AK-47 inventor dead at 94

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The Germans found that out the hard way. Their tanks were nowhere near as robust as the T-34, the best tank of WW2.

By the way, the Russians used the Christey suspension, invented in America and rejected by the U.S. Army.

ruveyn

Dumb US army.

I bet his gravestone would also have a carved out AK47!

May he rest in peace.

I do hope it is true that he at least played a major role in developing the weapon that bears his name.

Yep. And I am fighting the urge to launch into one of my tirades against that death-trap known as a Sherman tank.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J97er2vPLf8[/youtube]

In a few years, we'll dig old Misha up, kick his bolt open, run a patch down his barrel, and he'll be good as new again.

Ahh that makes sense, I always thought the AK-47 was used by the Russians against the Germans during WWII.
What did the Russians use then?

Mosin Nagant rifles, a variety of experimental semi automatic rifles, Tokarev pistols, submachineguns, notably the PPsH, licensed Maxim machine guns left over from WWI, etc. You have to remember that the assault rifle in it's modern configuration had only just appeared in the form of the German StG44 or SturmGewehr, as Hitler named it, and it was supposedly contact with this weapon that inspired Kalashnikov's design. The AK is mechanically quite different than the German StG, but the external layout is similar, and the most important element of the design, the intermediate cartridge, was carried into the AK pattern rifles. Prior to WWII, generals were obsessed with long range marksmanship and demanded rifles that could shoot to 1000m, but casualty studies determined that combat typically took place at much closer range, where a shorter weapon firing a more controllable round at a higher rate was advantageous. The Russians got the concept immediately, but they'd also taken to the SMG for similar reasons (you could cheaply arm conscript troops with them), while the US and thus the rest of the West would take until the 1960s to absorb the lesson.