I carried a m16 a1. Never once called it an assualt rifle. I know the Germans had the storm rifle intermediate cartridge auto rifle. That is claimed to be the genesis of assault rifles. I will stick to my guns on this out of overt cussedness in any case.
Come to think of it, we didn’t call our M16’s assault rifles either, but I was navy. Those were for defense to repel boarders. I’ll start calling the M16 a defense rifle then. We assaulted with torpedoes and cruise missiles. Guess I’ll start calling them assault torpedoes and assault cruise missiles.