What opinions do people have of it? Is the rifle using the right in game model, is it supposed to look damn near identical to the shotgun? i get a real world argument to have familiarity of layout and all but Fallout doesn't care about that with water cooled assault rifles and whatever the extra crap on the 10mm is supposed to be. In general i just find the rifle so strange, its a .45 pistol cartridge sniper carbine that was theoretically the standard issue infantry weapon? Nothing on it looks scaled right unless you max out gun nut and re-chamber it for 308. which, whow, re-chambering something to go from a pistol round to a full size rifle round...

I could see it originally being a 5mm or 5.56mm that could be upgraded to .308 until someone decided those ammos where too rare and there was already a 5.56 rifle in the same niche.

As soon as i saw it i knew it was going to be the first thing i replaced with a weapon mod to change its looks, just waiting for the community to knock something out for it.

Thoughts?

I think it makes a great alternative to the smg as a full auto .45, slower rate of fire means better recoil control, something you need if ya doing a commando build.

Yeah, pretty sure they created it because there was a lack of guns using the .45, but it really doesn't make sense since fully upgraded it can out-damage a .50 chambered hunting rifle, which in terms of ballistics just doesn't make any sense at all.

Just so people know, this is what the difference looks like: http://s412.photobucket.com/user/Sheldonjls/media/PA113339.jpg.html

I think the .50 caliber round needs a huge damage boost in fallout 4, to make it on par with the anti-materiel rifle from new vegas as a worthy competitor to late game energy weapons, otherwise energy weapons outclass the ballistic ones in every way.

As rare as the ammo is to find compared to .45 it just isn't worth using....I'm level 30 (Survival mode) and have around 130 .50 rounds, and my combat rifle has shown an inventory of 999+ rounds for several days now, regardless of how much I reload it, the ammo is just so common.

Appearance wise I think the combat rifle is modeled after the B.A.R., and the combat shotgun modeled after the combat shotgun from fallout 3, which was inspired by the PPSH 41. I think it's just a coincidence that they look so similar when modded in a certain way in fallout 4.

it looks just like a ww2 German mp 40. pretty sure that's what they were going for too

The lack of an "AR" looking rifle in the game does seem strange as there were 2 distinct AR type rifles in FO3. Also, I tend to agree that the FO4 Combat Rifle model is far too close to the Combat Shotgun (it's actually confusing from the FP view).

I'm wondering if all the anti-AR rifle sentiment in RL effected how Bethesda modeled the guns? I can think of no other reason why they removed the Iconic AK47 type weapons from the game.

I think they were going for the retro fifties look, the Combat rifle looks like a continuation of the WWII BAR or the M14 to me, it wouldnt make me bat an eye except it is an almost copy paste of the Combat Shotgun and i am really bugged that it is a .45. maybe its a unique .45 to the fallout timeline? some kind of follow on to .45LC or something. Looking at the cylinder for the pipe revolver actually, someone at Bethesda thinks .45 is huge.