7.62x51mm: Difference between revisions

{{Era|Human|HCW}}

{{Ratings}}

[[File:MA5B AR ammo.jpg|thumb|100px|A 7.62x51mm from ''[[The Art of Halo 3]]''.]]

'''7.62x51mm NATO''' is a [[Rounds|round]] used by the [[UNSC]] in their [[MA5 Series]] of assault rifles as well as the [[M392 Designated Marksman Rifle]]. It was originally developed by the [[NATO]] organization in the late 20th Century. It is used due to its reliability and heavy power.

==History==

[[File:NATO_7_62x51.jpg|thumb|right|150px|7.62x51mm rounds, with a ruler and AA battery for scale.]]

The 7.62x51mm NATO was originally developed by [[wikipedia:NATO|NATO]], a military alliance between national governments, in the middle of the 20th century. It was developed to be reliable when used in fully automatic weapons, to have a large punch, and to standardize round size between governments. It replaced a variety of smaller ammunition and largely achieved the goals of development. It is a full-power rifle round in the 20th century, and is fairly common in machine guns, battle rifles, and sniper rifles, but not in lightweight assault rifles because of intense recoil. Its ineffectiveness in individual infantry weapons led to the adoption of the [[wikipedia:5.56x45mm NATO|5.56x45mm NATO]] round, due to better controllability and the ability to fit it into small, lightweight assault weapons. It is not known why the 5.56x45mm NATO round disappears in the ''Halo'' universe, but it could be possible that weapons technology advanced so much as to fit enough recoil control systems on a firearm to allow this powerful round be used as an infantry rifle round (the same could apply to the [[M6 series]]). It also seems that in the ''Halo'' universe, the 7.62x51mm round is no longer considered a full-power rifle cartridge, explaining why weapons that use the round such as the MA5 series are considered assault rifles when they would be considered battle rifles by today's standards.