Assault rifle

The assault rifle is a rifle skill weapon in Deus Ex. It can fire two distinct types of ammunition: 7.62x51mm rounds and 20mm HE grenades. The assault rifle is commonly used by military and paramilitary forces throughout the world in 2052. Its formal name is ZHL-U1953, as shown on blueprints and the rifle itself.

7.62x51mm
The assault rifle fires in bursts of five rounds when loaded with 7.62mm ammo. Consecutive bursts are continuous, resulting in fully automatic firing when the fire button is held down. Each bullet has a base damage of 3, for a total damage of 15 per burst.

Due to its high rate of fire, the assault rifle has a higher overall damage per second than the pistol and stealth pistol. However, the assault rifle is initially limited by its recoil and bullet spread. Recoil is very high at the untrained skill level, with each burst causing the view to pitch up approximately 10° per burst. Once the advanced skill level is attained, recoil is reduced to zero. Bullet spread can be reduced to zero by attaining 100% accuracy or by attaching a laser modification, which provides perfect accuracy when the laser sight is turned on. When perfect accuracy and zero recoil have been obtained, the assault rifle's advantages in high damage per second becomes far more practically useful.

20mm HE
The 20mm HE is the assault rifle's secondary ammunition. It is a grenade that is launched in an arc. As an explosive, the 20mm HE can serve as an alternative to the GEP gun without requiring the inventory space of the latter.

With a base damage of 150, the 20mm HE is only half as powerful as GEP gun rockets, but is still capable of destroying military bots in two hits (and any other robot in a single hit) at the master skill level. It is also useful for destroying objects such as turrets and destructible doors. The damage of the 20mm HE grenade scales with the rifle skill, thus reaching a damage of 300 at master skill level.

Acquisition

 * Liberty Island, killing or knocking out the UNATCO troop that appears after you find Leo Gold at the Statue of Liberty. This is the first obtainable appearance of the assault rifle.
 * Widely used by the UNATCO and Majestic 12 troops, such as UNATCO troopers in Hell's Kitchen, the MJ12 troops in the New York City sewers, and the UNATCO occupying the NSF Headquarters.
 * Hong Kong, used by the Chinese military police.

Trivia

 * The 7.62x51 NATO round the Assault Rifle is chambered in is a full-sized rifle round commonly used in general-purpose machine guns and precision rifles. Despite this, the Assault Rifle boasts the lowest damage per shot of any firearm in the game, with each of its bullets dealing less damage than even the individual pellets fired by the assault shotgun. Even stranger, the 30.06 round fired by the Sniper Rifle in real life is roughly the same size and power as the 7.62 NATO, but in-game the Sniper Rifle deals far more damage and has much greater range than the Assault Rifle. Given the Assault Rifle's role as a high volume of fire weapon, it's likely the 7.62 NATO's anemic performance in-game is a result of gameplay balance rather than adherence to realism.

Gallery
Karabinek szturmowy