| Author | Message | ||
     Mtnmason |
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rifl e-designer-mikhail-kalashnikov-dead-94-21310543 | ||
| Blake |
Great inventor and innovator. | ||
| Slaughter |
"I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," Mikhail Kalashnikov AP interview, 2007 | ||
| Gentleman_jon |
Ever wonder why the Great Kalashnikov only produced one significant gun, the AK 47, unlike other really great designers like John Moses Browning who designed the Winchester lever action rifle, the Colt .45 auto and the BAR and German designer Hugo Schmeisser? The reason is that the AK47 was "greatly influenced" by Schmeisser's StG 44. He was captured by the Russians and supervised the actual production of the the AK47 receiver in Russia. Here are the details:http://transsylvaniaphoenix.blogspot.com/2009/02/michail-kalashnikov-admits-german-help.html The Schmeisser is at the top, the AK 47 at the bottom. Notice any similarities?  The AK 47 is just another "Russian First" like the airplane, the light bulb, television and the radio. That's not to say the the AK wasn't a nice gun. I fired a captured Chinese model on full auto during the Viet Nam era, and it was a real pleasure to shoot, especially compared to the American M16 which was prone to frequent jamming. | ||
| Mtnmason |
Slaughter - I hadn't come across that quote. Thanks for sharing Jon - i feel like there are plenty of self- described 'people of the gun' that don't know that MK's design wasn't 100% original. I've shot a few but never considered owning one. Kinda goes back to the whole 'tool of America's enemies' thing. OTOH, plenty of Americans swear by the design and own several variants. | ||
| Cityxslicker |
All state inventions were of the Great Soviet... of course Komrade - one did not steal it !  | ||
| Blake |
That article says that Schmeisser helped mainly with the manufacturing process. More good comparison info here... http://www.forgottenweapons.com/ak-and-stg-kissing-cousins/ No, Kalashnikov didn't invent the "assault" rifle. He invented a vastly superior "assault"/battle rifle which was MUCH more effective (powerful) than the German sub-machine guns, which shot lower powered rounds, not higher powered rifle rounds like the AK. They just aren't in the same class of weaponry. And external similarities aside, the internals are quite different, no? Credit where it's due. (Message edited by Blake on December 29, 2013) | ||
| Aesquire |
Correction Blake, The Germans invented the "assault rifle" with the StG-43/44 which as a P.R. move was given the name "Storm Rifle" ( translated as "assault rifle". ) Technically, an "Assault Rifle" is a selective fire weapon firing "reduced power" rounds compared to a "battle rifle". The MP38/MP40 9mm submachine gun commonly called the Schmeisser, but not invented by him, ( kinda ironic, considering the argument over the AK ) used a pistol cartridge. As did the Sten gun & US Thompson & M3 "grease gun". The M-14 ( post WW2 ) used a full power "battle rifle" cartridge, the .308 which is comparable ( but not identical ) to the .30-06, .303 British, or 7.92x57 ( 8mm ) Mauser, ( which the .30-03 & .30-06 were sorta based upon ) 8mm Lebel, and various Italian & Japanese 7.7mm 7.35mm & 6.5mm........ What was found by the US and the Germans is that a full power battle rifle ( M1 Garand/K98 Mauser ) cartridge kicks hard enough that it works ok in a machine gun, or a heavy Automatic Rifle like the BAR, but in a lighter weapon was hard to control. So the Germans shortened the 7.92x57 Mauser case for less power than a Battle rifle, but more than a 9mm Luger pistol cartridge submachine gun.... The 7.92x33 Kurtz. ( short ) ( the "33" is case length, as is the "57" ) This was NOT an exclusive German concept. Both the Brits and the Americans had decided that the Battle rifle .303 & .30-06 were heavy and actually more powerful than needed. a lighter gun, and most important, lighter ammo would let a soldier carry more ammo. John Garand at the Springfield armory, and Brits at Edystone? ( IIRC ) came up with a ".276" round that would have been a dandy "reduced charge" cartridge, but the large stocks of .30-06 ammo in storage led to the M1 Garand being mass produced in .30-06. Somewhat the same thing happened in the UK, and the .303 was kept as the standard. So, even though a lot of people were working on the same general idea, a handy machine gun for all the troops, Germany was first with the Assault Rifle. Germany & Russia both used Submachine guns in 9mm Luger & 7.62x25 Tokarev, with great success. But both wanted better. Thus the StG-43/44. ( for gun nuts, a .22LR semiauto PPSh-41 look alike is now available in some states. For fun, history, and plinking. A cute and historic knock off on a deadly weapon of war ) As to exactly how much Schmeisser had to do with the AK-47, I can only guess far more than the Russians will ever admit, and a bit less than the Germans claim. There's a LOT of differences, but there's also a BIG difference between early Garands and the ones carried in WW2. Smart people will take existing tech, and make it better. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP_40 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_garand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_Browning_Automa tic_Rifle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 | ||
| Aesquire |
Blake, also on the Internals, the Siminov SKS used a tilting block, as have many other arms. My rant above condensed is that it's not that the AK isn't a more powerful gun that a MP40 "Schmeisser", it is, but that's not the gun it was influenced by, that was the StG44, which was also more powerful than a MP40. The cartridges are nearly identical, the 7.92x33 and the 7.62x39, BUT NOT INTERCHANGABLE, and the 7.62x39 is not obviously related to the 7.62x54R used in Russian Battle Rifles. So it's a fair guess that the German rifles were copied and improved upon rather than the AK-47 sprang full grown from the mind of a Hero Of The Soviet Union. Just saying...... | ||
| Blake |
Nice clarification re the Stgv 44. I never meant to imply that the AK sprang full grown absent influence from any preceding other firearms. It's just a vastly superior military weapon with major beneficial innovations. http://youtu.be/IndgJBheS5s | ||
| Elsinore74 |
Sometimes improving the wheel that you have on hand is preferable to reinventing one. John M. Browning, Eugene Stoner, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Yisrael Galil, and other designers blur the line between innovation and invention. Unfortunately, history has a way of truncating the credits due. The quote, "Standing on the shoulders of giants" comes to mind. On another note, if Erik Buell hadn't set out to drastically improve on the motorcycle that's wrapped around a Sportster motor, the world would be a lesser place. And we probably wouldn't be on a this blog sharing thoughts about guns and what-have-you.  | ||
| Aesquire |
I'd say John Moses Browning was the most original of them all. He invented more stuff than nearly anyone, but he too stood on the shoulders of those who came before.... I am not knocking Kalashnikov at all. His input to make a practical arm resulted in the most popular weapon of the 20th century. How many other guns are on national flags? The bad part is that his masters were evil. |
