Mikhail Kalashnikov: Inventor of AK-47 Dies At 94 283
necro81 writes "Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, an arms designer for the Soviet Union, creator of the AK-47, passed away today at age 94. Kalashnikov was born a peasant and entered the Soviet Army as a conscript. However, the self-taught tinkerer had an aptitude that took him far. The AK-47, his best-known creation, was praised for its reliability and low cost; attributes that have made it the most successful firearm ever, seeing use in homeland defense, rebellion, terrorism, and untold massacres. The inventor was himself ambivalent about the uses his creation had seen, but was nevertheless proud of his contribution to his country, where he is praised as a hero."
Unlike the inventor (Score:5, Funny)
You can bury an AK-47 for a long period of time and it'll continue to remain operation after you dig it up.
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Have to take your word for it I guess, afterall, the inventor already ceased operation so it is very hard to test. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest you would have been correct; even if he were still alive.
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You can bury an AK-47 for a long period of time and it'll continue to remain operation after you dig it up.
Two words: Zombie Kalashnikov.
Re:Unlike the inventor (Score:5, Funny)
Two words: Zombie Kalashnikov.
That's the name of my new band.
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Oh my god!
We've tried burial, burning, freezing, drowning, jamming random things into him AND HE WON'T STAY DEAD! He's like a fuckin' Russian Jason Voorhees!
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Russia beat Vorhees by decades; Grigori Rasputin [wikipedia.org]
It works (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know where I heard it but I think there is a saying in regards to the AK. "Its like a hammer, you pick it up, it works"
Re:Unlike the inventor (Score:5, Informative)
Absolutely true. Here's an AK that was buried for 18 years and was dug up:
You can't kill an AK-47: Works after 18 years of being buried in ground [youtube.com]
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In the video, it mentions re-oiling it. Odds are extremely good that they took a wire brush to it before the oil as well.
The parts are thick and rather durable, truth be told - unlike many combat rifles which have at least a few delicate parts (e.g. thin springs), the AK-47's parts are pretty damned beefy by comparison.
I think the only other rifle that can out-last it is the Mosin-Nagants (also Russian). I have an M-44 Carbine that is old enough to have shot at Nazis, and it still works w/o a hitch.
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They aren't very rust-proof, but not only you can use pig fat or margarine for oiling them just fine, they have so much tolerances - not only in dimensions but also in surplus power of gas piston, return spring, and a whole lot of other mechanisms, that less-than-excessive amount of rust will simply get torn off and the surface smoothed out by the mechanism operation - essentially the weapon is self-cleaning to a degree, operation grinding the rust off.
There is a soviet russia joke somewhere in there...
In celebration (Score:5, Interesting)
BUILD YOUR OWN!
This is a steampunk variant.
http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/politics-The%20Steampunk%20AK47.html [michaelzwilliamson.com]
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OK, not really, but it should be!
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An old axle makes a nice barrel blank.
You don't know what you're talking about.
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Yeah, that and a multi-thousand dollar boring machine.
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Which you would need on any blank. They are blanks because they don't have a bore yet.
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What you describe is a tap. That's not how larger holes are threaded.
An internal thread cutter is a carbide, with a single thread shape ground onto it.
You cut a thread on a lathe, with the cutting head motion geared to the rotation. Inside or out, you advance the cutter into the metal on subsequent passes.
The tricky part on inside cuts is the reach of the cutter. Also gear lathes won't have 1 turn per 16'' advance (YMMV) in their default configuration. You'd need to add a gear set for rifling.
If I
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Compared to what, a breech-loading musket?
On a less humorous note (Score:5, Insightful)
Politics aside, Kalashnikov was something of a genius. Or at least a commonsense visionary.
He only had access to relatively crude manufacturing processes and a basic idea of what he wanted.
And he managed to turn out a product that is, by any stretch of the imagination, RIDICULOUSLY successful.
Things that'd be considered weaknesses or defects in other weapons systems are some of the very things that are considered strengths in the Kalashnikov rifles.
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Things that'd be considered weaknesses or defects in other weapons systems are some of the very things that are considered strengths in the Kalashnikov rifles.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:5, Insightful)
One good example is relatively sloppy tolerances - In most rifles, these are rather frowned upon, but it's also one of the reasons the AK can go through mud, snow, sand, etc. and keep firing. The loose tolerances keep it from running through hot, cold, lack of oil and cleaning, and other abuses long after most rifles (most certainly including the AR/M-16) have jammed up.
