FR-27 Sanction Flechette Rifle (DXMD)

The FR-27 S.F.W., Flechette Ordnance, also referred to by the term "Combat Rifle," is a weapon in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.

Overview
The FR-27 S.F.W. returns from Deus Ex: Human Revolution, featuring similar performance and versatility, but can be further customized with the weapon attachments system featured in Mankind Divided.

The FR-27 S.F.W. is a highly versatile, jack-of-all-trades combat firearm, in large part due to its wide range of upgrade options. The weapon is uniquely able to accept all four weapon attachments, and is also able to fire armor-piercing rounds.

The FR-27 S.F.W. is one of the most common weapons encountered in the game. Ammo is not a particularly big concern given the ubiquity of the weapon, and ammunition packs for it are both common and very cheap to buy in shops.

An unmodified Combat Rifle will be added to the player's inventory at the start of MM1: Black Market Buy if the long-ranged lethal option is picked. During the fight against the Shadow Operatives, all TF29 personnel that carry combat rifles have laser sights. Later in the game, during martial law, several police officers may be found carrying suppressed or sighted Combat Rifles.

The combat rifle and its variants are the only weapons in the game that do not have a dry reload animation.

Elite Edition Combat Rifle
The Elite Edition Combat Rifle is included as part of the Enforcer Pack DLC, available as a free download.
 * Limited-edition burst-firing variant with slightly worse handling until upgraded.
 * For some reason, upgrading the rate of fire will also further lower recoil.
 * The Elite Edition Combat Rifle has a maximum range of only 50 meters, lower than the range of 60 meters on the standard edition.
 * This weapon, despite what the stats may imply, does more damage than its normal counterpart.

Côte d'Azur S.O.W.
The Côte d'Azur S.O.W. is a special variant that fires only EMP rounds.
 * The weapon features an integral suppressor, a unique blue holosight, and a large magazine capacity. Maximum range is 40 meters.


 * The weapon is found inside a weapon case in the Tarvos Security Services corporate vault in the Palisade Property Bank. The keycard for this vault can be obtained from the basement of Sobchak Security. Only one instance of the weapon can be obtained per playthrough.
 * When first found, the weapon is only loaded to half capacity (30 rounds). 100 additional rounds are located nearby.


 * The Côte d'Azur may be traded for one of Nada Birak's special stocks.

Standard FR-27 S.F.W. Combat Rifle
The Combat Rifle is highly useful to players who favor tactical versatility. Once a scope is attached, the Combat Rifle functions as a sniper rifle. Once a silencer is attached, the Combat Rifle is fully suitable for stealth-based tactics. The Combat Rifle begins as a fully-automatic mode, but can be upgraded to unlock an unlockable semi-automatic firing mode. Furthermore, the Combat Rifle is able to accept armor-piercing (AP) rounds, making it suitable for use against robots and turrets. The Combat Rifle is the only weapon, other than the slow-firing Lancer, that can accept both a scope and a silencer, and can use AP rounds while silenced. As a result, the Combat Rifle is arguably the most multi-functional weapon in the game, provided that you invest into upgrading the weapon.

However, in being a jack-of-all-trades weapon, the Combat Rifle does not excel in any specific area. For example, as a scoped sniper rifle, the damage per hit is far lower than that of any of the three other lethal sniping options (i.e., the Battle Rifle, the Lancer, and the Longsword II 203 Sniper Rifle). Additionally, the Combat Rifle has a maximum range of only 60 meters. Therefore, even with the scope attached, the Combat Rifle is ineffective at the farthest distances in Mankind Divided, such as the longest ranges when firing from the elevated areas of G.A.R.M., and from the top of the atrium of the Desert Jewel Resort Hotel in Dubai in a new game plus.

The Combat Rifle has an unlockable semi-automatic firing pattern. While this upgrade increases the versatility of the weapon, it should be noted that damage-per-hit is relatively low compared to other weapons, even the 10mm Pistol. For example, while the Elite Edition 10mm Pistol is able to destroy cameras in a single shot with the silencer on, the silenced Combat Rifle requires multiple rounds to destroy a camera (despite what the in-game damage stats would suggest).

When loaded with the slightly-rarer Armor Piercing rounds, the FR-27 receives a big damage boost, making it more lethal during a shootout. AP damage is far lower than what the Battle Rifle and Revolver provides, but is easily sufficient to make quick work of just about any target.

