Mikhail Kalashnikov of the former Soviet Union, 94, who invented the infamous AK-47, has passed away. His rifle served as a weapon in the African Revolution as well as others., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Renowned rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94
Published time: December 23, 2013 16:07
Rt.com
The inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov has died at the age of 94.
For most of his life, Kalashnikov was feted as an uncontroversial hero.
The self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school, but achieved a remarkable and lasting feat of engineering, while still in his twenties.
But as the rifles, inextricably linked forever to their creator by their name, were more and more commonly seen in the hands of terrorists, radicals and child soldiers, the inventor was often forced to defend himself to journalists.
He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years.
"I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it," he told them.
On a few occasions, when in a more reflective mood, the usually forceful Kalashnikov wondered what might have been.
"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists," he said once.
"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."
Indeed, at his museum in Izhevsk, where he spent most of his life working at the factory that was eventually named after him, there is an ingenious mechanical lawnmower Kalashnikov invented to easier care after his country house lawn.
It’s not what he will be remembered for.
Considering his age and circumstances, it was hardly surprising that Kalashnikov felt he could best serve his country by creating weapons.
Born in 1919, Mikhail was the seventeenth child of well-off peasants. When he was eleven, during Joseph Stalin’s dekulakization campaign his parents had their land confiscated, and the whole family was exiled to Siberia (a fact rarely mentioned in fawning Soviet-era biographies).
As the country began to mobilize ahead of a war that seemed inevitable, but was as yet undeclared, Kalashnikov chose to go into a tank brigade.
His engineering aptitude was immediately apparent.
He was allowed to create several modifications – a tank shot counter, a running time meter – that were to be adopted for the whole Red Army, and made him a celebrity. He was destined to go on an engineering course, when Operation Barbarossa intervened.
Kalashnikov’s own career as a tank commander was cut short in the first few months of the conflict on the Eastern Front, when an explosive shell ripped open his shoulder.
Kalashnikov says the germ of the idea came to him as he recuperated in hospital.
But the invention of the AK-47 was not a Eureka moment, but a trial-and-error process of modifications and improvements undertaken by a team over six years.
While for propaganda purposes Kalashnikov’s invention was presented as a radically new development, it was based on several principles that had already been seen in British, Russian and Italian weapons to which the inventor had easy access as he drew up his blueprints.
Its main precursor was the German StG 44, the first truly effective automatic weapon of World War II.
But at the same time, Kalashnikov’s masterstroke, and the reason AK-47s remain the most popular rifle more than sixty years on, was to combine the mechanisms of previous weapons to create something with a completely new function.
AK-47 is not a weapon designed for accuracy tests at the firing range. It is conceived as a weapon for firefights at close quarters, in harsh Russian conditions.
For this purpose, it is perfect.
It can be assembled by a person with no military training, it is fired by simply pointing at a target, and it can be easily looked after without a cleaning kit. It does not jam by itself (due to the generous allowances between moving parts, which also explain its mediocre accuracy at range) and it does not stop functioning in any weather conditions.
No comments:
Post a Comment