BREAKING: Russian republic official says AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov has died.

[EC]

Tweet only thus far. Dropped in News, not Military because of his huge effect on the modern world.

The Associated Press ‏@AP 22s

BREAKING: Russian republic official says AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov has died.

[EC]

Guess the BBC had his obit ready to roll:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19870688

Mikhail Kalashnikov's automatic rifle became one of the most familiar weapons on the planet.

It was employed by the armies of dozens of countries, and incorporated in several national flags.

But the AK47 also became a symbol of revolution around the world. It saw action on battlefields as diverse as Angola, Vietnam, Algeria and Afghanistan.

It was also heavily utilised by Palestinian groups and famously appeared in the hands of Osama bin Laden.

It's comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture as well as reliable and easy to maintain in the field. It became the most widely used assault rifle in the world.

Yet Kalashnikov, although honoured in Russia, made very little money from his gun and once complained he would have been financially better off designing a lawnmower.

Mikhail Kalashnikov was born on 10 November 1919 into a Russian peasant family in the village of Kurya, Altai Territory. He was one of 18 children, of whom only six survived.

He was called up by the Red Army in 1938, and his design skills were used to improve the effectiveness of arms and equipment used in Soviet tank regiments.

It was after he was wounded in October 1941, when the tank he commanded was struck by a German shell, that Kalashnikov began to design the firearm that was to make his name famous.

The German army had pioneered the concept of an assault rifle, a weapon that combined the accuracy of a conventional rifle with the firepower of a sub-machine gun.

Russian troops frequently found themselves outgunned by German weapons which were far superior to those available to the Soviet army.

More at link.

[andy58-in-nh]

7.62x39mm. Mechanical simplicity, a rough fit and finish, and absolute dependability. RIP.

[Rodrigo]

[Atomic Cow]

Guess the BBC had his obit ready to roll:

The media always has obits ready for famous people.  It's funny when one gets leaked by accident.

[Oceander]

Thanks for posting the cool gif.  I'd always vaguely wondered why the AK47 had that extra bit on top of the actual barrel.

[Chieftain]

7.62x39mm. Mechanical simplicity, a rough fit and finish, and absolute dependability. RIP.

You betcha.  Drop one in the mud, pick it up and keep on shooting.  Like it or not, this man changed civilization....

Rest.

[SouthTexas]

Guess the BBC had his obit ready to roll:

The German army had pioneered the concept of an assault rifle, a weapon that combined the accuracy of a conventional rifle with the firepower of a sub-machine gun.

I highly doubt that the Germans or Mikhail Kalashnikov ever called it an "assault rifle".

[Atomic Cow]

I highly doubt that the Germans or Mikhail Kalashnikov ever called it an "assault rifle".

When the Germans developed what was originally called the MP-44, they pretended it was a submachine gun because Hitler had prohibited the development of new rifles.  When it got out that it was actually a rifle and not a submachine gun, Hitler was so impressed by it, that he christened it the Sturmgewehr, or the assault rifle.  It is now mostly referred to as the Stg-44.



While it looks like an AK-47, Kalashnikov did not base it on the Stg-44.  He was already designed what became the AK-47 before the Germans fielded the Stg-44.  The Soviets used the Stg-44 as the basis for the SKS.

[SPQR]

.Question .What do you get when you cross two of the worlds most popular rifles? Answer. M47 or an AK16


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtxpzKWu-No