You may be familiar with the following sentence: "The United States exports Coca-Cola abroad, Japan exports Sony electrical appliances, and the Soviet Union exports Kalashnikov assault rifles." This phrase, which was once very popular in the middle of the Cold War, is to show the world's weapons community the mythical status of the AK series of rifles, and its inventor, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has become a household name in the world because of the abbreviation of "K" in AK.
This past November 10 marks the 100th anniversary of Kalashnikov's birth, and russia held a massive celebration to commemorate his deeds and outstanding contributions to Soviet Russia. Including russian military executives gathered at the Kalashnikov Museum to visit, sort out and maintain the legendary rifle in front of the statue of this great man, and to play a documentary film documenting his life.
On the 10th, at least hundreds of Russian children gathered in a park on the streets of Moscow, dressed in camouflage costumes, participated in the AK paint bomb war, and learned to assemble a model version of the AK series of rifles under the organization of relevant agencies and departments. Stark, head of the youth agency that organized the competition, proudly told the media: "Today at least hundreds of people are involved in disassembling and assembling the AK-47. Stark believed that children must learn to be patriotic, so it was necessary to know how to assemble this well-known weapon.
Kalashnikov's AK-47 series assault rifle is the most classic "image spokesperson" of Russian-made rifles and influenced the design of subsequent Russian rifles. Its short body, short range, the use of pneumatic principle automation design, because of the simple structure, easy to disassemble and assemble, coupled with the benefit of cleaning and maintenance, AK series rifles can be adapted to the desert, tropical rainforest and polar and other harsh environments, and normal use. In the Vietnam War, the AK-47 and the United States M-14, M-16, compared with the reliability, is much higher, even in the mud pit soaked for half a day to pick up can still be normal fire, is the Vietnamese guerrilla attack on the U.S. military the best weapon, AK series of rifles are also regarded as the most reliable light weapons, and continues to this day.
AK rate of fire is about 10 rounds per second, the effective range does not exceed 400 meters, the use of mostly 30 rounds of standard rifle magazines, can be adjusted between fully automatic and semi-automatic firing modes, AK-47 after the derivative model includeSM, AK-74, AK-12 and so on.
Kalashnikov had fought in the Soviet-German War the previous year, but after being wounded, he returned home to recuperate in 1941, and in his spare time he began to modify his own submachine gun and entered the gun factory as a technician. Kalashnikov invented the AK-47 assault rifle in 1947, but it was not optimistic for the first 2 years, until 1949, when the automatic rifle became the standard weapon of the Soviet army and gradually spread to the world.
Interestingly, although the AK series of rifles was invented by the Soviet Union, before the 21st century, less than 10% of the AK-47 and subsequent models of rifles circulating around the world came from the Soviet Union, and all other firearms were foreign imitations of "A goods". The reason for this was mainly due to the intention of the Soviet Union, and the Fact that the Soviet Union did not have a patent system, and the imitation of such light weapons was not held accountable, so even if AK could be seen all over the world, Kalashnikov did not become a rich man for inventing the gun - because he could not collect royalties.
Kalashnikov died of illness in December 2013 at the age of 94 in 2012 when he called for the state to give priority to protecting its arms industry and establishing a patenting ceremony. To this day, the Kalashnikov family's factory continues to produce and improve the gun, introducing new rifles such as the AK-15, as well as an improved and upgraded version of the Dragunov Sniper Rifle (SVD) SVCh, which was corrected according to past shortcomings, including stock, bullet loading method and aiming accuracy, which was regarded by Russia as surpassing modern sniper rifles, and even Russian President Putin personally tested and shot this new weapon and was praised.
Kalashnikov still has an indissoluble relationship with China. According to the Global Times in December 2013, the Battle of Treasure Island in March 1969 shocked the world, and Kalashnikov said in an interview with his own media: "Believe it or not, I swore never to go to China, because during the conflict, I saw Chinese soldiers shooting Soviet soldiers with AK-47 rifles in newsreels, and I cried when I saw that scene." However, in 1990, the relevant departments of China's ordnance industry invited technical experts from the Soviet Izhevsk Arsenal to China for exchanges, and the focus of this was to invite Kalashnikov to visit China. Kalashnikov once recalled: "The leaders of the Izhevsk factory approached me and said that all the grievances were over, after all, the Chinese and Russian peoples were eternal brothers. Thus, in August 1991, Kalashnikov visited China accompanied by his son Victor and others, and China's hospitality and longing for Soviet aid changed Kalashnikov's impression. He greatly appreciates the diligence and dedication of his Chinese counterparts: "I am amazed at the production of high-quality firearms under conditions that can be said to be 'bad'." I feel that whether in China or Russia, only labor can create everything. I wish the friendship between the Chinese and Russian peoples a long and lasting life, and I wish the Chinese youth a happy life and a successful career. ”