90% of Kalashnikovs Sold Worldwide Are Knockoffs, Charles Ganske (2006 Article)
RIA Novosti reported last week that 90% of the automatic rifles in the world based on Mikhail Kalashnikov's Model 1947 are unlicensed copies, according to the CEO of the Izhmash firm that owns the patent. While this isn't exactly breaking news, as a worldwide cultural phenominon it's interesting because the Kalashnikov "is symbolically reflected in the national coats of arms of six states" (I'm not sure if this estimate includes the flag of Hezbollah, the Shi'a militia that controls southern Lebanon).
To explain why the Kalashnikov is the most successful assault rifle of all time, Nicholas Cage's character in the movie Lord of War describes shooting an AK-47 by saying, "It’s so easy a child can use it. And they do." According to Wikipedia, the nickname for the African boys who carry guns in that continent's numerous regional conflicts is "kalash".
MosNews reports that Venezuela will purchase 100,000 examples of the genuine article.
The common term AK-47 is actually inaccurate (sic). The original AK-47 was milled (machined from bar stock), making it much more expensive to produce. What is commonly referred to as AK-47 today is actually AKM (modernized AK-47) and its clones, which are stamped, a considerably less expensive and faster process.
The rifle is not widespread because "it is simple to use." Most rifles are very simple to use and can be mastered by children. AK's are actually pretty crude weapons. They are not very ergonomic and have poor sights compared to modern Western rifles, making getting hits at long distance more difficult. They are generally inaccurate weapons (sic), having poor barrels, poor metallurgy, and it doesn't help that "Soviet-bloc" ammunition is of low quality in general. Plus as a modern "assault" rifle goes, it is on the heavy side.
NOTE: I (mousegunner) disagree with Mr. Ganske about this. My experience has been that there are many fine AK-47s out there which have good iron sights, and which are capable of good accuracy, even at 200 yards. And there is nothing wrong with USSR metallurgy, and I have had good results with Soviet ammo. Ganske is correct in that an AK-47 is heavier than an AR-15.
On the positive side, it is very robust and reliable, due to the generally sound, simple design and loose fit. It keeps on firing with very little maintenance even in dirty environments. It also breaks down into a few parts quickly without tools. In other words, it makes an ideal weapon for uneducated, ill-supplied peasants who lack basic mechanical aptitude. That just about describe the former Soviet army and its proxies.
NOTE: I (mousegunner) would like to go on record as scolding Mr. Ganske for running down Soviet soldiers in general. I'm no expert on the former Soviet army, however I'm sure that much of it was educated, well-supplied, and not made up of clumsy peasants. It is always unwise to vilify an opponent.
The main reason why it became so widespread is cost. Because the Soviet Union subscribed to the philosophy of "quantity has a quality all to its own," it and its allies produced a massive quantity of these rifles and dumped them on the Third World, making them cheap and disposable.
The photo below (used with permission) shows Carlos' Romanian G-kit.
When given a choice between the two AND cost is not a consideration, most trained professional soldiers generally opt for a variant of the American M-16 over it. For example, when given the choice between the Israeli Galil (updated version of Finnish Valmet, in turn a modernized version of AKM) and the M16/M4, the IDF readily chose the latter, preferring the accuracy and light weight of the latter.
Nonetheless, it is what the professionals call an "adequate" weapon, and considering its superior reliability with low maintenance, is a good rifle to take to rugged areas.
Mikhail Kalashnikov has gone down in the history of small arms as the creator of the world's best assault rifle and also as the designer who was the first in the world to develop and make operational an array of unified automatic small arms models, based on the identical automatic action, design and operating principle. Characteristically, back in the early 1920s, the famous Russian designer V. G. Fedorov, creator of the world's first assault rifle (1916), assisted by young Soviet designers, substantiated theoretically and developed unified experimental models of light automatic machine-guns, aircraft machine-guns, an antiaircraft machine-gun, tank machine-gun and heavy machine-gun based on his assault rifle design. V.G. Fedorov's idea of unifying the automatic small arms was partially implemented in practice by V.A. Degtyarev, who developed two aircraft and one tank machine-gun, based on his DA light machine-gun and the machine-guns that entered service with the Russian Armed Forces.
