Kalashnikov RIP

[gr4techie]

The inventor of the most iconic weapon of the 20th century has passed away.

BBC News - AK47 assault rifle designer Kalashnikov dies at 94 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25497013)

So iconic, it's even on a national flag ! There's not many inventions that can claim that. *

The AK47 has probably been used in most of the post-ww2 conflicts that all us PPRUNERS have been involved with. I reckon the Falklands War is the only one where it wasn't used.






* Flag of Mozambique.

[Dora-9]

Was he actually the inventor?

I was told once (but can't remember by whom) that the AK47 was a simplified and easier to produce version of the German StG44 assault rifle.

I'm ready to be corrected...

[Heathrow Harry]

He was trying to build a better gun - all designers lift ideas from each other (and so they should) - his first attempt was a bit of a clunker but eventually he simplified it, used bits of a 1900 Browning design as well as a couple of features from other Russian assault rifles and finished up with the AK-47

Having served in the front line he always remembered who was going to be using it and in what conditions "the infantryman does not have a University degree"

Accuracy was sacrificed for easy of use, cost of production and above everything RELIABILITY

The Samuel Colt of the 20th Century

[GeeRam]

Was he actually the inventor?

I was told once (but can't remember by whom) that the AK47 was a simplified and easier to produce version of the German StG44 assault rifle.

Essentially yes.
The concept of the 'assult rifle' was concieved by the Germans, as was so many other of 'todays' weapsons systems.

The Soviets saw that the StG44 was the future (unlike the rest of the allies) and Kalashnikov took the concept and adapted it to best suit Soviet needs, and created an iconic weapon.

The StG44 is a gem though.

[Courtney Mil]

It took him a long time to get it right. You should have seen the earlier AK1 to AK46!

[nimbev]

I remember seeing him at one of the Defence Expos in UK, probably late 90s. He was there as a guest of honour. The chap who designed the US equivalent to the AK47 became a millionaire, whilst Kalashnikov lived in relative poverty and a benefactor paid his expenses to bring him to the show in UK.

[Dengue_Dude]

Makes you wonder though . . . what would have happened if he hadn't been around to invent it.

Man's inventiveness when challenged with different ways of killing each other is boundless, so I daresay someone else would have done it.

[Pontius Navigator]

It took him a long time to get it right. You should have seen the earlier AK1 to AK46!

Nice try Courtney. The number really refers to the year of origin, ie 1947 for the one and 1974 for the next.

Before you shoot and say they were actually 1949 and 1978, remember the SA80, SP90, Eurofighter 2000, and that other aircraft with a -2000 appellation.

[N2erk]

Ref the western allies not taking the hint from the StG44, the UK followed with the EM-2 (see wiki) but politics intervened and we got the 7.62mm FN/SLR.
I believe the M-16 was championed much later by Curtis LeMay and the USAF, and the rest is history, or one version of it.
The late Col Hackworth (US Army) had a story about the AK47 ; (quote from another website)
Hackworth tells a story in Vietnam about how his men were digging fox holes on a jungle ravine and came across a NVA corpse with an AK-47 that had been buried by a B-52 bombing strike years earlier. According to Hackworth he said “men let me show you a real infantry rifle” and he took the dirty mud covered AK-47 from the hole and took his finger and cleaned mud from the end of the barrel and then fired a couple of burst into the air.
This story used to be on his website, as I remember.

[Courtney Mil]

Oh, PN.

Nice try Courtney. The number really refers to the year of origin, ie 1947

I really thought it was his 47th attempt. No, really I did. Sorry Mikhail.

[sittingstress]

RIP Mr Kalashnikov - there aren't too many of his calibre :)

[GeeRam]

RIP Mr Kalashnikov - there aren't too many of his calibre

:D


It is ironic that the world has come to refer to the AK-47 as the Kalashnikov, after the person who designed it, when it's very likely that he actually didn't, whereas the man who probably did, under enforced labour for the USSR at Izhevsk between 1946-52, Hugo Schmeisser, is universally associated with the MP38/MP40, a weapon that he did have no involvement in the design or development of.

[Rigga]

I seem to remember that the AK47 is 7.62mm too, but a shorter Case length.

[ExAscoteer]

7.62 x 39mm as opposed to the NATO round which was 7.62 x 51mm, or the Russian Moisin-Nagant round which was 7.62 x 54mm (and rimmed).

[Agaricus bisporus]

Kalashnikov RIP

Rot in Hell would surely be more appropriate, or just plain Good Riddance. The world would have been a better place without his input.

[glad rag]

Rot in Hell would surely be more appropriate, or just plain Good Riddance. The world would have been a better place without his input.

Indeed. :D:D:D:D:D

[dctyke]

Ab ^^^^^ in that case surely the very same could be said of all arms manufacturers.......... or are ours only made for the good of the world?

[defizr]

Dead AK-47 Inventor To Be Buried In Mud For A Week, Cleaned Off, Then Put Back To Work (http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/mikhail-kalashnikov-dead/)

[Trim Stab]

One of the more fun courses I did in the army was foreign-weapons familiarisation. The fat old armourer, a retired senior NCO, bought along a barrel full of foreign weapons and allowed us to take them apart and spend a day blatting away on the range with them. There were all sorts of assault rifles (including AK47) plus various sub-machine guns and pistols. Great fun was had by all.

At the end of the day, fat old armourer arranged a competition in which we were to run to the far end of the range, dunk our personal weapons (SA80) in a barrel of swampy water, run back down to the range, strip and clean weapons, and fire off five rounds at the target. Grizzly old armourer would do the same with the AK47. No problem, we thought. Sure enough we were all back at the stands cleaning our weapons before fatso was even dunking his AK47. We were still cleaning when he arrived puffing and blowing at the stand with his AK47 still honking and dripping water out of the barrel, but just adopted the position and blatted off his five rounds without even wiping the gat down with a rag.

It made all the running around the Brecons to get super fit to fight the red army seem a bit pointless after that.