Customer Reviews

Vital Guide to Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons

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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.

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.

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.

As stated already, this book is a very basic reference device. Good for beginners who want an introduction into the types of firearms seen in most films and combat pictures. There are, however, serious mistakes. The worst has to be using a shot of a Soft Air (toy product shooting plastic BB pellets) version of the SA80 and claiming its the real thing. You can actually see the white pellets in the magazine housing.This is sloppy picture editing and considering the book is small should never have left the proof stage with that error. Buy only if you are thinking of starting a reference libary and even then give it to your kid brother once you've had a read throught it

If you see complaints from other reviews they must remember this is a guide not a be all end all refrence. I found this book very good, if not perfect. It's full color with pictures and a page per weapon. Some are missing that you would think would be in there like the tech 9 or colt M4, but it has most recognizable small arms of today. It's slightly dated, but should serve enough for casual enthusiests. If you just want to be able to show off and Identify weapons in war movies and gang movies, or perhaps those found in first person shooter video games, than this should serve you pretty good and will make an interesting and educational read.

Contains everything from the M-16 A2, SAW, Mac 10, M60, Dragunov, AK74, AK47, AKSU, Galil, Glock, Desert Eagle, Colt 1911 .45, MP5, AUG, Uzi, G3, SA80 and many more.

A lot of older weapons from the vietnamme, Korean and ww2 days as well including: M1 Thomspon (tommy Gun), Sterling, M3 "Grease Gun", M1 Garand, Ar-15, SKS, M21, M14, P38 and more. Even has sections on Anti tank wepaons, and mortars.

It has no sections about how guns work or the mechanisms that drive automatic weapons. So this book wont be the one to tell you just what caliber means or what the exact differences between a submachine gun and assault rifle are; it assumes you know that already or arent interested in knowing that. It's not all inclusive or an encyclopedia but as a guide it's very good.