In the second half of the 20th century, Mikhail Kalashnikov, relying on the achievements of outstanding national designers and advanced technology, made the most use of Fedorov's idea. The unification had beneficial economic and production outcome and expedited the mastering of new types of small arms weapons in the field.
What is behind the unprecedented popularity of the Kalashnikov assault rifle? Mikhail Kalashnikov has obtained an optimum combination of a number of features of the weapon, ensuring its high firing effectiveness and reliability. These include the short locking assembly, balanced bolt, unseating of the cartridge case after shot, preventing failure during extraction of fired cases, insensitivity to contamination and trouble-free operation in any climatic conditions.
The most considerable collection of experimental and standard small arms, developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov during 1942-1990, is kept in the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer Troops and Communications in St. Petersburg, the oldest military museum of Russia, until 1964 generally known as the Artillery Historical Museum.
The collection was saved by the museum, thanks to the persistence of the Main Ordnance Directorate command. A considerable reduction of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1959 led to the abandonment of the Research Small Arms Range, where all innovatory models of small arms for armed forces had been tested from 1920. The collection of small arms devised by Soviet designers between 1920 and 1959 was contributed to the fund of the Artillery Historical Museum in Leningrad. Naturally, the museum collected all standard models of the Kalashnikov system, which became operational in the Soviet Army in the period of 1949-1980. The Museum also collected all Kalashnikov systems and modifications adopted and manufactured abroad. However, today things do not look so promising. Only 31 models out of a variety of previously and currently world-produced modifications of Kalashnikov automatic small arms have been collected.
A second collection amassed at the Izhmash JSC in Izhevsk, where Mikhail Kalashnikov has headed a design bureau since 1949. The Izhevsk collection comprises mostly systems developed by Kalashnikov after 1960.
The Izhevsk Kalashnikov Museum opened on 4 November 2004 in Izhevsk, a city in the Ural Mountains of Russia. The museum has focused backward in time. It chronicles the official biography of General Kalashnikov, from his childhood to proletarian hero. The Museum Complex of Small Arms of M. T. Kalashnikov, a series of halls and multimedia exhibitions devoted to the AK-47 assault rifle and its offspring. The museum complex has been drawing on average 10,000 visitors a month. The museum serves as Russia's monument to an infantry weapon and to the workers who have made it for almost 60 years.
It presents the guns and their history with civic pride and a revived sense of national confidence. Think of Izhesvk as the Detroit of Slavic small arms. The exhibitions, ranging from static displays of weapons to plasma-screen video presentations showing the guns' use in recent decades, reflect a laborer's affection for what has long flowed from nearby foundries and assembly lines. Much of the material is also viewed through the life of Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the man credited with designing the weapon in secret trials in 1947, and who still lives a few blocks away. Were you to substitute automobiles for firearms and add a bit of military décor, this might be a museum celebrating Henry Ford.
"We emphasize the peaceful side of this story," said Nadezhda Vechtomova, the museum director. "We are trying to separate the weapon as a weapon of murder from the people who are producing it and to tell its history in our country."
AK47: the open-source weapon that took the world by storm
By Lewis Page and Scott Snowden (2007)
By Lewis Page and Scott Snowden (2007)
Sixty years ago, a former tank sergeant named Mikhail Kalashnikov submitted an assault-rifle design to the Red Army for trials. It was selected as the new personal weapon for most Soviet soldiers, and designated Automat Kalashnikova 1947 - AK47 for short. That designation went out of official use in 1959, but to this day "AK47" is probably the world's most widely-known gun name. Just as open-source Linux - the "communist" software, according to Steve Ballmer - has made Linus Torvalds famous, the genuinely communist open-source AK has given Mikhail Kalashnikov (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/03/reg_meets_kalashnikov) a profile at least as high. The AK47 and its successor designs are the most widely-used firearms on the face of the planet.
The ubiquitous AK has been seen as one of the most influential pieces of technology produced in the 20th century. People have made amazing claims for it: the Kalashnikov is said to have humbled US military and economic power, to have liberated the downtrodden and oppressed, to have changed the very face of warfare. Dozens of books have been written about the AK phenomenon, hundreds or perhaps thousands of articles.
