Posted on 04/17/2006 8:13:08 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Iraq shows who’s top gun
Moscow, April 17 (Reuters): Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the world’s most popular assault rifle, says that US soldiers in Iraq are using his invention in preference to their own weapons, proving that his gun is still the best.
“Even after lying in a swamp you can pick up this rifle, aim it and shoot. That’s the best job description there is for a gun. Real soldiers know that and understand it,” the 86-year-old gunmaker told a weekend news conference in Moscow.
“In Vietnam, American soldiers threw away their M-16 rifles and used (Kalashnikov) AK-47s from dead Vietnamese soldiers, with bullets they captured. That was because the climate is different to America, where M-16s may work properly,” he said.
“Look what’s happening now: every day on television we see that the Americans in Iraq have my machine guns and assault rifles in their armoured vehicles. Even there American rifles don’t work properly.”
Some US troops in Iraq have reportedly taken to using AK-47s in preference to the standard-issue M-16. The Cold War-era gun, renowned for its durability and easy handling, is plentiful in Iraq.
Kalashnikov designed his first weapon in 1947 and is still chief constructor at Izhmash arms factory in Izhevsk in the Urals mountains.
The factory’s director said that around a billion rifles had been produced around the world using parts of Kalashnikovs or based on the same design, only 10-12 per cent of which were made in Russia.
A billion rifles? Poetic license and all that, but kalashnikov [in all variants] numbers are normally quoted as something closer to 80-100 mil.
The best ones are still built by the Bulgarians.
Sorry Mikey, you're seeing footage of Iraqi troops in US cammies and helmets. They use Kalashnikovs.
I guess he's waiting for another weapon to be designed by another country so he can rip it off and claim it as his own.......
The Sturmgewehr 44 (StG44) or Storm Assault Rifle 44. First deployed in 1944, it proved to be a revolutionary weapon.
2) I thought that the various problems that caused some M-16s to go ga-ga in Vietnam were fixed a long time ago. Thus there shouldn't be any news on current M16-A2s and A4s acting like Vietnam era A1s.
Thus, what gives?
My guess is that Kalashnikov is seeing footage of Iraqis in US type uniforms and Fritz helmets with AKs and thinking that they're Americans.
Weeeeellll. I greeting a lot who say they can't bring them home.
That doesn't mean that they're ditching their 16s and M4s to use AKs in combat. I suspect that it's their trophies that they'd like to bring home.
That makes sense (although I'm suprised those around him would make him, an old man by now, make such an error). But that theory makes sense.
No. They have said they keep them around.
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Well- you're 'Spetsnaz'- why don't you let him know? I'd do it- but my Russian is really ruaty.
:-)
Go to any gun show and compare the prices. Valmets are most expensive, and not for nothing - I've shot a few. As for the "Vepr" [wild hog] - it is swinery.
The cartridge is pretty well balanced, but the last one that I had took all week to change the doggone magazine. Or so it seemed at the time. There is also a substantial liability in one's weapon sounding like the enemy's, in combat.
Wrongo. The AK-47 is most certainly NOT a copy of the MP44. The AK-47 uses a rotating bolt with two frontal locking lugs that work with cams in the bolt carrier. The MP44 uses a tilting or tipping bolt, and it doesn't have cams or lugs. Also, the selector and safety are combined on the AK while they're separate on the Kraut gun. Further more, the saftey switch on the AK is on the right side of the receiver, while the MP's is on the left. THe MP's selector is a button on the receive side that you push in to change from semi to full auto. BTW, the AKs sear/trigger mechanism uses the same concept as that of the Garand rifle. In other words, the AK ain't no f'n German design.
http://world.guns.ru/assault/as01-e.htm
http://world.guns.ru/assault/as51-e.htm
Do the math.
I read that soldiers who may have to move quickly in and out of humvees feel more mobile with the kalashnikov. They don't like riding with the M16. That's what I've read.
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