History Main / MisidentifiedWeapons

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare'' started to refer to any sort of machine gun specifically as a "light machine gun", which [[FollowTheLeader like many other things about that game]] quickly filtered out into most other shooters, even though the vast majority of weapons that have gone into that category do not count as [=LMGs=]; for one notable example, ''Black Ops''[='=]s "light machine gun" class does not actually have any light machine guns, featuring the RPK, Stoner 63 (both technically automatic rifles, since they're fed by magazines rather than belts[[note]]the Stoner 63 ''can'' be converted to use belted ammo as a light machine gun, but the game uses it in its mag-fed automatic rifle form[[/note]]), and M60 (a general-purpose MG because of its higher weight and battle rifle caliber).

** The Commando in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' was given the correct name, but a major error in its attachments caused confusion among players. Seemingly based on the GAU-5A/A, also commonly known as the Colt Commando, the in game weapon is made heavily anachronistic by removing the built in carry handle, replacing it with a flat top optics rail, then mounting to it a flip up iron sight made by a company that didn't even exist until ''thirty-five years'' after the game takes place, ''backwards''. Many players unfamiliar with firearms history assumed the Commando was an M4 Carbine, despite the fact the M4 wasn't even developed until roughly thirty years after the game takes place.

* ''VideoGame/KillingFloor2'' features a Colt 9mm SMG as the starting weapon for the Commando perk, but refers to it as an "AR-15 Varmint Rifle", and despite its obvious chambering in a pistol cartridge treats it as an assault rifle for all intents and purposes, including damage identical to the later L85 in 5.56mm. The only acknowledgement of this is in its description at the TRADER Pod... which simply specifies that it's "for hunting [[NotUsingTheZWord zeds]], not 'varmints'".

* In ''Series/MoneyHeist'', a Rheinmetall [=MG3=] machine gun is referred to as "the Browning", and [=G36=] rifles are called [=M16=]s. While the former case is at least justifiable, since viewers wouldn't normally know the names of machine gun models, the latter is egregious because the [=G36=] doesn't look remotely similar to the [=M16=].

* ''Series/SWAT2017'' has an episode were Russian mafia members use American-made Arsenal SLR-106 Carbines, a license-built version of a modernized Bulgarian AK-Pattern rifle chambered in 5.56/45mm. One of the protagonists, a SWAT-member, confidently refers to them as AK-103 rifles, a much larger Russian rifle chambered in 7.62x39mm. It's unknown if the armorer just didn't have AK-103s available and the production decided to run with it anyhow, if the stunt team needed the smaller carbines for the planned movements, or if they wrote the rifles as AK-103s for a shorter/simpler (and "more russian") name.

* An episode of National Geographic's ''Drugs Inc.'' famously shows an anonymous drug dealer calling a Hi Point pistol his "Glock Forty" and his "problem solver".

People often get the names of things wrong in media, especially when it comes to weaponry. This particular trope applies when the misidentified object is a firearm. Can be an honest mistake, intentional ArtisticLicense, or acknowledged CreatorsApathy. Sometimes the scriptwriter did the research, but the weapon concerned wasn't available as a prop and no-one bothered to change the script. If the misidentification is intentional to get around copyright laws, it's AKA47. If the weapon is cosmetically modified to resemble something else (for example, an American Browning M2 mocked up as a Russian [=DShK=]), it's WeaponsUnderstudies.

** After the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting Las Vegas concert massacre]], when a gunman wielding a massive number of rifles with 100-round magazines with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_fire#Bump_fire_stocks bump stocks]] attached to them to emulate fully automatic fire opened fire on concertgoers at a country music festival, some news outlets gave truly insane responses. {{Creator/CBS}} claimed that the shooter used "[[https://www.dailywire.com/news/21978/fake-news-cbs-makes-bogus-term-describe-ammo-used-ryan-saavedra automatic rounds]]", and {{Creator/CNN}}, to demonstrate a bump stock, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsMk9ZGseUY showed]] a rifle with a suppressor and a ''grenade launcher'' (illegal for general civilian consumption), rather than a rifle with a bump stock installed. It got worse when people assumed that a bump stock somehow magically turned any rifle into a machine gun. Bump stocks function through active user input (namely, the user's off-hand shoving the entire firearm forward so as to reengage the trigger just after a shot is fired), therefore any self-loading rifle given a bump stock is not a machine gun by legal and technical definition.