In a general-issue military weapon, reliability is far more important than accuracy, so this tradeoff works well for the AK. It's not something you'd want in a hunting or sniper rifle, but for the intended purpose it works great.
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ANY rifle is far superior to the sort of "scatter gun" that idiots from the Blue contingent like to advocate.
Most of the mystique surrounding these weapons is driven by fundemental misunderstandings of how they are used by professionals. Such professionals do not employ them as if they are recreating a scene out of some gangster movie or an A-Team episode.
Rifles are intended to be controlled precision weapons. Their advantage is range and accuracy. This is something that the AK-47 gets knocked for.
Beyond th
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Re:rant from a gun nut (Score:4, Insightful)
You were never actually in the military were you? Where did you get your information? The internet? A firing range? TV? Because it's obviously not from actual combat or military training.
The effective combat range (against point targets = individuals) of the m16 is 550m, The AK's range is only slightly less at 400m. Those ranges aren't "how far will the round go," numbers, but "how far can the AVERAGE trained soldier hit human sized targets with this rifle." The AK's 7.62 round is more than enough to kill a human at those distances.
In my military carreer, I had more than enough chances to test both rifles at those distances, and both worked reliably out to those ranges with ease.
As far as your "any rifle" comment goes, what about the light .50's? They regularly reach out a mile or more in combat.
Unplug your xbox, it hasn't taught you shit. If you want to learn about firearms, raise your right hand and let Uncle Sam teach you about them. (Don't worry, you can still be a janitor in the military. You just can't live in your mom's house unless you go Nasty Gash and join the guard.
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"Our three weapons are accuracy, range and ... ummm .... . I'll come back in."
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the accuracy of the weapon would suggest the hind quarter is what you would probably hit if you were aiming for a heart shot.
... what?
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In other words: You don't know what you are talking about, but will post anyhow.
A deers heart is in line with the fold of skin at the back of their front legs. Centered in their body.
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When I was in hunters safety, one of the last things we did was to shoot at paper targets with pellet guns. These targets where a sheet of 8.5x11 paper, with an animal one one side (we did deer, elk, moose, and bear) and on the reverse, lined up with the target on the front, was a anatomy drawing of the target animal, with all the vital organs depict
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So, ARs are universally "cheap." Their ownership needs to be "justified." They're "SHIT unless you need to kill people," which naturally makes them a terrible choice for "self defence." You either don't know what "semi-automatic" means, or you're appallingly ignorant of gun regulations.
What made you think you're "part of the gun crowd," or even qualified to have an opinion? If you actually do own a firearm, you should be ashamed of not knowing the laws you're supposed to be following.
Re:rant from a gun nut (Score:5, Insightful)
The only TRUE reason for a civilian to own those things is because you want to own them for the sake of owning them.
I am not a fan of guns at all, but I am a believer in the constitution. I would suggest that the only constitutionally protected reason for a civilian to own a gun should be to be capable of mounting a militia that could defend against a corrupt government. That would clearly include guns like an AK.
The right to bear arms in my opinion has nothing to do with hunting and target shooting...
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Actually the 2nd Amendment was written in a deliberately vague manner because "the town hall cannon" was not an ornament at the time. Ports cities had cannon and rocket batteries to protect against pirates and Spaniards. Many merchantmen were better armed than many naval vessels. Frontier settlements had cannon, mortars and multi-barrel guns because of the threat of brigands and Indian uprisings. Larger cities have wide boulevards so that cannons could fire down them at looters and rioters. Even in the
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They are over priced crap that uses crap rounds: .223 and that funky 7.62 that the AK uses. SHIT unless you need to kill people.
I would strongly disagree about 7.62x39. It is actually a very fine round for medium-sized game such as deer: in terms of terminal ballistics, it is very similar to .30-30, which is an extremely popular hunting cartridge, but 7.62x39 has superior ballistics and a flatter shooting trajectory. And SKS, chambered in it, is still one of the cheapest rifles on the market, cheaper than most American made bolt actions.
Re:rant from a gun nut (Score:5, Informative)
Try as you might, your attempt to come across as a "gun person" fails miserably.
