Posted on 12/26/2012 4:49:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
Russia's legendary rifle-designer Mikhail Kalashnikov was recovering in stable condition in intensive care Tuesday after being hospitalised with general fatigue, reports said.
An aide to the 93-year-old father of the AK-47 said Kalashnikov had been having heart problems and feeling poorly since March.
"When I visited him at home last week, he told me that nothing seemed to hurt, but that he simply had no strength left," assistant Nikolai Shklyayev told the RIA Novosti news agency.
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Thanks for the complete history, I wasn’t aware it was as lengthy as that.
Thanks for the clarification; I wasn’t aware it was a Frankenstein=like creation. No pun intended.
(The secret wasn't the filament anyway, it was the vacuum)...
Yep, by 1941 Germans had no idea about semi-auto rifle. They only caught an idea as they started to capture AVSs and SVTs from Russians. They had put captured Russian semi and full-autos into service before they reverse engineered it into various “Gewehrs” including Stg-44 which was a first original design, thus heavivy inspired by the Soviets with the exception of their unique shorter cartridge started an assault rifles as we know it.
Unfortunately, US has lagged behing both Germans and Russians for decades. M-14 is simply a conceptual copy of Soviet AVS-36 built 20 years earlier.
Yep, by 1941 Germans had no idea about semi-auto rifle. They only caught an idea as they started to capture AVSs and SVTs from Russians. They had put captured Russian semi and full-autos into service before they reverse engineered it into various “Gewehrs” including Stg-44 which was a first original design, thus heavivy inspired by the Soviets with the exception of their unique shorter cartridge started an assault rifles as we know it.
Unfortunately, US has lagged behing both Germans and Russians for decades. M-14 is simply a conceptual copy of Soviet AVS-36 built 20 years earlier.
Edison didn’t invent the light bulb. If you think he did, then that would be evidence that he is also overrated.
Actually the M-1 Carbine used an intermediate cartridge before the Sturmgewehr. The .30 Carbine is 7.62 x 33mm by comparison the STG-43/44 used a 7.92 x 33mm. Both used the same diameter bullet as the cartridge used by ‘big brother’ guns because bullet manufacture uses precise diameter lead wire as an intermediate step, and both countries were unwilling to tamper with anything that would reduce high production rates.
So, yes, the US was able to get a good idea, and put it into service before the Germans.
His contribution to electric lighting was much the same as Kalashnikov’s was to automatic rifles, he made them cheap, reliable, effective and ubiquitous.
Kind of like where the M-1 Carbine had been 4 years previously....
With Hugo Schmeisser on the design team of the AK-47...
Schmeisser invented the M-18 submachine gun for WWI assault groups.
German, between the wars, focused on infantry using machine guns at long range, and assault groups with submachine guns at short range, with the rifle being a self defense mechanism for ammunition carriers. The K-98 was fine for that.
German squads had tremendous firepower. The firepower was highly concentrated in the few men who serviced the General purpose machine gun. The machine gun teams were less mobile, but the assault squads compensated.
US squads with BAR and M-1 had less firepower, but the firepower was better distributed. US MGs were specialized, with the .50 HMG having longer range than the Germans, the .30 MMG having better sustained fire, and the BAR having higher mobility.
UK squads with BREN and Enfield were intermediate between the two.
Soviets had fewer machineguns, but more PPSh armed assault squads, backed up with Rifle Infantry with Mosin Nagants.
The preferred approach to the German infantry used their predictability against them. One would attempt to shoot down the assault squads at long range, to attack the machine gun teams by using mobile assaults with suppressive fire, and to use high rates of fire against the few rifle armed ammunition carriers.
The STG-43 gave the Germans a weapon that would have longer range than a MP-40, higher rate of fire than Mauser 98K, and, better mobility than an MG-42. That made the Germans less predictable. Still they lost 18 to 1 when fighting US 2nd Infantry in the Bulge battles. M-1s with BARs and .30 Brownings are a pretty tough combination.
God speed, Dr. Kalashnikov. Thank you.
Hint: the one that is better engineered for its actual end use has more exemplars in the field.
Second hint: engineering a useful product is, in the final analysis, more important than inventing any product that doesn't satisfy the needs of the consumer.
Engineering isn't always discovery or invention, although those can be important parts of the process. The ultimate tests of engineering are Does it work so well the user never thinks about it? and Can everyone who wants one afford one?
The AK design passes those tests with flying colors.
Maybe his hands hurt, and it’s tough to feel with his fingers.
There are other aspects besides performance. The AK-47 was subsidized to the tune of 25 million of them given away.
The AK-47 failed when it first came out. The stamped metal technology was ‘not ready for prime time’ in Soviet Union. The Soviet Union selected the SKS as superior.
They went back to milled receivers, but that made it expensive. Eventually they got the stamped receivers right. Schmeisser had a lot to do with that.
M-1 carbines had over 6 million made during WWII. They are still in production today. Copies (Mini-14) in other calibers are also made, and are sold for a lot more than AK-47 clones. If it costs twice as much, then that is an argument that it may just be better, unless you think a volkswagen is superior to a porche.
So Swan invented the light bulb, Westinghouse provides the power and Edison with his DC power provides....
hype
Pretty much. Welcome to the real world.
“If something costs twice as much...”
In the case of the AK vs. the Mini-14 it would be the labor costs.
And FWIW we own an example of each; th Mini-14, an M1A, a Romanian WASR AK clone, an M1 Carbine, and a couple of AR pattern rifles. It is our considered opinion that of all of them of that if the SHTF the AK patterns are wht is coming out of our safe first.
It is quite simply the best “out of the box” fighting rifle ever designed bar none.
As I said before, God speed Dr. Kalashnikov. And thank you.
We’re suddenly losing a lot of greats lately.
Actually, Kalashnikov did indeed design the prototype, but he had a team of designers and engineers who helped develop it into a working weapon, and Schmeisser may have been one.
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