** This also happens in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRevelations'' (with the exception of the Glock 18, which is classified as a handgun, but it fires pretty fast if the player holds down the fire button), where the "machine guns" include an [=MP5=], a [=P90=] (either both submachine guns or a submachine gun and a PDW respectively; however, neither are machine guns) and an AUG, a [=G36=], and a [[BlingBlingBang gold-plated AK-74]] [[AKA47 called the "High Roller"]] (all three are assault rifles), the only actual machine guns in the game being miniguns mounted on boats and helicopters.
** The [[RevolversAreJustBetter S&W]] [[HandCannon Model 500]] from ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'' appears in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRevelations2'' as one of the weapons Barry can use in the campaign, but instead of referring to it by its actual name or going AKA47 and calling it the "Elephant Killer" like in ''6'', it's called the "Magnum Python," referring to (and possibly trying to imply it is) the Colt Python Barry used in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil'' and ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'''s Raid Mode. What's weird is that an actual Colt Python, a modified one called the "Pale Rider," appears in the same game.

** Later games in the series, not so much - [[VideoGame/CallOfDuty2 the very next game after the original]], for instance, featured the M1 carbine but called it the [=M1A1=]. The [=M1A1=] was a specialized variant of the M1 with a pistol grip and lightweight folding wire stock. Really irritating when you remember that the original featured a correctly-modeled [=M1A1=], with the player character unfolding the stock when drawing the weapon; they apparently went to the effort of creating an entirely new model with new animations for the new engine, including giving it period-accurate sights,[[note]]the ''[=CoD1=]'' model has an adjustable rear sight, which the real carbine didn't use at the time of the war but which very few carbines were ''not'' outfitted with after its end[[/note]] but then were too lazy to simply delete two characters from the name. The full-stock Carbine would continue to be misidentified as the folding-stock version until the [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies Zombies maps]] in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps''.

** ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' features the "G18", meant to be the infamous select-fire Glock 18 as judging by the name, but which, like in most movies, is actually a converted Glock 17[[note]]the third game, surprisingly, not only made a new model that's actually a Glock 18, but even actually ''used'' the new model in the campaign mode rather than [[PropRecycling recycling the incorrect MW2 model]] like with every other returning gun[[/note]].

** A few guns in later games also have the same issue as the M1 Carbine in the classic games, either one gun identified as a similar but different model (the "Type 95" in ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3 Modern Warfare 3]]'' actually being a QBZ-97, or the Mk 14 EBR in ''2'' being called the "M21 EBR" in multiplayer to remind players of the M21 from ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDuty4ModernWarfare CoD4]]'') or changing the name of an otherwise-unmodified returning weapon, despite their refusal to do so when it actually made sense for the Carbine (the original-model M16 from ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' is reused for the flashback levels of [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII the sequel]], referred to as the newer [=M16A1=] but otherwise identical in every way to the original version, despite the fact the [=M16A2=] should have been used in that particular instance).

** The Commando in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps'' was given the correct name, but a major error in its attachments caused confusion among players. Seemingly based on the GAU-5A/A, also commonly known as the Colt Commando, the in game weapon is made heavily anachronistic by removing the built in carry handle, replacing it with a flat top optics rail, then mounting to it a flip up iron sight made by a company that didn't even exist until ''forty-three years'' after the game takes place, ''backwards''. Many players unfamiliar with firearms history assumed the Commando was an M4 Carbine, despite the fact the M4 wasn't even developed until roughly thirty years after the game takes place.
*** 2020’s ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar'' sees the return of the Commando from the first game... this time known as the [=XM4=] carbine. It still features its Vietnam era features like the original M16 pistol grip, 11.5 inch barrel, full auto fire control group, and lack of a forward assist that makes it similar to a GAU-5A/A, with none of the features that would actually make it a correct representation of an [=XM4=], such as the [=M16A2=] upper receiver (still uses the anachronistic flat top optics rail, in fact), A2 pistol grip, or 14.5 inch barrel. Fortunately, the game's M16 (actually modeled after the [=M16A2=] this time) can be customized in the Gunsmith suite with a 16.3 inch barrel and collapsible stock, making it resemble the real [=XM4=].

* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 4}}'' have the same sort of issue as ''Call of Duty''. While they do actually model the correct weapon used as the US military's M9, their "93R" is simply the M9 model with a larger magazine and foregrip. The former game also features an RPKM (a version of the original RPK with the synthetic furniture of the AK-74M) misnamed as (and given damage and a capacity mirroring) the smaller-caliber RPK-74M.