Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-76.31.228.133-20140425220948/@comment-173.58.251.107-20140426003037

Both groups most likely use the weaponry based on their tactics.

The Federation, as of the events of Fire and Lost But Not Forgotten, are effectively the winning faction on Chorus, and their base shows that they're very well equipped. It's likely that they have control over the major industrial centers on the planet, which gives them the ability to build whatever they want, when they want it, giving them the ability to arm every soldier with enough ammo and a weapon to fire it. Additionally, Locus views his men as being expendable, since he only sent four of them in to engage the Blood Gulch Crew, and so many of them died during Fire. Locus was the only one of the group seen wielding high end weaponry such as the Railgun and SAW, possibly meaning that Locus takes all the "expensive" weaponry for himself, while his men utilize standard issue weapons, so that if they die, another grunt can just pick it up and start shooting, and if someone captures a Federal Soldier, all they get is a standard rifle, and not something of any real value. Furthermore, the tactics used by the Federation seemed to be little more than attrittion, since they took heavy losses to capture Sarge, Wash and Donut (with the possible addition of Lopez), and that was just three (possibly four) people. They also most likely use the Assault Rifle because it's a very simple weapon, so they can train more soldiers to give to Locus with a shorter amount of time. Given the size of the Federal Army, one soldier probably doesn't mean much to him anyways, so why give his men expensive weapons, when they can just be given inexpensive weapons they can just pick up and shoot?

The New Republic utilizes DMR's based on their tactics. They're losing, badly, and the Season 12 Trailer revealed that they were having severe issues with the war, since if they took a place, they lost so many people they couldn't hold it when the Federation made house calls, and if they did get weapons, most of them were too damaged to bother using. The DMR is powerful and precise, and seeing as they probably don't have a lot of ammo to spare in the first place, it only makes sense for them to utilize a weapon that will compensate for their lower ammo supply with damage. Additionally, they have manpower issues, so every person has to have a good weapon to be able to take out a large group of people on their own, as opposed to Locus who simply fed his men into the meat grinder without a second thought. Kimball even states that "their remaining soldiers" are inexperienced, meaning that the ones who actually stood a chance were either captured or killed by the Federation's en masse tactics as described above.

In short, the Feds, as the winning group, most likely can shoot with reckless abandon because they have the industrial capabilities to support it, while the Rebels, as the losing group, have to aim more carefully because of a lack of supplies.