So first we really need to define what an assault rife actually is. The most common definition one usually hears is magazine fed, intermediate cartridge and has the ability to fire in single shot and some manner of automatic. Some people like to add an effective range to that definition.

So with this definition you could say that yes the StG-44 was exactly that. But really, we define assault rifle based on the description of the StG-44.

I don't have any personal credentials (I'm still studying for my generals and am doing some work to get into the world of modern history) but I can provide sources and if it means anything I'm a long time gun owner, firearm hobbyist and I'm always interested in firearm history.

So first off we have to define an assault rifle. This is tough simply because the definition of different arms is different for every country and in many cases even by gun manufacturer. One modern example is the HK-417. By U.S. army doctrine this could very well be considered a battle rifle as it fires a full sized cartridge compared to the intermediate cartridges of most if not all NATO assault rifles. However on H&Ks web page they classify the HK-417 as an assault rifle (note last time I checked was around 2010 so this may have changed). Wikipedia (gasp!) would say an assault rifle is something that uses an intermediate cartridge while a battle rifle uses a full power round. But this is only true to NATO standards and is subject to argument.

So for the sake of what I'm writing I'll personally classify an assault rifle as a fully automatic infantry firearm that fires at least an intermediate cartridge and is capable of firing at targets out to at least 300 meters while being light enough to be practical (this would exclude the BAR for example).

Well for this we go back to 1915 and see the Russian Federov Avtomat. The Federov Avtomat was a select fire (I bold this simply because many WW2 German lovers enjoy preaching about how the holy Mkb-42 was the first select fire assault rifle) assault rifle that used 6.5x50mm cartridges which made the weapon easy to control and made ammunition light weight (this design in automatic rifles wouldn't really take off around the world until the 1960's when the Stoner AR rifles were produced and the AK-74 came into mass production.) which allowed soldiers to carry more of it. With a fire rate of 600RPM and a magazine size of 25 it gave troops a massive boost in infantry fire power. However it had many, many downsides which lead to this rifle not being widely issued. I don't have full production line records save for knowing that before it ceased production in 1924 at least 3,200 were produced of the 9,000 called for in the final production run. In 1916 the army called for 25,000 but the war mixed with the revolution happening soon after lead to this not being fulfilled.

The Federov was drawn up sometime between 1906 and 1910 and entered trials in 1911.

Lastly the last I heard of the Federov's use was during the Soviet/Finish winter war when the Fins had used them in very limited numbers against the Soviets.

Moving on we see the Soviet AVT-40. The AVT-40 was a select fire fully automatic version of the SVT-40 that entered service July of 1942 and ended its production in the summer of 1943. The rifle was pretty much an exact copy of the SVT-40 with minor modifications to make it fully automatic. However the high powered cartridge coupled with the wooden frame of the SVT-40 or just the fact that the SVT was never designed to be fully automatic lead to numerous issues arriving when fired fully automatic. The rifle still worked and entered service but my sources say most Soviet military units prohibited the use of the fully automatic fire mode.

That's all I can reliably talk about right now without spending hours reading back through books and web sources. But I can say that the U.S. had the M2 carbine by 1945 (maybe 44) and it worked remarkably well. I've seen them firsthand and they are lovely rifles. So that's worth looking into.

Sources:

Forgotten Weapons

Federov Avtomat operators manual

Self-loading Rifle Tokarev Model of 1940 -Sergey Koldunov

Rifles of the World -John Walter

(I hope this is allowed here, mods please let me know if I need to fix anything.)

I have not heard of the M1 being full-auto initially (not saying its not the case). Does anyone have any info on why full auto did not make it into the final product? Too expensive? Not reliable? Thanks in advance.