SMALL ARM

any handheld firearm. Since the introduction of the flintlock musket in the 17th century, military small arms have gone through a series of significant changes. By employing different projectiles and successively improved chemical propellants, the dual goal of most arms designers has been the creation of man-portable weapons of greater firepower and reduced weight. But the attainment of this goal has continually been hampered by an inescapable physical relationship between the recoil forces generated by gunpowder weapons and the mass and velocity of their projectiles. In order to reduce the weight of a weapon, its recoil energy has to be reduced, but reducing recoil also affects the killing power of the bullet. Given the constraints of this relationship, military small arms may well have reached a level where, within reasonable economic limits, significantly higher performance cannot be obtained merely by improving existing gunpowder-based technology. Additional reading On small arms, basic reference works offering encyclopaedic treatment include Claude Blair (ed.), Pollard's History of Firearms (1983); Jaroslav Lugs, Firearms Past and Present: A Complete Review of Firearms Systems and Their Histories, 2 vol., trans. from Czech (1973); and Harold L. Peterson (ed.), Encyclopedia of Firearms (1964). Histories of small-arms development in various countries include Howard L. Blackmore, British Military Firearms, 16501850 (1961); M.L. Brown, Firearms in Colonial America: The Impact on History and Technology, 14921792 (1980); John Walter, The German Rifle: A Comprehensive Illustrated History of the Standard Bolt-Action Designs, 18711945 (1979); and Edward C. Ezell, The AK-47 Story: Evolution of the Kalashnikov Weapons (1986), including a history of shoulder-weapons development in Russia and the Soviet Union from 1800 to the 1980s, and The Great Rifle Controversy: Search for the Ultimate Infantry Weapon from World War II Through Vietnam and Beyond (1984), on U.S. and NATO small-arms development. Other works by Ezell are Handguns of the World: Military Revolvers and Self-Loaders from 1870 to 1945 (1979); and Small Arms of the World: A Basic Manual of Small Arms, 12th rev. ed. (1983), with chapters that summarize the development of rifles, handguns, submachine guns, machine guns, and special-purpose weapons from 1945 to the 1980s. Merritt Roe Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology: The Challenge of Change (1977), discusses the American system of manufacture in its human and technological contexts. John Ellis, The Social History of the Machine Gun (1975, reprinted 1986), is an essay on the social impact of the machine gun. Edward C. Ezell