AR15s make wonderful hunting weapons. Many companies make AR15s with specific features chosen for hunting. Here are a couple:
http://rockriverarms.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_id=552 [rockriverarms.com]
http://www.dpmsinc.com/KINGS-DEAERT-SHADOW_ep_146-1.html [dpmsinc.com]
Typically they include a flattop upper receiver, a low profile gas block, skeletonized stocks, and a free-float hand guard.
The standard .223 round is more than sufficient for North American animals up to moose-size when using the proper loading: a 75grain BTHP. And many ammunition manufacturers offer .223 loadings specifically for hunting with an AR15. This is one of many fine examples:
http://www.hornady.com/store/223-Rem-75-gr-BTHP-Match/ [hornady.com]
Additionally, anyone with more than a passing knowledge of guns and AR15s would know that the platform does not only come in .223. In the last 5 years there has been a surge in popularity of upper receivers chambered in calibers such as 6.5 Grendal, 6.8 SPC and 300 Blackout. Additionally, the venerable .308 has been an option for AR-style guns for almost 50 years. While not being a necessity for using an AR15 to hunt with, these other optional calibers provide longer range hunting options.
But if you still believe that it's impossible to hunt with an AR15, please, whatever you do, don't tell the hundreds of people who posted pictures of their hunting ARs along with trophies in these two threads:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_23/605991_Show_us_your_AR15__and_other__deer_kills___and_60___retitled.html&page=1 [ar15.com]
http://www.ar15.com/mobile/topic.html?b=10&f=3&t=618206 [ar15.com]
They would be devastated to find out that what they were doing was impossible.
As far as target shooting goes, the annual National Matches, held at Camp Perry, Ohio every summer since 1907, and widely seen as the Olympics of the shooting sports world, uses.... you guessed it: AR15s. And it's not hard to understand why: they're light weight, ergonomic, light recoiling, and cheap to train with (compared to other competition rifles).
And your claim that an AR15 is worse at self defense than all other things you think it's bad at.... get real! Nearly every SWAT team in the US, and NATO-allied special forces group in the world has moved to the AR platform, and those guys have the money and latitude to choose anything they want. After a brief love affair with various pistol-caliber carbines and bullpups in the late 90's and early 00's, they have almost all gone to the AR15.
There are plenty of semi automatic rifles that are much better suited for civilians - and even military use too but they're too expensive for outfitting an army.
The US Army could replace all of its rifles for the cost of about a dozen F-35s. Cost is not an issue that would hold the army back if there were a better rifle available.
The only reason they are so expensive now is because of the demand from stupid people who think Obama is going to ban them.
AR15s are cheaper today than they have ever been. There are over 100 companies in the US producing them, and a nice mid-grade AR can be had for under $600 today.
The next time you want to appear to be an expert on guns, and then denounce the most popular, most capable, most flexible gun ever made, for reasons that don't stand up to even casual examination, stick to the comment sections at Moth
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:5, Informative)
Things that'd be considered weaknesses or defects in other weapons systems are some of the very things that are considered strengths in the Kalashnikov rifles.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Cheap, stamped metal parts with loose tolerances that create inaccuracy at range, but allow for much rougher handling of the firearm as well as a higher tolerance for a lack of maintenance. Fill it with sand, water, or mud and it will still fire. To quote Lord of War (I love that opening sequence) "A weapon so simple a child could use it, and they often do". Essentially it is the perfect weapon for what it is: a firearm that untrained, uneducated civilians can pick up and fire (think of it in context of World War II, where Red Army training was not exactly the world's best).
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:4, Informative)
tolerances that create inaccuracy at range
Frankly, I was impressed with the AK's accuracy at ~50yds for such a short barrel (I was probably shooting a milled version). A 4" group at 100 yds is still plenty deadly [wikipedia.org]. AK-47's are capable of shooting 3-5 inch groups at 100 yards, whereas the stamped AKMs are capable of shooting 4-6 inch groups at 100 yards
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Speaking as a rifle owner, it's as much, if not more, down to the skill of the shooter than the quality of the firearm.
I cut my teeth on a .223 semi, and upgraded to a Browning Safari Mk. II .308 Winchester. Best move I ever made in powdercharge. Making the move to air was the second best move I ever made. Ammo is lighter, there's zero flash, and the discharge is a LOT quieter and comes with a LOT less kick. OK the ammo being lighter means that it might not cut it when war be declared, but damn, I can drop
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:5, Interesting)
Loose tolerances of internal parts, usually only specified if manufacturing is really crappy. However Kalashnikov did this on purpose -- even though Russia had decent manufacturing capabilities -- knowing that this will lead to much greater reliability in the presence of dirt. American guns such as AR-15s are built to much more precise tolerances, and while they are more accurate than the AK, they are much less tolerant of sand/dirt/grime/powder residue. The AK's reliability is legendary.
