Renowned rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94

Neil

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R.I.P sir...

looks like god wanted a new weapon.... :p
 

Blackwater

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pakis owes millions of $$$ to MR Mikhail Kalashnikov .they are the one who copied ak-47 in peshawar without giving royalty to Mikhail Kalashnikov ..


:lol::lol:

Any ways RIP to Mikhail Kalashnikov
 

pkroyal

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pakis owes millions of $$$ to MR Mikhail Kalashnikov .they are the one who copied ak-47 in peshawar without giving royalty to Mikhail Kalashnikov ..


:lol::lol:

Any ways RIP to Mikhail Kalashnikov
The place is Darrah Aadam Khel ( DAK) in NWFP

I have seen a duplicate of a Smith & Wesson captured from a militant in the valley, difficult to tell the difference.

Ammunition is sold by the Kg in DAK , something like in our vegetable market.:confused:
 

Neil

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RIP Kalashnikov: 20 facts you may not have known about AK-47 and its creator

Fail-safe, simple to use and cheap to produce – the world's most popular weapon, AK-47, will long remain a monument to its late 'father,' Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died in Russia on Monday aged 94.

1. Mikhail Kalashnikov, who was a tank commander during World War II, began his career as a weapons designer after a shoulder injury during the Battle of Bryansk. While in hospital in 1942, he overheard wounded soldiers complaining about Soviet rifles and decided to change that.
2. The first Kalashnikov rifle was produced in 1947, bringing its creator the Stalin Prize and the Order of the Red Star. The AK-47 has been the standard issue assault rifle of the Soviet and then Russian army since 1949.

3. Durability, low production cost, availability and ease of use are the features, which assured AK-47 global success. Kalashnikov's creation performs in sandy or wet conditions that jam more sophisticated weapons. The designer called it a "symbol of the creative genius" of the Russian people.

4. The AK-47 has made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the most widely spread weapon in the world, with 100 million Kalashnikov rifles currently in use.

5. Military and special forces in 106 countries around the globe from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe are now armed with AK-47s.

6. Russia not only distributes the Kalashnikov rifles all over the world, but also licensed its production in over 30 other countries, including China, Israel, India, Egypt and Nigeria.

7. It is believed that AK-47s have caused more deaths than artillery fire, airstrikes and rocket attacks combined. An estimated quarter of a million people are gunned down by bullets from Kalashnikovs every year.

8. But Mikhail Kalashnikov himself never experienced self-reproach about the blood spilled with the help of his invention as he created AK-47 for protection. "I sleep well. It's the politicians, who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," he said in 2007.

9. Relative cheapness has always been one of the most important advantages of AK-47. The average global price of the assault rifle was estimated at $534 in 2005, according to Oxford University economist Phillip Killicoat. Though in African countries the price of AK-47 is on average $200 cheaper.

10. Osama bin Laden always had a Kalashnikov rifle with him during his video appearances. According to some reports, it was the US, which gave the Al Qaeda founder his first AK-47 to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.
11. During the Vietnam War, many American soldiers gave up their M16s for the more reliable Kalashnikov rifles, which they picked up from dead enemies. Even now, the US marines carry AK-47 magazines with them because of how common the weapon is.

12. The image of AK-47 appears on the flag of Mozambique as well as coats of arms of Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso (1984-97) and East Timor. The Kalashnikov rifle is also present on the flag of Lebanese militant organization, Hezbollah.

13. The parents in some African states name their babies 'Kalash,' which is another nickname for the Kalashnikov assault rifle, according to a documentary by Russia's Channel One.

14. Russia's top basketball player, Andrey Kirilenko, born in the city of Izhevsk, which hosts the Kalashnikov rifle factory, has played under No.47 in the NBA and was nicknamed 'AK-47.'

15. Egypt has immortalized the AK-47 by erecting a giant monument, portraying a barrel and bayonet of a Kalashnikov rifle at the Sinai Peninsula.

