A good argument can be made that the M-2 was the first "assault rifle".
Posted on 09/23/2017 8:41:12 AM PDT by Navy Patriot
My understanding has been that the M60 was based on the FG 42.
The amount of ballistic and mechanical cross-pollination that begat the modern "assault rifle" is sort of fascinating to read about. The intermediate caliber idea went back a lot further than most people would think, and another Russian (Federov) may have been the more original thinker compared to Kalashnikov.
Mr. niteowl77
Yup and just a few years earlier the French Army came up with the bright idea to field a new bolt action rifle...
Reich fanboys don’t like it, but the 47 is far better in every way than the 44. I actually got a chance to handle a 44 once.
Its a shade heavier than an M1 Garand, clunky to handle, fragile, and the ergonomics suck. And the stock is simply a flat slab looking like it was cut out of a plank.
The internals are nothing like a 47.
It’s only realistic contribution was tee intermediate cartridge concept.
And in every way, the M1 Carbine was better. The US Army after the war evaluated the 44 and was very unimpressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M60_machine_gun
“The M60 machine gun began development in the late 1940s as a program for a new, lighter 7.62 mm machine gun. It was partly derived from German guns of World War II (most notably the FG 42 and the MG 42),[5][6] but it contained American innovations as well.”
A good argument can be made that the M-2 was the first "assault rifle".
The Stg-44’s MKb-42 prototype used a near identical copy of the bolt/bolt carrier system (albeit inverted) from the Czech ZB vz. 26. So even IF Kalashnikov copied the Stg-44, he was copying Schmeisser’s copy of Holek’s design.
And even IF Kalashnikov incorporated design elements from the Stg-44, that doesn’t directly lead to the conclusion that he got those elements from a Schmeisser. He had active competition in designing the Red’s first assault rifle from Sudayev, Kubynov, Shpagin, Korobov, Bulkin and Simonov (and maybe others), which brings up niteowl77’s point about “cross-pollenation.” So IF (underscore _if_) there was any copying, it could have come to Kalashnikov filtered through the design(s) of one (or more) of his Russian confederates. To my eye, the AK-47 has more in common with Bulkin’s Tula-built AB-47 than with the Stg-44.
As for Schmeisser ‘volunteering’ to help the Reds, I can’t recall the source but I have read that he was working in Izhevsk for those years. At the same time, Kalashnikov supposedly in Kovrov, refining his AK–47.
To: tumblindice
“A good argument can be made that the M-2 was the first ‘assault rifle’”
The M2 Carbine was select fire and used an intermediate powered cartridge, so it does meet at least the two chief criteria of the definition. But nobody taught the M1 to rock ‘n roll until 1944 and, IIRC, the M2 and the Stg-44 both first went into service that same year. I don’t recall which was first but if it was the M2 (or its T-4 predecessor), it would only have been by a matter of months. And the M2 didn’t do one particular thing the Stg-44 did: inspire widespread imitation.
But don’t overlook the Cei-Rigotti, which predates the M2 by about 45 years. It largely comes down to whether you consider a detachable box magazine a deal-breaker for labeling it an ‘assault rifle,’ and whether you think the 6.5 Carcano fits into the range of intermediate-powered cartridges.
Bunk. The StG 44 has a tilting bolt like the SKS. And the SKS was essentially a scaled down version of a Russian anti-tank gun.
I guess he went with a rotary bolt and much improved cyclic rate to throw folks off his trail.
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