Originally Posted by Mussolini

You do have to credit it with being the worlds for Assault Rifle, from which all other assault rifles were derived. The AK improved upon some of the things the STG had. The STG by all accounts was a heavy weapon and the trend of modern weapons is to make them lighter, with higher capacity magazines.

The Germans were clearly the first to merge a rifle with a SMG (hence Assault rifle - single shot and fully automatic combined into one gun) that was both accurate at long range, fired a relatively powerful round, but could also be used in close combat.

History dictates that, after this, modern rifles were capable of similar feats.