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:5, Informative)
Loose tolerances of internal parts, usually only specified if manufacturing is really crappy. However Kalashnikov did this on purpose -- even though Russia had decent manufacturing capabilities -- knowing that this will lead to much greater reliability in the presence of dirt. American guns such as AR-15s are built to much more precise tolerances, and while they are more accurate than the AK, they are much less tolerant of sand/dirt/grime/powder residue. The AK's reliability is legendary.
You can usually get a 2 to 3 inch group at 150 meters with an AK and some training in its use. You'll get a 2 inch or less group with an M16/AR15 with the same amount of training. The big selling point of the AK is, only 8 moving parts. And yeah, the tolerances are sloppy as hell compared to the highly machined AR15, which has more moving parts. Less moving parts means less things can go wrong. Looser tolerances means it won't jam up when it gets dirty, and while regular cleaning is a Good Thing to keep it from wearing out, lack of cleaning WON'T stop it dead in its tracks like an AR15. They're ridiculously easy to make, easy to repair in the field, and they keep on shooting. Kalashnikov was a genius.
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:5, Informative)
Precisely! Kalashnikov realized (or at least correctly guessed) that accuracy is less important than reliability. US Army studies have shown that most engagements are within 50m, and that the primary determinant in victory is "number of bullets fired". This was part of their justification for moving from the M14 (essentially a magazine-fed M1 Garand with a useless full-auto hacked on) to the M16 - less power at range, less ability to kill in one shot, but capable of firing 30 rounds at automatic in a somewhat-controlled manner, rather than the "two round burst before it turns into an anti-aircraft gun" of the M14.
The AK47 did it earlier, and arguably better, because it made more tradeoffs. The M16 was a good weapon in the lab, but early models in particular failed in the field (even today jams are extremely common after decades of improvement). Too bad for them, almost zero battles have taken place in military laboratories.
The AK47 scored worse on any "benchmark" (for lack of a better term). Less accurate, slower firing, heavier, and so on. But because it's basically the most reliable (and cheap) assault rifle ever made, it's the weapon (or at least weapon design) of choice for almost everyone not wed to the NATO military-industrial complex. Even then, there's a reason there's AK-style weapons chambered in 5.56mm NATO. It's almost become the Linux of the assault-rifle world - you've got variants from the simple (the AK-74, the RPK, the Galil or the dozens of bullpup variants) to the crazy (the Saiga-12 shotgun, various Russian suppressed rifles, even a sniper rifle).
Was Mikhail Kalashnikov a genius? I don't think so, because nothing about it was itself revolutionary, but he was a damn good engineer because he knew what the users actually needed and gave it to them, rather than letting marketing decide on which features to produce.
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Let me start of saying I like the AK, but frankly you are talking it up way beyond it's capabilities.
It's a popular and widely used weapon worldwide for one reason and one reason alone. It's cheap. I can be had in black markets in Africa for less than $200 used, and when Ukraine offloaded it's stockpiles of old AK's to Russian arms merchants in the 90's there was a time period where you could buy them for $50. That puts them in the price range that even rural subsistence farmers can buy them. Because of the
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The Kalashnikov is designed to loose manufacturing tolerances, instead of precision fits. That results in some loss of accuracy, which isn't a big problem because military small arms are seldom used for precision fire anyway...in return, it's easy to clean; it continues to work with an impressive amount of dirt and corrosion; and it's easy for a very lightly trained soldier to operate. It's also very cheap to manufacture.
In other words, the ideal product for cashing in on Third World conflicts.
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The Kalashnikov is designed to loose manufacturing tolerances, instead of precision fits. That results in some loss of accuracy, which isn't a big problem because military small arms are seldom used for precision fire anyway...in return, it's easy to clean; it continues to work with an impressive amount of dirt and corrosion; and it's easy for a very lightly trained soldier to operate. It's also very cheap to manufacture.
In other words, the ideal product for cashing in on Third World conflicts.
