under arms".

An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, 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.

A sniper rifle is a high-precision, long-range rifle. Requirements include high accuracy, reliability, mobility, concealment, and optics, for anti-personnel, anti-materiel and surveillance uses by military snipers. The modern sniper rifle is a portable shoulder-fired rifle with either a bolt action or semi-automatic action, fitted with a telescopic sight for extreme accuracy and chambered for a high-ballistic performance centerfire cartridge.

A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges - for example the widely used 40mm type. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.

Grenade launchers are produced in the form of standalone weapons (either single shot or repeating) or as attachments mounted to a parent firearm, usually a rifle. Larger crew-served automatic grenade launchers such as the Mk 19 are mounted on tripods or vehicles.

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."

Snake shot, rat shot, or dust shot, more formally known as shotshell (a name shared with the shotgun shell) or canister shot, refers to handgun and rifle cartridges loaded with lead shot canisters instead of bullets, intended for pest control (essentially small arms canister shot). The main targets for such ammunition are snakes, rodents, birds, and other pests at very close range.

The most common snake shot cartridge is .22 Long Rifle loaded with No. 12 shot. From a standard rifle these can produce effective patterns only to a distance of about 3 m (9.8 ft), but in a smoothbore shotgun (or garden gun) that can extend as far as 15 m (49 ft).

Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK or H&K; German pronunciation: [ˌhɛklɐ ʔʊnt ˈkɔx]) is a German firearms manufacturer that produces handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar and also has subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.

Heckler & Koch was founded in 1949 by former Mauser engineers Edmund Heckler, Theodor Koch, and Alex Seidel, who founded the company out of the shuttered Mauser factory in Oberndorf. The company initially produced machine tool and metal parts until 1956 when, in response to a Bundeswehr contract for a new service rifle, HK developed the Heckler & Koch G3. The success of the G3 rifle prompted HK to transition to the defense industry. HK was owned by Royal Ordnance from 1991 to 2002, and is currently part of the Heckler & Koch Group, comprising Heckler & Koch GmbH, Heckler & Koch Defense, NSAF Ltd., and Heckler & Koch France SAS. The company's motto is "Keine Kompromisse" (No Compromises).

A service rifle (or standard-issue rifle) is a rifle a military issues to its regular infantry. In modern militaries, this is generally a versatile, rugged, and reliable assault rifle or battle rifle, suitable for use in nearly all environments and is effective in most combat situations. Almost all modern militaries are issued service pistols as sidearms to accompany their service rifles. The term can also be used to describe weapons issued by non-military forces, such as law enforcement or paramilitaries.

If the issued weapon is not a rifle or carbine, but instead a different type of firearm intended to serve in a specialized role such as a combat shotgun, submachine gun, or light machine gun, it is called a service firearm or service weapon.

A repeating rifle is a single-barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reload. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine (within or attached to the rifle) and then fed individually into the chamber by a reciprocating bolt, via either a manual or automatic action mechanism, while the act of chambering the round typically also recocks the hammer/striker for the following shot. In common usage, the term "repeating rifle" most often refers specifically to manual repeating rifles (e.g. lever-action, pump-action, bolt-action, etc.), as opposed to self-loading rifles, which use the recoil, gas, or blowback of the previous shot to cycle the action and load the next round, even though all self-loading firearms are technically a subcategory of repeating firearms.

Repeating rifles were a significant advance over the preceding single-shot, breechloading rifles when used for military combat, as they allowed a much greater rate of fire. The repeating Henry rifle was used by the infantry and Spencer rifle was used by the cavalry during the American Civil War and the subsequent American Indian Wars, and the first repeating air rifle to see military service was the Windbüchse rifle.