As a tank sergeant in World War II, Mikhail Kalashnikov saw that
most Soviet troops had only carbines against the superior range of the
German Sturmgewehr. While recovering from
battlefield wounds, he began to create a design for a new weapon, one
that could be assembled with relatively loose tolerances by relatively
inexperienced workers, avoiding the supply bottlenecks that often
resulted from the German cult of fine craftsmanship.
First off, I wasn't aware the 91/30 was inferior in range to ANYTHING hand-held. And I doubt the people machining bolts and such were considered 'relatively inexperienced workers'.
And this is from MIT?
And on the other hand,
Russia has announced funeral arrangements for Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle.
“Comrade Kalashnikov will be buried in a pit of mud with full
military honors,” said General-Major Saiga Molot, a spokesman for the
Russian army. “After a week, we will exhume his body, clean it off, and put him back to work. We expect that there shall be no issue with his
functions.”
3 comments:
According to MTK's autobiography "from a stranger's door..." he set out to design a pistol calibre SMG for Russian use, after he saw a German use an SMG to shoot up the truck that was transporting some of his wounded comrades.
How MIT has fallen.
He was looking at the carbine version, which would have been the M38 at the time. The later model 44 was no improvement as far as accuracy. Neither was any slouch, in terms of accuracy, but they were carbines. And in the carbine version, you're giving up accuracy at distance plus you've got the original clunky action with usually less time to cycle the action. No, Starshina Kalashnikov did the right thing, and I'm glad he did. I use my M38 as a brush gun, and one of my classic 91/30s when I've got the luxury of time and need the range. But when I need firepower, they slide down the list a little.
MichigammeDave
Not the M38, which would have a range still beyond the Sturmgewehr, but the PPSH-41.
Soviet maneuver doctrine involved Infantry in conjunction with tanks. The tanks would lead, the infantry would follow. The quick handling PPSH was a better option for a "quick mop up job" for anything that the tank didn't kill than the slow to cycle bolt action rifles.
As a Tank Sergeant, Mikhail would have worked with Infantry following him as they advanced into the German ranks. The 8x33 Kurz has a distinct range advantage over the 7.62x25 Tok round.
He (with help) designed a rifle that was more powerful than the Sturmgewehr. In interviews after the fact he was quite open about designing a rifle for the defence of the Motherland based on what he learned fighting the Germans.
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