Back in The Day, Soviet designers usually came up with two designs for any particular weapon system, the full tilt all the bells & whistles version and the stripped down idiot-proof 'export version' that they'd flood the Third World with. They'd make the damned thing work to prove the concept, THEN they'd rework it so it would stand up to indifferent maintanance at the hands of some Khazak mechanic without falling to pieces. A MiG, for example, would be made of cold rolled steel rather than spendy tit
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the stripped down idiot-proof 'export version' that they'd flood the Third World with
In reference to the Scud missile, they used a much less delicate term...
Re:On a less humorous note (Score:4, Interesting)
Politics aside, Kalashnikov was something of a genius. Or at least a commonsense visionary.
He only had access to relatively crude manufacturing processes and a basic idea of what he wanted.
And he managed to turn out a product that is, by any stretch of the imagination, RIDICULOUSLY successful.
Things that'd be considered weaknesses or defects in other weapons systems are some of the very things that are considered strengths in the Kalashnikov rifles.
My favourite AK-47 related escapade ever, forge an AK-47 receiver out of an old shovel:
http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning [northeastshooters.com]!
Challenge: Do the same with a Colt M4 (and yes, it has to fire)
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He only had access to relatively crude manufacturing processes and a basic idea of what he wanted.
Oh, he knew exactly what he wanted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 [wikipedia.org]
The Germans didn't file an Intellectual Property lawsuit, for obvious reasons.
Re: On a less humorous note (Score:2)
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The similarity you missed is that they perform about the same - the StG-44 was the first "assault rifle", the AK was intended to do what the StG did, never mind the differences in how the AK did it compared to the StG.
Re: On a less humorous note (Score:5, Informative)
StG-44 was the first rifle produced en masse, but it was certainly not the first assault rifle produced or even used in battle. Avtomat Fedorova [wikipedia.org] is generally considered the first such thing - it was a fully automatic rifle, with detachable magazines, that used an intermediate round (6.5 Arisaka - which is only about 25% more powerful than 7.62x39).
Also, if you read about the history of AK, it was never designed to "copy what StG did". In fact, the Soviets didn't truly understood the benefit of having a single universal infantry rifle even after the end of WW2, which is why they had two separate competitions, one for carbine (which SKS had won), and one for a "submachine gun" (which AK had won). That is also why the Russian word for assault rifle is "avtomat" - before AK, it was actually a word for submachine guns, e.g. PPSh was an avtomat; and so the competition in question was for a "new avtomat" - and so the winning Kalashnikov's design became "avtomat Kalashnikova".
The only new thing there was that both carbine and SMG were supposed to be using the same round, the newly designed intermediate M43 (which, by the way, was designed before Soviets even saw StG 44), but that was largely for the sake of simplifying logistics. It took them almost another decade, both SKS and AK in service, to finally realize that AK can actually fill both niches just fine - which is what the "assault rifle" concept is really all about.
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It's an old myth, actually. The STG-44 is more similar to the VZ-58 rifle that the Czechs used. And yes, VZ-58 and AK47 are very different despite the apperances.
But to clarify the original topic: the similarities end when you put the two weapons apart (even putting apart is different). The locking systems between the AK and the StG44 are completely two different designs. The StG44 has a modular trigger pack design whereas the AK does not. The original AK47 had a machined receiver (although early prototypes
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There is a good German documentary about Kalashnikov, that I need to watch again, titled "Automat Kalaschnikow": http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254151/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2 [imdb.com]
I guess all the technical details you mentioned are probably in there. The film is really interesting to watch because it has interviews with the man himself. He comes across as a quite humorous fellow. When they it is announced during the filming that his pension has just been increased, he says, "Bring out the vodka!"
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Guns don't kill people children behind the gun kill people.
The AK matches the philosophy of it's designers country and the majority of those that adopted it: don't waste money on rifles when people themselves are cheap. Its crude but if you are training a bunch of troops for a warlord via a magazine of ammo and a few targets in a desert you don't exactly need the best tech because you aren't going to be getting the best troops either. Good enough that a idiot won't break it then lots of idiots that is the
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Guns don't kill people children behind the gun kill people.
The AK matches the philosophy of it's designers country and the majority of those that adopted it: don't waste money on rifles when people themselves are cheap. Its crude but if you are training a bunch of troops for a warlord via a magazine of ammo and a few targets in a desert you don't exactly need the best tech because you aren't going to be getting the best troops either. Good enough that a idiot won't break it then lots of idiots that is the key to success.
