Getting back to the AK, the story of Mikhail Kalishnakov is intriguing. I attribute the success of the rifle to both his natural ability as an engineer and the crunch of war time scarcity/need for the Russians, which tends to cut through the red tape of the usual peace time creative thinking of "we want our new weapon to do everything".
Contrast that with the OICW and other developments here recently - it's annoying that we spend millions of dollars researching and developing rifles that just get cancelled and shelved because they're too overcomplicated and try to do everything from folding your socks to brushing your teeth in between firing 25 different types of rounds!
I would contrast the development of a way to write reliably in zero gravity during the early space race. The US spent a lot of money developing the Fisher space pen with a pressurized ink cartridge. The Russians used a pencil. Both write in space, one cost a nickel.
If this BookTV turns out to be a stinker...it might be due to a deficiency in
the record as Mikhail Kalishnakov delcined to be interviewed by the author.
(I think that was mentioned in onr of the Amazon.com book reviews)