Vital Guide to Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons [Hardcover]

Chris Bishop (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vital Guide | Publication Date: August 15, 1996

A guide to the modern soldier's weapons. This book features a wide range, from handguns for self-protection, through combat rifles and machine-guns to the missiles with which infantrymen destroy battle tanks. It also includes weapons used by the police at airports, the SAS and other special forces.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 123 pages
• Publisher: Airlife Publishing (August 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1853105392
• ISBN-13: 978-1853105395
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,022,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but I've read some of it before, July 14, 1999

By 

Justin Hobbs ([e-mail]) (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vital Guide to Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons (Hardcover)

This book is a great source for middle-range information regarding infantry weapons. The editor took care to give more space to more influential weapons, such as the M-16, to get better information regarding the subject. However, some of the summaries I have heard before, verbatim. Not that big of a deal, but something toi think about. Excellent pictures, most I have never seen before. Once again, it is a good information source, its easy to understand, and the pictures are quite good. If you don't have a reference for infantry weapons, get this now.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Small Arms Book, December 28, 2000

By 

Clayton (Kentucky, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vital Guide to Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons (Hardcover)

This is a fantastic book that contains just about all the biggest small arms of the 20th century. The book is divided into several sections, pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, machine guns, combat shotguns, mortars, anti-tank weapons,and shoulder-launched surface-to-air-missiles. It covers all the weapons you would or might see in todays conflicts. For each weapon it tells what type of weapon it is, calibre, weight,muzzle velocity, dimensions, magazine capacity, and countries that use the weapon. It also has a few short paragraphs about its history and other things. It's a fantastic book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dated, October 31, 2002

By 

Eric Avila (El Paso, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vital Guide to Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons (Hardcover)

This book would have been up to date about 15 years ago. Much of the information and descriptions appear in older works, and more modern weapons are completely omitted. For example, there are no mention of the M-4 carbine, which has all but replaced the M-16A2 in US military service; the AN-94 assault rifle and Bizon SMG from Russia; the M240 machinegun (although the FN MAG does get a good article). The M-47 Dragon AT missile is in here, but no mention of the Javelin missile which has entirely replaced it. Likewise, recoilless rifles which haven't seen service anywhere but the Third World for the last 25 years get articles, but no info on many more modern systems. Overall, the quality of the book isn't so bad, but this book was published in 1996. It might as well have been 1976.