It was designed with the memory of the Battles of Stalingrad and Leningrad freshly in mind. An easy to manufacture battle rifle that would stand up in combat conditions with limited or nonexistant support. The design worked.
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What would modern Africa look like, if not for his great invention ?
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There would be a different gun on a few flags.
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No. What he had access to was a Nazi rifle he could easily copy.
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If you know anything about AK and StG, you know that AK is not a copy of StG in any meaningful sense. AK locks the bolt by rotating it, StG does so by tilting it - and the way bolt is locked is considered one of the basic defining features of a given small arms system. They are both long-stroke piston, but it was Garand that popularized that, not StG. Magazines are curved the way they are in both because they both use rounds with a strong taper.
If you want to look for an actual StG derivative, that would be
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I was issued one of those. Handed the piece of shit back, said I wanted my BAR.
98-million gun salute... (Score:5, Funny)
bringing down 72 helicopters, ten planes, and falling lead took out 200 weddings.
Kalashnikov's Legacy (Score:5, Interesting)
"Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer ... I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery."
--Mikhail Kalashnikov
If not for the Nazis, he might have invented an inexpensive, reliable machine that helps feed people around the world. Russia in particular seems to frequently have issues with wheat due to drought and/or wildfires, and this has an impact on global food prices. But coming from a rural area he might never have been exposed to the resources needed to achieve his inventions. He might not have been in a position where anyone with those resources would take him seriously. Sometimes bad things happen and deflect our lives in directions other than those we intended, but sometimes that results in putting us right where we need to be. His conscription exposed him to complex machines he might never have worked with otherwise. His war wounds landed him in the hospital where he overheard others talking about what was wrong with the existing Russian rifles. His hospital stay gave him time away from his job as a tank commander to work on his designs. His first attempts at small arms design were rejected, but they got him noticed, and got him transferred out of the tank division to work on rifle design.
I saw a bumper sticker on the freeway the other day that read: "Remember who you wanted to be." Kalashnikov was haunted by the fact that his design had become a symbol of war and terrorism, but the real tragedy of Kalashnikov's life is that AFAIK he never used his success in his unintended profession to go back and do what he really wanted.
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He lived in the Soviet Union. He either did what he was told or he would be sent to a Gulag. He could have been sent to a Gulag anyways.
Short of defecting, he really didn't have much say in his own destiny.
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He lived in the Soviet Union. He either did what he was told or he would be sent to a Gulag. He could have been sent to a Gulag anyways.
Do you seriously believe that in the USSR, people were rounded up and told to go design guns at a gunpoint?
The guy's biography makes it abundantly clear that he actually enjoyed firearm engineering. It's true that, in Stalin's USSR, not delivering on schedule could mean some nasty and personal consequences, but it doesn't mean that the guy hated his job.
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You are a typical brainwashed Western idiot. There was much more to life in the Soviet Union than dictatorship. As a matter of fact, you had more freedom there as you did not need the money to get decent education, unlike the U.S. Poor but talented kids from the countryside would routinely come to big cities and enroll in major universities to have great careers.
Before someone jumps up with "counterexample," I am sure you could dig up a few such cases in the U.S. These cases are few and far between, and req
Re:Kalashnikov's Legacy (Score:4, Funny)
Implying the AK-47 is not an inexpensive, reliable machine that helps feed people?
At the funeral... (Score:2)
I hear that, instead of the usual 21 gun salute, the crowd will just fire in the air on full automatic.
Too soon?
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Well, except in the middle east, where they are apparently more common than loaves of bread.
there was no AK47! (Score:2)
I wish Mr Kalashnikov had built cars (Score:3)
Of course, one would then be presented with the image of men in ski masks with flags depicting cars behind them as they read their demands.
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By your logic, perhaps the inventors of black powder and smokeless powder should be castigated as well? After all, without bullets the AK would simply be another bludgeoning tool. Or how about whoever created the humble machete, which has been used in countless massacres across Africa?
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The only purpose of Little Boy was identical to AK-47s single purpose, or Sarin for that matter. If designing one was ethical, then the other one was as well.
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AK-47s can be used both defensively and offensively, and indeed one could say that at the time it was designed its role was more defensive than offensive, whereas neither Little Boy nor Sarin are a defensive weapon - Only a lunatic would use one in their homeland, whereas an AK is useful for police forces, militaries driving out invaders, etc.
