Guns!

[Wumbology]

So I've been writing and doing a bit of armchair studies on firearms on how they're classified and work. Mainly I needed to look up the differences between AKM series weapons.

If my facts are right, though, then it would seem that up until Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout had really... silly gun design. (I'm ignoring Fallout 2's abundance of immersion-breaking real-world weapons).
obviously this doesn't *really* detract from any Fallout game, but it's fun to point out.

For instance, the Assault Rifle in Fallout 1 is a big, bulky rifle, clearly equal in size to a real world FN FAL or G3. It would seem to be suited for a "battle rifle" combat role. However, it uses rounds suited for hunting varmint, 5mm bullets! The Sniper Rifle is another example of this. Despite being originally chambered .308/7.52x51mm NATO rounds, in the game it uses 5.56 intermediate-caliber bullets that are intended for <300 yard engagements which are currently harshly criticized for lacking stopping power.

Fallout 2 didn't improve on this, much. Fallout 3 both improved and made it "worse": the Assault Rifle is clearly similar to a real world H&K G3 or a FN FAL, but it uses 5.56 rounds suited for a carbine. The 10mm and .44 magnum rounds in-game would be roughly equal in size, if my facts are right, yet the .44 magnum rounds win out by a large margin, making 10mm bullets totally useless by end-game. The Chinese Assault rifle is a particularly bizarre example of design choice: despite being a foreign weapon, it uses NATO rounds. I assume this is due to the needs of Chinese covert ops on American/NATO soil. However, this wasn't changed in Operation: Anchorage, making me further dislike the DLC as it didn't take itself seriously at all.

When New Vegas came along, however, most of this nonsense was stopped. 5mm and 5.56mm bullets are now used by carbines, while intermediate .308s are used by respectable rifles suited for the sorts of engagements the round is used for. Simply put, some real-world sense was interjected into the world of Fallout.

However I may also be totally wrong..! thoughts?

 

[Atomic Postman]

You're not wrong, New Vegas took it's guns seriously, and it served it well.

I've heard that Sawyer is quite the Gun nerd, so that might be the cause behind it.

 

[Hassknecht]

Yeah, Fallout was quite weird in that respect. Although I'd say that 5mm wasn't intended for vermin; It's depicted as belted ammunition, so I'd say it's supposed to be some sort of high velocity military round. We don't really know how large the round actually is. It might as well be larger than 5.56mm NATO.
The sniper rifle doesn't make any sense, of course, but it seems to be a weird one, anyway. It's basically the same picture as the laser rifle. I guess it was kind of an afterthought and they didn't feel like adding a whole new ammo type just for that one weapon (although they did it for the 9mm Mauser and the Desert Eagle...).
As for the 10mm round: The 10mm is more like the .45 ACP round, which is comparable to the 9mm Parabellum. .44 Magnum is a big-ass magnum revolver round with a much heavier bullet and a lot more powder, so it makes sense that it's more powerful.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

For instance, the Assault Rifle in Fallout 1 is a big, bulky rifle, clearly equal in size to a real world FN FAL or G3. It would seem to be suited for a "battle rifle" combat role. However, it uses rounds suited for hunting varmint, 5mm bullets! The Sniper Rifle is another example of this. Despite being originally chambered .308/7.52x51mm NATO rounds, in the game it uses 5.56 intermediate-caliber bullets that are intended for <300 yard engagements which are currently harshly criticized for lacking stopping power.

Biggass necro, but I saw some retarded predditors use this forum page as an example of "Fallout fans being the reason why FO4's weapons are so terribly designed", but the FO1-2 AR weighs like 7 pounds, that's perfectly inline for a 5mm rifle (basically necked down 5.56mm) that has to replace synthetic furniture with wooden ones.
The sniper rifle is also canonically given a reason why it's using .223, namely that .308 is very rare to come by, so most snipers are rechambered for .223, which is still more than enough to punch holes in all but the toughest targets.