The Russians can lay claim to developing the first true assault rifle over the Germans. The relatively unknown Federov Automat of 1916 was a selective fire shoulder arm of good design and was used by both sides during the Russian revolution but production was ceased under communist rule. During World War II, the Germans had developed a variety of selective fire assault rifles. The FG42 parachutists rifle, the Stug44, the VG1-5. As well as a new cartridge, the 7.92x33 Kurz. Simply the 7.92x57mm cartridge with a shortened casing. The advancing Red Army noticed the cartridge as well as the new rifles that fired them.
During the war the Soviets hastily developed the SKS and the new 7.62x39mm M1943 cartridge to go with it but it had come to late to see action. The SKS lived a short life in the hands of the Red Army who replaced it with a new rifle designed by a talented soldier/inventor named Mikhail Kalashnikov who came up with the idea while recovering from wounds in a hospital.
The new rifle was named the Kalashnikova Automat model 47 or simply the AK-47. The rifle first went into production in 1949 and entered service with the Soviet military in 1951. It was a robust and highly reliable design. This was greatly due to the fact that Kalashnikov had designed the AK-47 with idea that moving parts should be loosely fitted given more room.
Later the Soviets produced the AKM which was made from stampings rather than the expensive milling for the AK-47. This is the most common version of the AK-47. The soviets also produced the AKS-47 which featured a folding stock.
The AK-47 first saw action during the Eastern European revolts of the 1950s. This is also were the west first became aware of the new weapon. At the time the standard American rifle was still the post-war M-1 Garand. Needless to say the U.S. and the NATO nations viewed the AK-47 with skepticism.
The Soviets strictly withheld the AK-47 from Warsaw Pact nations and their communist allies to the east for some years after it had entered Soviet service. The first foreign copies of the AK-47 were made in China in the late-1950s. 50 million copies and versions of the AK-47 have been produced around the world, in fact very few AK-47s were actually made. Although virtually all developed nations discard the AK-47 in favor of western assault rifles it has become favorite of 3rd world nations, guerilla fighters and terrorists organizations and is still the service rifle of most Eastern European nations.
The first AK-47s began to seep into North Vietnam around the mid-1960s. Before then the North Vietnamese relied on a hodge-podge of vintage Japanese, American, French and old Soviet weapons and the occasionally captured M-16 (when its ammo was readily available.) Most were of inferior Chinese manufacture compared to the higher quality Soviet versions. Yet the North Vietnamese army and Vietcong made good use of them.
In the early 70s, the Soviet Union recognized the effectiveness of the 5.56x45mm cartridge and developed their own, the 5.45x39mm and converted the AKM design to fire it and it was called the AK-74 and replaced the AK-47 as the standard Red Army rifle. The AK-74 had several advantages over the AKM-47. Including modern plastic magazines and improves accuracy. The AK-74 was used extensively in Afghanistan where the 5.45mm quickly earned the name poison bullet by Afghan guerillas because of the hydro shock wounds it caused.
In the early 80s, the AKSU-74 was introduced into the Afghanistan conflict. The AKSU is a sized down AK-74 submachine gun or carbine that featured a bell-shaped flash hider.
Countless versions of the AK-47 have been developed in attempts to modernize the aging AK-47 design. The Israeli IMI Galil is a descendant of the AK-47. Further attempts to modernize the AK-47 design include converting some to the 5.56x45mm round such as the Zastava M80 and the Kalashnikov AK-100 series rifles have been pretty successful, greatly increasing the accuracy. The Chinese have even developed a bull-pup version of the AK-47.
The AK-47 is with-out a doubt the most stolen rifle design in history. Millions of AK-47 knock-offs have been made with-out license in countries around the world. A true AK-47. Today In the United States a Romanian SAR imported copy of the AK-47 cost about $200 - $300.
The AK-47 has since become the hands-down symbol of terrorism and 3rd world violence. 56 years after designing the AK-47, Mikhail Kalashnikov expressed his regret when he said that he wished he had invented a lawnmower instead. But maintaining that his intentions were to make Russia a safer place after seeing the horrors done to it during 2nd World War.
The Cons
The AK-47 has several major limitations. The AK-47 is especially susceptible to over-heating in full automatic mode sometimes even in extended semi-automatic mode and has a unusually high rate of cook-offs (Chambered rounds that go off because of the over-heating) which can be quite hazardous the person using it. The most serious drawback to the AK-47 is its low muzzle velocity of 2,340 fps. (710 meters per second) This results in a looping trajectory that requires a clumsy adjustment for accuracy at ranges beyond 300 meters. The AK-47 is also a little heavy compared to the M-16 and modern European weapons.