So, their purposes are not at all identical. Also, their scope is not even in the same ballpark - Sarin and Little Boy are indiscriminate killers (WMDs), while an AK
Re:PRAISE?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
The AK-47's only purpose is to assist in killing people
Primary purpose is killing, that's what an assault rifle is designed for, but it is not the only purpose.
One purpose is: to be able to kill people, often in the hope that it will not be necessary, indeed with the hope that having a credible ability will avoid needing to actually do it.
Yet another purpose is to just have fun with target practice, without killing anyone.
And technically speaking, suppressive fire is not really intended for killing the enemy, it is intended for making it harder for the enemy to shoot and kill you.
Re:PRAISE?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Things can be used for good and bad. Don't just focus on what you perceive as bad.
Re:PRAISE?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can kill people with a Ford, but it wasn't designed for it- intentionally running people down in a car is something the designer would be horrified at. The AK-47 was designed exclusively for killing people- it has no other serious use; the designer intended to make the best killing implement possible, with the intention of killing as many "people my nation doesn't like" as possible, as efficiently as possible. There's a big ethical difference.
I'm only saying this in fairness to the OP- I'm not really naive enough to make an argument against weapon designers in that way. But I am serious that it is a legitimate ethical choice. I can't see myself working in weapons design, because the ethical consequences of my actions would bother me.
In a way, it's an argument related to the old debunked Nazi death camp soldier "just following orders" defence (albeit it much less extreme). If every talented engineer refused to be involved with weapon design, weapons would be considerably less effective that they are today. Therefore, every talented engineer who gets involved in weapon design has to take personal responsibility for what they're enabling.
Re:PRAISE?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was designed to kill soldiers of a technologically superior and well trained army who were invading the designer's country. Personally, I think he should get at least a little slack because of that.
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Interesting you choose Ford as an example. Ford made its own share of death-dealing devices during WWII.
The Kalashnikov was born out of the USSR's life and death struggle with the German Reich. Don't see why anybody would have a problem with the designer.
Yes, praise ... (Score:4, Insightful)
For inventing the most used murdering tool?!?
It was developed during and immediately after WW2. He created a tool for his fellow soldiers to defend their country, lands and friends and families.
How politicians and criminals MISUSE a tool is not the responsibility of a soldier/designer who does not want to go into battle again with inferior weapons.
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For inventing the most used murdering tool?!?
Are you sure about that? I know reliable numbers would be hard to get, but I suspect that swords and arrows still hold a bit of a lead. The did have several thousand years head start after all.
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The AK was designed as a primary infantry weapon for an army of a country that was just invaded and brutally occupied with a death toll of 12 million civilians.
Re:Karma Denied (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what you would do if you lived through that... throw your hands up and wait to be cut down with a Nazi machine gun?
I wonder if you blame people like Tim Berners-Lee for child pornography?
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Ok, so, not to bring up the old bathtub trope, but I suspect there are a lot of objects that have been responsible for more deaths than hiroshima and nagasaki combined. This reminds me of the "number of minutes to skeletonize a cow" metric that Gary Larson found so curious.
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ironic that the Nobel Peace Prize is named for the inventor of dynamite. Another thing that is used to great effect in killing people.
But hey, don't let that stop your rant. Carry on.
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So, are you of the persuasion that "Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs"?
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It would have been far better had he been plugged by his own killing machine. If there has ever been an antithesis to the Nobel Peace Prize, the AK-47* is it. * given that it has a far larger body count than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Didn't Nobel invent ballistite, which was later modified to create various versions of cordite, which was used to create the ammunition for the guns and rifles that killed so many people? And before he died, didn't he establish a lot of armament factories?
It might be possible that Kalashnikov invented the AK-47 to help his fellow countrymen and not for evil purposes. A firearm is merely a tool that can be used for either good or evil. If an opposing power is using firearms against you, then you have to de
Re:An Eternity of Torment, I ope (Score:5, Insightful)
I am either religious not terribly spiritual, but one can only hope that a man whose invention was responsible for the deaths of so many millions does not go into a peaceful afterlife.
Hold on here. He was a patriot for his country. He developed an arm that could be produced in mass quantities because that is what his government needed at that time. He didn't set out to arm terrorists, just to make an arm for the foot soldier in the USSR, to be used in horrible field conditions by mostly uneducated soldiers.
