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Originally Posted by Raellus
The same would be true for the AKS-74U. It is more of a carbine than an SMG. The v2.2 don't really make that distinction.
And, I don't know if this is true of other "submachineguns" that fire full-powered rifle rounds but the AKS-74U has a b*tch of a muzzle blast/firing signature. I haven't seen quite the same in footage of the M4 (basically the M117 of v2.2) firing.
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T2K doesn't make a distinction between short-barreled assault rifles and submachineguns, but most of the Western firearms experts do. A short-barreled rifle fires a rifle round, while a true submachinegun fires a pistol round. That said, there are many weapons that straddle the line -- and in many countries (particularly in Eastern Europe, Russia, and China), even assault rifles are considered to be submachineguns. Some also consider some assault rifles or short-barreled rifles to be assault rifles, while other such weapons are considered to be submachineguns. There's plenty of room to muddy the waters. I adhere to the Western firearms experts most of the time -- but then again, you have weapons that have versions that fire pistol rounds or rifle rounds, and some of these need only a few parts to be changed to switch calibers. And then, there's always the argument about what constitutes a carbine and what doesn't. Discussions like that are always lots of fun!
The M-4 has more muzzle blast than the M-16, but not as much as one would think. Not nearly the same muzzle blast as the M-177, because of the barrel -- the M-4 has a roughly 14.5-inch barrel, while the M-177's is about 10. (Eugene Stoner felt a 10-inch barrel was about the minimum required for reliable cycling of an unmodified version of his operating system -- and that has pretty much turned out to be true.)