Injured and hospitalized, a small talk stimulates whimsy

The AK47 is extremely admired by many military personnel, and its designers are no exception. Kalashnikov www.biquge.info is widely recognized as a world-class gun master and a world-class firearms designer. Looking back now, Kashi became a weapon master not only by luck, but also by rare talent and rare opportunities.

Kashi was born in 1919 in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov

Small homesteaders. At the age of 7, he entered a 10-year school. It is said that during his childhood, he liked to make ingenious little inventions. "To put it bluntly, I didn't have any education in firearms since I was a child, and I never thought that being a gunsmith was completely self-taught. "In 1936, after graduating, he got a job in a department of the Trans-Siberian Railways, engaged in locomotive repair. At that time, outside of his own work, his greatest interest was the study of military equipment, and he had a persistent preference for firearms. Kashi had never expected to become a master gunsmith, and fiddling with those things was just a hobby.

At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, 19-year-old Kashi was drafted into the army and was stationed in the Kiev Military District. On June 22, 1941, the Soviet-German war broke out, and Kashi was recalled to the unit as a commander of the T-34 tank. During one battle, the tank driven by Kashi was hit by German artillery fire, and he was seriously wounded and taken to the army hospital in the rear. Although his life was saved, he has since become disabled, especially his right hand, and has been unable to move freely since then. Of course, Kashi could not have imagined that this hospital would be a turning point in his approach to weapons design.

In the hospital, he talked to his comrades about the war and about weapons. During a casual conversation, a patient asked him, "Why is it that only the Germans have automatic rifles, and we don't even have enough old rifles?" During his hospitalization, he also asked the nurse to find all the books on light weapons in the hospital library to read, one of which was called "The Evolution of Light Weapons", which greatly inspired him.

Self-taught, at the age of 28, he received the Stalin Prize

In the spring of 1942, Kashi was awarded the Order of the Red Star, and he asked to be discharged from the hospital to return to the army to participate in the battle, but the hospital did not allow him to go home to recuperate for half a year. Kashi decided to go to the railway locomotive repair station where he had previously worked, and as he worked, he explored the design of firearms. He found his best friend Krachenko, a train driver who knew how to machine the railway. With the help of a close friend, an automatic rifle was hand-sharpened in a humble workshop.

After the automatic rifle was ready, Kashi was specially sent to the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy for testing and review. After testing, the review committee decided that the mechanism of the rifle was too complex and did not surpass the Sudaev (i.e. PPS-43) rifle that was equipped with the Soviet army at that time in terms of overall performance.

But this unsuccessful automatic rifle caused the Soviet Equipment Planning Commissioner

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov

Lieutenant General Bragonravov, then the Soviet authority on infantry weapons, the head of the Dzerzhinsky Academy of Artillery, was noted. He appreciated the unique design of the rifle. In 1943, he personally recommended Kashi to the Higher Infantry Firearms School for further study. After completing his studies, he was assigned to work as a technician at the Ansk military weapons test site.

In 1944, after numerous failed experiments, the 25-year-old designed a 7.62 mm semi-automatic carbine. In 1946, he designed a fully automatic rifle AK46 based on this semi-automatic carbine, which was sent to participate in the national range selection test. Also competing were the work of a number of renowned rifle designers.

After the preliminary selection, three models of rifles, including the AK46, were designated for the final review. Rigorous tests can well test the real combat capabilities of the rifle. In the extreme shooting judging, the AK46's outstanding performance impressed many of the judges present: the AK46 fired 15,000 rounds of bullets in a row, and although the barrel was red, the shooting accuracy did not change much. After a few shots, the competitor's sample gun did not work properly or even did not fire at all.

The review committee very carefully calculated, counted the results of the tests, compared each set of shooting data, compiled all the data into a comprehensive report, and submitted it to the Ministry of Defense of the USSR. The judges unanimously agreed: "The 7.62mm assault rifle designed by Sergeant Kalashnikov is recommended to be included in the official equipment." ”

Soon after, the jury decided to produce the first batch of AK46 rifles, along with a more important test than the selection - a troop trial. As a result, the troops praised the easy-to-use and powerful AK46 automatic rifle. The Ministry of Defense of the USSR decided to designate AK46 as the standard rifle of the army, and officially designated the rifle as AK47.

The individual indicators of the AK47 automatic rifle are not outstanding, but the comprehensive performance is very balanced, the structure is simple, strong and durable, there are few failures, the cost is low, and the power is huge. The origin of the AK47 is also very simple: the 47 refers to the time when the rifle was introduced, i.e. in 1947, A refers to the automatic rifle, and K is the first letter of the name of its designer, Kalashnikov.

From 1949, the AK47 was officially massively equipped with Soviet troops. By the 60s of the 20th century, the USSR began to supply such cheap firearms to the Warsaw Pact allies and third world countries. In 1956, China also manufactured Type 56 submachine guns based on it, which was equipped with the whole army, and it was not until the 80s of the 20th century that production was stopped. In addition to the Soviet Union, a number of other countries also made a large number of copies of the AK47 automatic rifle. It can be said that the AK47 automatic rifle is the originator of firearms in many countries of the former socialist camp, and has become one of the two major schools in the firearms world.

The reason why Kashi was able to design such an excellent automatic rifle was because he was a former soldier and knew what kind of weapons soldiers needed most. When designing a firearm, his first consideration was to make it simple enough to be used in cold, heat, wind, rain, desert and even water. Kashi believes that the greatest sorrow for a firearm designer is that it is not accepted by the user, so the designer should consider the user first.

The АК-47 series of rifles became famous during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, when the АК-47 and the Chinese-made Type 56 assault rifle (Chinese-made AK-47) armed the regular army and guerrillas of North Vietnam. This automatic weapon is trusted by soldiers in jungle environments. During the Vietnam War, it is said that many American soldiers discarded their bulky M14 automatic rifles or M16 assault rifles, which were not adapted to the harsh conditions of the tropical rainforest, and used captured Vietnamese soldiers' АК-47 in favor of captured АК-47 rifles, simply because the АК-47 series rifles have very good reliability, easy control and dense firepower, and AK-47 assault rifles are generally suitable for assault and charge at 300 meters.