Service rifle The service rifle ( also known as standard - issue rifle ) of a given army or armed force is that which it issues as standard to its soldiers . In modern forces , this is typically a highly versatile and rugged assault rifle , battle rifle , carbine , or designated marksman rifle suitable for use in nearly all theatres and environments . Service rifles are also often selected for their upgradability ( e . g . , the addition of underslung grenade launcher s , sights , flashlights , laser sights , etc . ) Although certain weapons issued to special forces units are rarely considered " service weapons " in the truest sense , certain specialist rifle s and submachine gun s are categorized as such if issued as per standing operating procedure s upon entering special environments or scenarios . These may include urban warfare ( FIBUA / MOUT ) and jungle warfare environments . Most armies also have service pistol s / side arm s . History . Originally , rifles used in combat were not standard - issue weapons like the service rifles of today . Rifles were for specialist marksmen only , whilst the ordinary infantry were issued less accurate smoothbore musket s which had a higher rate of fire , with bore diameters as high as 19 mm , or 0 . 75 inch . By the middle of the 19th century , however , rifles were becoming more and more common on the battlefield , with muskets being phased out . Originally , these combat rifles were single - shot muzzle - loading weapons , but as technology advanced through the 18th and 19th centuries , so too did the technique of loading rounds . First , breech - loading firearms , like the Prussian Needle gun of the mid - 19th century came to prominence , which then evolved into repeating weapons , such as the bolt - action Mosin - Nagant rifle used by Imperial Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the Soviet Union in World War II . By this time almost all prominent armies in the world had some sort of standard service rifle . During the Second World War , there was yet another leap forward in rifle design which was to influence service rifles even today . That is , the use of a fired cartridge ' s gas emissions to automatically rechamber rounds into the breech once a bullet had been fired , as well as expelling the old cartridge . These weapons were known as gas - operated firearms . Some of the earliest examples of these were most prominent in the Second World War , and were usually semi automatic , such as the American - made M1 Garand , first brought into service with the United States in 1936 . These " battle rifle s " , as they were called , usually fired a " full - sized " ( as opposed to an intermediate ) rifle cartridge , such as the . 30 - 06 Springfield or . 303 British . Another type of commonly issued rifle which was to become well known during this time was the assault rifle , a ( usually ) fully automatic rifle firing a lighter " intermediate " cartridge , as opposed to the full - sized cartridges used by battle rifles . The first of these was the Sturmgewehr 44 , used by Nazi Germany in the later stages of the Second World War . The StG44 was not issued in large numbers , and was never adopted as Germany ' s service rifle . However , this weapon was to serve as the precursor to other assault rifles such as the Soviet AK - 47 , the American M - 16 , the Belgian FN FAL , the German G3 and the Swiss Sturmgewehr 57 , which today supersede battle rifles as the service rifle of choice for militaries the world over .