In summary, the Combat Rifle is useful for its tactical versatility. While the weapon has a relatively modest damage output on a damage-per-hit basis, players who have good aim and prefer a tactical approach to combat will not likely be deterred by this drawback.

Elite Edition Combat Rifle
The Elite Edition is notable for its three-round-burst firing mode, which provides high damage output while maintaining good handling and efficient ammo consumption. Each individual burst fires more quickly than the sustained, automatic fire of the standard rifle. By "pulsing" the trigger, the player can release multiple, rapid bursts in less time than fully automatic fire. Additionally, the Elite Edition does slightly more damage than the standard edition. As a result of these benefits, many players will find the Elite Edition to be superior to the standard edition in terms of combat performance.

A drawback of the Elite Edition stems from the fact that different variants of the same type of weapon are considered different weapons for purposes of inventory management. Thus, when the Elite Edition is in the inventory, picking up a standard Combat Rifle will place it in the inventory instead of discarding the weapon and keeping the ammo. This makes it more cumbersome to take advantage of the ubiquity of Combat Rifles for purposes of ammunition collection.

Additionally, the Elite Edition has a range of only 50 meters. When in doubt as to whether a target is within range, check the rangefinder of the 4x Scope to confirm that the target is within range.

Côte d'Azur S.O.W.
The Côte d'Azur is a very niche weapon because it fires only EMP rounds. EMP rounds are capable of temporarily disabling robots and electronic devices, but are not suitable for destroying them permanently. Therefore, in being able to fire only EMP rounds, the Côte d'Azur is unable to destroy even simple devices such as cameras.

Even as an EMP weapon, the usefulness of the Côte d'Azur is questionable, given that there are other weapons capable of firing EMP rounds. Compared to a fully upgraded and silenced 10mm Pistol, the Côte d'Azur only inflicts half the stun time on Sentry Bots. While the Côte d'Azur has a high rate of fire to quickly increase the stun time through successive hits, rate of fire is generally not important in the context of disabling robots, since stunned robots do not return fire, and all devices have a capped maximum stun time. Moreover, the Côte d'Azur has a larger inventory size as compared to the 10mm Pistol. Finally, it should be noted that EMP ammo is not necessary to disable robots and electronic devices, since the Remote Hacking augmentation provides an alternative.

The Côte d'Azur inflicts non-lethal damage, as with any other weapon loaded with EMP ammo. For this reason, the Côte d'Azur can potentially be used as a non-lethal weapon, with the added bonus that EMP rounds disable augmentation usage for a short period of time. However, the amount of non-lethal damage is low. For example, about 5 headshots from this rifle are required to down ARC militia and typical Shadow Operatives. The low damage, combined with the scarcity of the ammunition, limits the practicality of the Côte d'Azur as an anti-personnel weapon.

Trivia

 * The FR-27 in Human Revolution was chambered in its proprietary .303 caliber discarding sabot flechettes, but has been standardized to use 5.56x45mm NATO rounds by the time of Mankind Divided as described in the inventory. It was reclassified in-universe as a Sanctioned Flechette Weapon instead of Rifle, due to its smoothbore barrel not having any rifling, though for gameplay purposes it is still considered as such.
 * The FR27s carried by enemies and various other NPCs do not have ironsights.
 * The FR-27's concept art featured in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Mini-artbook depicts a few changes to the rifle visually, namely an altered foregrip and carry handle. While the weapon in the final build remained mostly unchanged from the previous game, the new design did in fact live on in the form of the Côte d'Azur unique variant.
 * The new carry handle design was also incorporated into the arm-mounted machinegun of enemy EXO-suits.
 * The Côte d'Azur ("Blue Coast"; literally: Coast of Azure in English) variant was named after the, the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France.
 * Despite the Côte d'Azur's carry handle featuring an integral smart targeting system, it behaves much like any other variant of the FR-27 during gameplay.
 * The Côte d'Azur is described as a burst-firing weapon on the official website and in the inventory, despite operating in full-auto during gameplay.
 * It's also the place of a very famous battle in the Halo universe, which might just be a developer nod.
 * During the opening cinematic of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, two of the members of TF29 can be seen loading Elite Edition FR-27s.