That his country decided to cover the earth with the weapon and license it's manufacture world wide was none of his doing. You might as well blame the Wright Brothers for the fire bombing of Berlin.
As he said himself:
"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists."
"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."
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"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists."
"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."
Russian farmers used lawnmowers?
No wonder the 5 year plans never worked out.
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"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."
The Kalashnikov Lawnmower. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to cut every motherf***ing blade of grass in the garden, accept no substitutes.
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"Hold on here. He was a patriot for his country. He developed an arm that could be produced in mass quantities because that is what his government needed at that time. He didn't set out to arm terrorists, just to make an arm for the foot soldier in the USSR, to be used in horrible field conditions by mostly uneducated soldiers."
That might very well be the case, but nonetheless, why the fuck is this 'news for nerds'?
Your next kickstarter project.
Come on, use some imagination.
Re:An Eternity of Torment, I ope (Score:4, Insightful)
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While your point has merit, I have to point out that the
Nazis had been defeated 5 years before that AK-47 was invented.
Re:You'd do the same (Score:4, Informative)
Kalashnikov started working on what would become AK in 1944, while in a hospital, where he got after being wounded on the front. The design was complete in 1947 (hence the common but incorrect AK-47 designation), production started in 1948, and it was officially adopted as the new army rifle in 1949.
And it was not like Nazis were the only enemy the Soviet Union had, especially five years after WW2.
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what would become AK in 1944,
You don't get to call some early failed weapon "what would become" any more than you get to call the Sopwith Camel what would become the Spitfire.
The AK46 is very different from the AK-47. It was a learning exercise at best, and never put into production on any scale.
Re:You'd do the same (Score:4, Informative)
Even so, the design with all the key features of the final AK was already available by the end of 1946 - that's less than two years after the war was over. And, of course, the very experience of that war did not suddenly evaporate as soon as the victory flag was hoisted above Reichstag. For four years, Soviet military industry was focusing on mass production of outdated but cheap infantry weapons to provide supply - Mosins, PPSh/PPS etc. They knew full well that they needed to upgrade if the arsenal was to have any relevance in any future war. And in the final year of the war and in early postwar years, another large conflict was considered quite likely by the Soviets - the prevailing fear being that US would decide to "keep pushing" in Europe, in hopes of steamrolling over the battle-weary Red Army.
Re:You'd do the same (Score:4, Interesting)
Fighting a very costly defensive war on your own soil for over 3 years kinda does that to people. I don't think Western politicians ever truly understood just how strongly was that "never again" mentality ingrained into the minds of both the party elite and the people at large. Not so much Stalin and his court, but the generation of politicians that came to power after him, who were mostly veterans of that war and saw the devastation first hand.
It's actually very visible if you look at Soviet internal propaganda. Virtually everything that is related to war is presented in a context of a defensive war against a conventional invasion, with numerous WW2 allusions, and the overall message of "we must defend our soil against occupation". In contrast, Western propaganda tended to be more obsessed with the possibility of nuclear annihilation.
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The AK-46 (fourty six) was presented for official military trials in 1946, it had been in design since 1945. It was never officially adopted nor manufactured in quantity.
Work on the AK-47 didn't begin till the next year, and it was NOT an instant success, contrary to popular belief.
It wasn't till 1949 that the AK-47 was officially accepted by the Soviet Armed Forces, after many years of refinement and field trials.
Your knowledge of weapons is pathetic. Educate yourself. [rulit.net]
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
AK-46 was significantly different from AK-47, and - bluntly speaking - utter crap.
AK-47 was a fine weapon but the machining process was rather expensive, complex and slow, making it unsuitable for mass production and deployment in army.
AKM - an AK-47 variant that used stamped sheet metal instead of machined parts, became the instant hit, possessing all the advantages of the original, slightly lower mass, and being very cheap and simple to manufacture in bulk.
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... or promoting self defense or plinking tin cans.
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The AK-47 is basically a ripped off MP42 which was invented and manufactured by Germany during WW2. Kalashnikov didn't invent anything.
Ever taken the two apart? Considerable differences in the internals.
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The AK has very little in common with StG 44 (for which MP 42 was a prototype), which is evident to anyone who knows the basics of firearm operations, and looks at their diagrams, or even photos of disassembly.