Scientific Dictatorship

The Gun
AK-47 History

Esquire

...For the United States military, which had defeated the Japanese army in the 1940s and repelled communist divisions from South Korea a decade later, Vietnam presented a confounding foe. The Vietcong guerrillas and North Vietnamese regulars were marginally educated, lightly equipped, minimally trained. More than half the NVA soldiers in late 1966 had six years or less of education, and three quarters of them had less than eighteen months in their army. They were peasants, agrarian villagers indoctrinated in Marxist-Leninist ideology and fighting according to tactics articulated by Mao. American intelligence officials marveled that few of them had undergone significant training with live ammunition before being sent out against South Vietnamese and American forces. Many captured enemy fighters told of firing weapons for the first time only in combat. And yet by 1967 the Vietcong and the NVA were killing nearly eight hundred American servicemen each month.

One reason for their success was their weapons. In the mid-1950s, the Kremlin had provided Mao's arms engineers with the technical specifications for its new assault rifle, the AK-47. China had set up assembly lines to make its own version — the Type 56 — and by 1964 had distributed huge quantities of these weapons in Southeast Asia. The weapons were in some ways the ultimate compromise firearm: Shorter and lighter than traditional rifles but larger than submachine guns, they could be fired either automatically or a single shot at a time. Their smaller, intermediate-power cartridges allowed soldiers and guerrillas to carry more ammunition into battle than before, and reduced the costs and burdens of resupply. All this and they were an eminently well designed tool — reliable, durable, resistant to corrosion, and with moderate recoil and a design so simple that their basics could be mastered in a matter of hours. A large fraction of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army combatants now carried these new assault rifles as their primary weapons. In some units the saturation rate was as high as 75 percent, and many soldiers had been given a basic load of 390 cartridges to go with their new gun. Vietnam was this new breed of rifleman's war: The majority of American combat fatalities, statistics would show, were caused by small-arms fire. This was new. For the first time, local fighters were a technological match against the well-equipped expeditionary forces of an empire. The battlefield had been leveled. Stalin's rifle, once a hushed secret, had broken out. It was changing the experience of small-unit war.

Then came reaction. Since the AK-47, or Kalashnikov, had first surfaced, the American military had dismissed it as cheap and ineffective. But as this new weapon's cracking bursts were heard in battle each day, the Eastern bloc's assault rifle at last captured the Pentagon's attention. It marked the Kremlin's influence on how war was experienced by combatants of limited means — the Kalashnikov-carrying guerrilla, a common man with portable and easy-to-use automatic arms, was now in the field by the tens of thousands, and these men were outgunning American troops. To close the gun gap, the Pentagon rushed the M16 into service...[Full Article]

Labels: AK-47, weapons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptpb3gHBbrQ

Explore the motherland of the Kalashnikov assault rifle - the town of Izhevsk - with RT's Close-Up team.

Izhevsk is the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia, located in the Western Urals area of Central Russia. It is where Mikhail Kalashnikov designed his famed AK. But Izhevsk is not just the city that produces the world's most popular weapon. It is also a stronghold of defense manufacturing and innovative technologies: Izhevsk-based Zala Aero is the leading producer of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in Russia.

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Labels: AK-47, Kalashnikov, Russia Today, UAV, video

Buy a truck get an AK-47 rifle



SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - The headline really isn't a joke. A Sanford truck dealership is offering a free AK-47 with the purchase of a truck.

General Sales Manager Nick Ginetta tells FOX 35, the weapon won't be sitting in the passenger seat or a gun rack when you sign the paperwork and get the keys, instead you get a voucher. "Now you take that voucher, you go down to Shoot Straight. You present the voucher. They will fill out all federal and state forms, and a background check. If you are eligible for that weapon, you'll be entitled to it."...

[Full Article]

Labels: AK-47, auto sales, firearms

M4 Vs. AK-47: Is U.S. Army Outgunned In Afghanistgan?

Despite the ages-old rifles in Taliban hands, reports suggest our soldiers may be outgunned in Afghanistan's hills. To counter, the Army plans a slew of upgrades to curtain weapons -- and several entirely new guns.

Taliban fighters in Afghanistan are attacking U.S. Army soldiers with AK-47s, while the army relies upon the M4 Assault rifle. The AK-47 uses a larger bullet, which leads to more kickback upon firing. Some reports indicate that the U.S. Army is looking to upgrade the weapons being used in Afghanistan to larger caliber guns.

An AP report published over the weekend in Army Times argued that the M4 rifle's light bullets lack sufficient velocity and killing power in long-range firefights. The report states that the U.S. is considering a switch to weapons that fire a larger round, one largely discarded in the 1960s.

"What's the right caliber?" asks Jim Battaglini, executive vice president with Colt Defense and a retired major gen with the U.S. Marine Corps. "The debate has been ongoing for over 40 years, with pros and cons for all options being considered."...

[Full Article]

Labels: AK-47, M4

US Rifles Not Suited To Warfare In Afghan Hills

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military's workhorse rifle — used in battle for the last 40 years — is proving less effective in Afghanistan against the Taliban's more primitive but longer range weapons.

As a result, the U.S. is reevaluating the performance of its standard M-4 rifle and considering a switch to weapons that fire a larger round largely discarded in the 1960s.

The M-4 is an updated version of the M-16, which was designed for close quarters combat in Vietnam. It worked well in Iraq, where much of the fighting was in cities such as Baghdad, Ramadi and Fallujah.

But a U.S. Army study found that the 5.56 mm bullets fired from M-4s don't retain enough velocity at distances greater than 1,000 feet (300 meters) to kill an adversary. In hilly regions of Afghanistan, NATO and insurgent forces are often 2,000 to 2,500 feet (600-800 meters) apart.

Afghans have a tradition of long-range ambushes against foreign forces. During the 1832-1842 British-Afghan war, the British found that their Brown Bess muskets could not reach insurgent sharpshooters firing higher-caliber Jezzail flintlocks.

Soviet soldiers in the 1980s found that their AK-47 rifles could not match the World War II-era bolt-action Lee-Enfield and Mauser rifles used by mujahedeen rebels.

"These are important considerations in Afghanistan, where NATO forces are frequently attacked by insurgents using ... sharpshooter's rifles, which are all chambered for a full-powered cartridge which dates back to the 1890s," said Paul Cornish, curator of firearms at the Imperial War Museum in London.

The heavier bullets enable Taliban militants to shoot at U.S. and NATO soldiers from positions well beyond the effective range of the coalition's rifles...

[Full Article]

Labels: Afghanistan, AK-47, M-16, M-4, Taliban