Rifles

Basic Rifles

Three of the four basic rifles are nearly identical. The Russian Mosin-Nagant, German Kar-98 and British Lee-Enfield have similar killing power and aim abilities. They’re bolt-action rifles with a slow rate of fire, but compensate for this with high damage. The Lee-Enfield holds two cartridges of 5 rounds each (you can reload only once you use the first five), while the other two just hold 5 at a time.

Which sight you prefer is totally up to you. Some players find the triple sight on the Lee-Enfield confusing, others don’t like the thick knob on the Kar-98, and others find the small circular reticle on the Mosin-Nagant to be obstructive. They can all be learned and in skilled hands can be the most powerful guns in the game, aside from the overpowered sniper rifles. With good aim and reflexes, one-shot kills are perfectly possible at close and long range.

The M1 Garand is a strange weapon, inflicting only as much damage as the BAR while not being able to fire as fast or hold as much ammo. However, it has a superior sight and you move much faster with it, plus it isn’t nearly as loud. It deals less damage than the bolt-action rifles but fires so much faster (even when permitting the gun to drop down to the original aimed position between shots) that it’s clearly the best rifle in the game for most players. Many skip it over in favor of the BAR, since the BAR does the same damage. The only drawback to the Garand is that you can’t reload until all 8 rounds are gone, which isn’t that big a deal considering that it’s almost impossible to run out of ammo in the game.


The M1 Carbine is useless. It does less damage than the Garand and BAR, holds fifteen rounds and fires in semi-automatic mode. The BAR fires faster and does more damage. The Garand fires nearly as fast, does more damage. The only advantage the Carbine has over the Garand is ease of reload and the number of rounds it carries.


All four sniper rifles are basically the same except for their graphics. Compared to regular rifles the only drawback they have is the long reload time. There’s really no way to justify their power; especially when games like Enemy Territory have proven that 2-shot kill sniper rifles are potent enough. We’d recommend that players try playing on no-scope servers to get an idea of how much more flow the game has (especially on maps like hurtgen and rocket) without the sniper rifle. That way, it’s at least possible to respect the person who picked you off from across the map with a Kar-98.