[archy]

4. Stocks and handguards. The jerk that designed the metal handguard (as on the RSA-built FALs) did not intend for the weapon to be fired more that once. Dumb. The wooden stock on older FALs (while often a piece of beautiful walnut!) is prone to breakage. The plastic furniture isn't the last word either but it beats wood for durability and metal for heat control.

d.o.l.

Not quite. Those were the German and Austrian versions, based on their WWII experience in dealing with Soviet troops in overwhelming numbers, the same reason they forego bayonets in favour of an extra magazine's worth of ammo or two.

Both the Austrian Stg58 version of the FAL and the German G1 came equipped with bipods, and their users were expected to take cover and use it. Later with the coming of the West German Marder Mechanized Infantry fighting vehicle, the real return of the German Panzergrenadier came about, and with the mid-1960s, the shorter-barrelled German G3 rifle, also in a collapsing butt version used by Germany's paratroops.

Likely most of those Germans and Austrians expected to have their winter gloves or mittens along most of the year too. But both the earlier MP44 and the later Walther MPL and MPK machinepistols share the stamped metal foreends, and whatever their other failings, they don't melt or char.

[Cloud William]

Ah, you are correct, of course - the bipod is the reason for the steel handguards. Unlike Western Europe, the U.S. never put much emphasis on bipods beyond light machineguns - at least not until the SAW evolved.