Kalashnikov proved that this 30-year-old technology could be reworked for his hand-held assault rifle concept.Īt the prototype stage, Kalashnikov and his co-developers looked to combine functions into fewer parts. This used a gas-operated long-stroke piston rod actuated by propellant gases bled through a barrel vent. Indeed the system – which harnessed pressure (caused by gas expelled from a discharging round) to drive back a spring-loaded bolt to simultaneously expel the empty cartridge, prompt a new cartridge to enter the firing chamber from the magazine, and also leave the bolt cocked for the next shot – had been introduced in the First World War with the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle. The AK's pressure-based repeat-fire system was not a new invention. However, the AK development programme was able to refine and modify prototypes to their satisfaction, and to test them against extreme operational conditions and situations that they were likely to encounter only rarely. Post-war constraints meant that Kalashnikov and his collaborators had limited R&D resources. The AK was not the first gun to be conceived of with an existing type of cartridge – the M1943 round – but its overall specification was governed by the capabilities of this ammunition gauge it also proved that medium-range bullets intended for machine guns could double as a single round when fired in semi-auto mode. The AK had to be robust, and the capability of functioning in extreme conditions was an integral aspect of its design ethos. They were also prone to jams because their intricate mechanism were sensitive to dust, heat and cold – the very conditions troops were encountering. Sub-machine guns could spray a room with bullets, but the low-power calibre made them ineffectual for hitting targets beyond short ranges. Traditional rifles had effective firepower at up to 2,000m, but in combat situations the enemy rarely presented itself as such a target rifles were also bulky and revealing where troops were fighting from concealed positions. As a combatant himself, Kalashnikov had first-hand experience of close-quarters ground fighting in the Second World War. The AK was inspired by a compelling need supported by compelling evidence. The Small Arms Survey 2004 estimated that out of the 500 million firearms available worldwide, between 70-100 million are of the AK family. The AK-47 could not always shoot as far or as accurately as even other semi-automatic guns, and yet its build qualities and design attributes have ensured that it is still in demand and official production 65 years after it first saw active service. The Germans had, in the the StG (Sturmgewehr) 44, developed a kind of rifle/machine-gun hybrid that was supposed to be the first assault firearm – a selective fire (semi-auto and fully automatic) rifle (shoulder-fire capable) that used an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine that confirmed Kalashnikov's view that this class of weapon was what future conflicts would call for. Toward the end of the war in 1945, 28-year-old Kalashnikov, himself a combat veteran from the Soviet tank corps, realised that there was a gap between the bulky bolt-action rifles and short-range sub-machine guns that had been the battlefield staples. Guns had been developed in accordance with the new battlefield dynamic of close-engagement fighting the British Sten, for instance, was utilitarian in design, basic in operation, easily dismantled for smuggling by resistance fighters, and used 9mm ammo that could be filched from Wehrmacht arsenals. The changed nature of ground combat in the Second World War had shown that the kinds of firearms traditional to European armies were proving unsuitable. However, while the original AK-47 is often cited as a triumph of form following function, the influence of its development and design ethos on engineering in general has been less well recognised. The Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK) assault rifle has a well-documented reputation as an influencer of world conflicts since Mikhail Kalashnikov's brainchild entered service with the Soviet army in 1949.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |