Around the world today there are few weapons
as recognizable and infamous as the AK-47. To some, it is a symbol of oppression; to
others freedom. A rifle that is so ingrained in the psyche
of the world yet whose origin is surrounded in mystery. But how did a Soviet tank sergeant with no
formal training or schooling in manufacturing help create the world’s most prolific weapon,
and how has its decades' old design remained current? At the end of World War Two, the people of
the Soviet Union were feeling a mix of emotions. On one hand, they were joyous that the deadliest
conflict in history was over, but on the other, they were cautious. The Soviet government vowed that no foreign
power would ever invade Russian soil again. They ensured so by not only claiming over
a dozen satellite states in eastern Europe but by investing heavily in their defense
industry. By this time, the Soviets, along with the
rest of the world, realized the inferiority of bolt-action rifles. Bolt-action rifles, such as the Russian Mosin
Nagant, were deadly accurate and packed a huge punch, but they severely limited the
rate of fire of soldiers as well as the amount of ammunition they could carry. Soviet designers had already been experimenting
for years to develop a weapon that could give the average soldier the fire rate of a machine
gun but the accuracy of a rifle. All of that would change with the prototypes
of Mikhail Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov spent most of his formative years
in the harsh winters of Siberia. It was probably here that he learned the value
of being able to operate equipment in the most extreme environments. In his early teens, in search of a better
life and work outside his native Siberia, Kalashnikov took an over five hundred mile
journey in search of work. He finally found a job at a tractor factory
and showed such promising skill that he was allowed to work with the local Red Army unit
to fit rifles into their stocks at their armory. From here, he was drafted into the tank corps
in 1938 and when Hitler invaded Russia he found himself caught up in some of the largest
battles of the war. After barely escaping a battle with his life
in the fall of 1941, Kalashnikov was recovering from his wounds in a hospital when he heard
frequent complaints from fellow soldiers about the reliability and capability of their current
infantry weapons. Wanting to help answer their problems, he
immediately set upon developing a reliable and accurate automatic weapon upon his discharge. Soviet authorities ultimately rejected his
first design of a new submachine gun. However, this project was not in vain since
he did gain their respect and admiration that someone with no formal education could create
such an impressive prototype. He was then given a job helping develop new
small arms and ammunition for the Soviet military. His first breakthrough came in 1944 when he
designed the ammunition for the AK-47, the 7.62x39mm cartridge. This cartridge was groundbreaking in that
it had a low enough charge to not produce too much recoil but had enough weight to give
it a fairly straight flight path and medium to long-range. The weight and recoil are important since
this would enable users to sustain accurate, fully automatic fire while also being able
to carry large amounts of ammunition into battle. Then, just after the end of World War Two,
one of the country's most famous weapon designers became ill. Aleksei Sudayev had grown to national fame
throughout the war by helping design a new submachine gun during the Siege of Leningrad
while surrounded by the Germans in starving conditions. The weapon is credited with greatly increasing
the firepower of Soviet soldiers and helping defeat the Germans there. This feat made him a national hero and the
Soviet government asked him to develop a full-scale automatic rifle. Sudayev’s first design, the AS-44, was determined
adequate but too heavy. He was asked to make another design, but his
illness caught up with him and he passed away in 1946. Not wanting to stall weapons' development
after the loss of Russia's most celebrated gun designers, the Soviet authorities decided
to hold a competition. They solicited any and all interested in the
army of gun designers currently employed by the government to submit their best proposals. Desiring the incredible cash prize and prestige
that would come with winning such a contest, Kalashnikov decided to enter. Contrary to popular belief, he was not working
by himself but instead had an entire design team behind him, including a woman who helped
put his ideas into technically accurate sketches. The team worked hard and they faced fierce
competition. There were originally over 15 competitors
all vying to have their designs picked up. Because there were so many interested, the
competition was held in phases with more and more competitors being eliminated as their
weapons went through a series of trials by the government. The contest was held in secret and for good
reason. In many similar contests of the past, those
who had more established names might have been more inclined to be selected in order
to please Stalin. But Stalin only wanted the best product this
time so each of the competitors was given a pseudonym and the members of the commission
judging the contest did not know who was producing the firearms. Throughout the competition, one feature about
Kalashnikov’s design made it stand out from among the rest: its loose tolerances. Most weapons of the day meant that they were
designed with what was called tight tolerances, meaning all the parts and pieces fit tightly
together. Kalashnikov’s team did the opposite by purposely
designing a rifle with loose tolerances, which allowed for foreign debris like mud, sand,
and water to enter the rifle and it would still work. This ruggedness and reliability would propel
it to the final stage of the competition. But before the final stage could begin in
1947, the three remaining designs were all required to go back to the drawing board to
work out some of the kinks the commission had identified in each one. Kalashnikov was told the rifle was too heavy
so he shortened the barrel significantly and also made his most significant design change
to date. He combined the bolt carrier and the gas piston
into one unit. By doing so, he eliminated the number of parts
needed which made manufacturing, repairing, and cleaning much easier. It was this rugged system combined with the
loose tolerances that would eventually cement the AK-47’s legendary reputation. Kalashnikov and his partners made three new
models of their last design. As the legend goes, when they took it to the
final test and disassembled and reassembled it for the judges, his competitors respectfully
bowed out of the competition realizing that his design was so far superior to anything
they had produced. While this version of events is the subject
of much debate and controversy as to if it actually happened or not, what is certain
is that Kalashnikov’s design won the competition and was soon put into mass production for
the Soviet army by 1948. Hence, the infamous AK-47 was born. Despite all of its technological advances
and superior design, that alone does not explain how the AK-47 became the world's most prolific
and iconic assault rifle. How the AK-47 got there was because of a mix
of politics and idealists as well as opportune timing during the Cold War. The Cold War was not just focused on building
bigger and better nuclear weapons. Sure, these were the most significant as they
could cause mutually assured annihilation on both sides, but many simultaneous arms
races were going on for conventional weapons as well. Tanks, planes, missiles, and even infantry
small arms were all trying to one-up each other. The AK-47 fell right into the middle of all
of this by being able to be produced cheaply and rapidly. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the Soviet
Union was the standard-bearer for Communism in the world. As a result, they felt obligated to help out
any fledgling Communist insurgency or country they could by all means available. One of their best methods was by flooding
a friendly nation with AK-47 rifles. The idea was two-fold. Firstly, it provided much needed military
aid at little cost, and would ensure interoperability with Soviet troops in the future since they
used the same weapons and ammunition. By supplying their own weapons to Communist
states, the Soviet Union was also forcing them to continue to remain an ally since they
would have to rely on the Russians to provide a continual supply of ammunition, spare parts,
and replacement rifles. The Soviets also had a political victory through
the proliferation of the AK-47. By much of the world using the rifle, especially
the vulnerable Third World or unaligned countries, they could claim that Soviet engineering was
superior to the West and they had beaten Western defense industries. It also helped to boost public opinion of
the regime at home. The Soviet Union was not necessarily known
for its high quality manufactured goods. Often, most household and domestic goods were
of far inferior quality to those produced in the West. By having a reliable arms industry that could
claim victory over Western products, the home industrial base could gain much needed public
confidence. Despite Russia’s desire to flood the world
with as many AK-47s as possible, they were optimistically cautious to continue improving
the design to keep pace with Western developments. During the first set of Army trials in 1948,
some major changes were made. The ejector was redesigned and the return
spring was thickened to make it more durable. Other smaller changes included recasting the
charging handle into a crescent shape. The next biggest development in the AK-47
came in the form of its receiver. The receiver is the main body of the rifle
where the trigger group, bolt assembly, and magazine well are located. Kalashnikov’s original design was a stamped
receiver. That means a piece of sheet metal is stamped
into a mold for a part. Doing so drastically cuts down costs by reducing
time and labor. But when Soviet authorities started to mass-produce
the rifle, they realized that creating stamped receivers in large quantities was not possible
at the time for Soviet technology. To compromise, they had to redesign the AK-47
receiver with the classic but more expensive method of milling. Milling involves taking a solid block of steel
and grinding it down into a receiver. Milled receivers have much tighter tolerances
than their stamped counterparts have, but take much longer to produce, driving up cost
and limiting production capacity. It would take years for Soviet technology
to finally adapt to producing a cost-effective and efficient stamped receiver, but in the
meantime, the country had militaries to arm and revolutions to ignite. Probably the most substantial boost to AK-47
production was the formation of the Warsaw Pact in 1955. This eight-country alliance in response to
the creation of NATO, dictated that any country attacked would elicit a response from the
others. The agreement also stated that these countries
would fall under unified command by a Russian general and would be supplied with the same
arms and ammunition: the AK-47. But the Soviet Union simply could not produce
the number of weapons needed to arm all these countries. After all, the Russians at this time only
operated two factories for their whole military. As a result, each of these countries was granted
licenses to produce their own local derivatives. In time, as these Communist countries became
hard up for cash, they turned to one of the few reliable and desirable export commodities
they had: weapons. In short order, these countries started exporting
arms just like the Russians were doing and in almost no time at all the AK-47 was and
remains to this day the most common rifle in the hands of soldiers. While the AK-47 would continue to get upgrades
later in life, such as an ammunition change that became the AK-74 or smaller changes that
became the AKM family, the principle of operation remained the same. Even with these later designs, the original
AK-47 makes up about 75 million of the current 100 million AK family-style rifles in the
world today, cementing its continued use for years to come.