16. A gold coated Kalashnikov assault rifle was recovered by US troops from the weapon collection of former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein.

17. Coins dedicated to Mikhail Kalashnikov and his creation were issued not only in Russia, but also in such a peaceful place as New Zealand, which marked the rifle's 60th birthday with special two-dollar pieces. They came in cases shaped after the AK-47 magazine.

18. French newspaper, Liberation, has named AK-47 the most important invention of the XX century, with the Russian rifle leaving the atomic bomb and space flight behind.

19. Mixing vodka, absinth, lemon, cinnamon and sugar is the recipe for the Kalashnikov shot drink. There's also a Kalashnikov vodka brand, which has been sold in bottles resembling the shape of an AK-47 since 2004.

20. Colombian artist, Cesar Lopez, has transformed a dozen of AK-47s into guitars, with then UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, getting one of the musical instruments as a gift in 2007.

http://rt.com/news/kalashnikov-rifle-ak47-facts-691/
 

kseeker

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Kalashnikov will never fall silent - The Times of India

NEW DELHI: When Delhi's chief minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal pulled off an upset win against Congress stalwart Sheila Dikshit on December 8, we at The Times of India could think of only one analogy to honour the spectacular achievement—the AK-47. The blanket headline on one of our special pages read, 'Cong big guns fall silent as AK booms'. The rest of Indian media took the cue from us and Kejriwal became the new AK, a giant slayer.

On December 23, the man who gave us this iconic name passed away. Lieutenant General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was 94.
On Friday, Kalashnikov was given an elaborate state funeral in Mytishchi outside Moscow. His mortal remains were interred in the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery, an exclusive burial ground for Russia's national heroes. As his coffin was lowered, Russian ceremonial troops gave him a gun salute by firing AK-47s, a final tribute to the man who had invented the world's most popular firearm and etched his name in hot lead in the annals of military history and science. He went to his grave without carrying any moral burden or guilt, save an unfulfilled wish of creating something useful for farmers.

Across the globe, opinion about Kalashnikov's unrivaled legacy is divided: some call him the inventor of the world's most popular killing machine, while others see him as the man who created the most potent symbol of liberation and anti-imperialist struggle. Standing testimonies to the latter argument are the AK symbols on the national flag of Mozambique, the coat of arms of Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso (1984-97) and Fiji, and the flag of Hezbollah. The AK-47 would equip conventional armies and guerrillas/terrorists alike. It would reap a bloody harvest wherever it opened up: the killing fields of Vietnam to the strife-torn lands in Africa, the rocky terrain of the Hindukush to the burning peninsula of Jaffna, the tropical rainforests of Assam to the arid streets of Syria.

Kalashnikov himself never thought that his creation would be so hotly debated even 66 years after it first came out. Nay, he never wanted to be a weapon maker. He was only fired by a great desire to create something for the defence of Mother Russia that was invaded by Nazi Germany in World War II.

In the battlefield of Bryansk in 1941, Kalashnikov was a senior staff sergeant and commanded a T-34 tank. He was wounded fighting the Panzer division of General Joachim Lemelsen, but made it to a Soviet field hospital on foot. Recuperating from his wounds, Kalashnikov studied the enemy's weapons and compared those with what his own force had. He was impressed by Germany's latest innovation—the Sturmgweher 44, the world's first assault rifle. Yet he was also sure of the power the Soviet PPsh or 'poppashot' possessed: a submachine gun that could pulverize a target by maintaining a constant rate of fire and which was also easy to maintain. He wondered if the power of the two could be packed into one, solid weapon. The result was the AK-47 that looked much like the Stg-44, but had a higher rate of fire. In over 60 years, 100 million AK rifles would be spread across the globe.

