The first military bullpup I've seen was the EM2 that Britain wanted to adopt (.280 British caliber) in the late 1940's as their new NATO rifle. We insisted on the 7.62X51mm (.308 Win) cartridge, so the Brits scrapped the design/cartridge, more's the pity! It was a lotbetter combat round than the 5.56mm!! - probably a little better than this 6.8 SPC Remington round, too. It was a true short-cased 7mm (.284" bullet).

Just about the time all our NATO allies had rearmed with the 7.62X51, we switched again to the 5.56mm, so they had to go through the drill all over again! It's no wonder they ended up forcing us to adopt that 9mm peashooter pistol!!

However, the "bullpup" concept originated earlier, and the first ones were bolt-actions.