Kalashnikov's legacy is every bit cultural as it is military and political. And Indians don't have to look elsewhere to understand this but just look within.The AK has both tormented us and saved us major embarrassment in battle. India first encountered the might of this weapon during the Chinese aggression of 1962, when our jawans, fighting with the Ishapore 2A1 7.62mm bolt-action rifles, Sten guns, Sterling submachine guns and Bren guns struggled to counter enfilading fire of the Chinese who were armed with AK rifles. Though Indian disaster was more to do with bad planning of the high command and a weak supply chain, the immense stopping power of the AK-47 didn't escape notice.

India would eventually adopt the Kalashnikovs, though not wholly: like the British, she too would choose the Belgian-made FN-FAL as the primary infantry rifle and christen it 1A1 SLR (the British called it L1A1 SLR). Decades later, India replaced it with the indigenous INSAS rifle, which was based on the AK-47. But it didn't pass muster at Kargil in 1999.

"Kargil went badly for us initially. The new INSAS 5.56 rifles were not up to the mark. Many of us badly missed our old SLRs. This new rifle would either jam or its components crack. Also, sometimes the gun would fire in full-auto mode when the selector switch was turned to the burst mode (three shots at a time). Funny, it didn't have a full-auto mode," recalls an Indian Army officer who fought in the war. AK rifles were hurriedly sent to the frontline. "The Kalashnikovs were both lifesavers and face-savers for us at Kargil," the officer adds.

Another officer of 17 Garhwal Rifles who battled militancy in Kashmir believes the AK-47 gave him and his troops a big morale boost. "I was chasing a militant armed with an AK-56 once. That chap just ran, but kept on firing his rifle. And then my SLR jammed. I lay flat on the ground, hoping that my adversary won't stop to turn back; if he did, I would be done for. Thankfully, he never did. But others weren't that lucky. But when we got the AKs, the situation changed completely. I knew I had 30 rounds of rock and roll and no bloody militant would dare face me when my Kalashnikov opened up," he says.

More than a decade after Kargil, India's paramilitary would cry 'mayday' in the Maoist belts after being outflanked and outgunned in Chhattisgarh. Their succour would be the same AK rifles. Forest guards in Assam would ask for them, too, as rhino and tiger poachers would give up their shotguns in favour of the AK-47. Mumbai police would arm its lower rung with the Kalashnikov after 26/11 terrorists brought hell and fire on the force. And there may be more instances in the future when crisis would warrant the intervention of the AKs.

Experts believe Kalashnikov's invention would remain a great game-changer for a long time to come. This gun will never fall silent.
 

kseeker

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Why General Kalashnikov couldn't sell the AK in India : India, News - India Today


Indian army soldiers with Romanian AK-47s in Srinagar.

Russia's greatest small arms designer Lt General Mikhail Timofeyvich Kalashnikov was buried with full state honors in Moscow on December 27. The ceremony for the legendary gun designer, who died aged 94 on December 23, was attended by President Vladimir Putin.

General Kalashnikov visited India only once, in February 2004 where he kicked up a row. The star attraction at Defexpo, a biennial defence exhibition in the capital, was being escorted around the stalls at Delhi's Pragati Maidan. He stood transfixed at the Indian Ordnance Factory board pavilion. On display there was a knock-off of his assault rifle with its distinctive banana shaped magazine. The pretense was so thinly veiled that the weapon was even called the 'AK-7'. The general made his disgust known. The OFB had illegally copied his design. His protest had an instant impact. OFB shelved the AK-7. Izhmash, the Russian factory that has produced the rifle since it was accepted for service in 1947, however did not pursue the copyright violation. Andrey Vishnyakov, Izhmash's fast-talking sales manager told me it was purely business. Russia hoped to sell the OFB the rights to make genuine AK-47s. Roughly two-thirds of India's military hardware, MiG fighters, T-72 tanks and Kilo-class submarines, were of Soviet origin.

What had baffled the arms factory executive was that India had however not purchased the pinnacle of Soviet engineering design, the ruggedly simple AK-47 from Russia. They had instead, Vishniyakov told me ruefully, bought poorer cousins made in the East Block. The Soviet Union had aggressively exported AK designs along with its ideology. But had not patented the design as rigorously. Now, its capitalist successor, the Russian Federation, felt the pinch from over a dozen countries that continued to manufacture the rifle.


An Andhra Pradesh police commando with a Bulgarian-made AK-47.

The Indian army had discarded its bolt-action .303 Lee Enfield rifle after the debacle of the 1962 war. The venerable rifle had been outgunned by Chinese variants of the AK rifles. The Belgian FN-FAL L1A1 7.62 mm Self Loading Rifle license produced by the OFB since the 1962 war was obsolete by the 1980s when the Indian army found just why militants in Punjab, Kashmir and Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka favored the AK-47. Optimized for close range combat, light, easily-concealed, its tremendous firepower of over 100 rounds a minute, leveled the playing field for inferior forces. The rifle was rugged and required little maintenance and survived after being buried in muddy fields and immersed in water. These were lessons the US army had come up against fighting in Vietnam in the 1960s. But while the US replaced the bulky, self-loading M14 with the lighter M16 in the early years of Vietnam, the DRDO-designed indigenous Indian Small Arms Systems or INSAS assault rifle that promised deliverance, was still years away from induction in the 1980s. The Indian army looked at short term solutions. It equipped itself with some of over 12,000 AKs it had captured from insurgents in the mid-1990s. Many of these captured weapons were ironically, made in Russian factories like Izhmash and Tula.


The Rashtriya Rifles unit insignia.

The army then turned to Romania, Bulgaria and erstwhile Czechoslovakia that made cheap AK variants. Among the first AKs purchased for the Indian army were the Czech-made VZ-58, an assault rifle that outwardly resembled the AK.

The rifle also filtered into Indian folklore. Sanjay Dutt was first jailed for possessing an 'AK-56' in 1993 (actually, a Norinco Type-56, the Chinese variant of the AK). The Rashtriya Rifles, an army formation that fights insurgency in J&K since 1990, has two crossed AK-47s as its unit insignia. Despite the induction of the indigenous INSAS rifle after the Kargil war in 1999, Indian army units in militancy affected regions continue to be equipped with the AK. India continues to be one of the world's largest importers of AK-type rifles. Again, these weapons aren't from Kalashnikov factories in Russia but from Bulgaria. The home ministry has bought over 100,000 Bulgarian-made AKs in the past decade to equip police and paramilitary units.


AK-47s manufactured in Russia and China captured by the Indian army from infiltrators in the Keran sector in October this year.


A Bulgarian AK-47 with its distinctive black plastic finish cost just Rs.22,000 in 2011. This was significantly cheaper than the Russian AK variant made in Izhmash and Rs.5000 less than even the INSAS assault rifle. One home ministry official told me that the Bulgarian manufacturer, Arsenal, ran three shifts a day to keep up with the Indian order. Against this AK onslaught from the erstwhile East Block, Russia's Izhmash had only a small glimmer of hope, a modest sale of AK-104s, to the Marine commandos, a decade ago. Hopes of selling newer AK variants to the Indian army have faded. The Indian army is looking at a multi-caliber rifle, one that can shoot both 5.56 mm and 7.62 mm bullets, as the weapon to replace the INSAS and the AK-47. Izhmash now belatedly called the Kalashnikov concern since August this year, is out of the contest because it does not have such a weapon. Even Russia's other option, India's vast paramilitary forces, may soon be weaned away from AK imports. The OFB has developed yet another AK-47 clone, the Trichy Assault Rifle. India's fascination for the AK-47 continues. Only that General Kalashnikov's design may not roll out of a Russian factory.
 

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Russia unveils statue of AK-47 inventor Kalashnikov

AFP | Sep 19, 2017, 17:28 IST

MOSCOW: Russian officials and Orthodox priests on Tuesday unveiled a statue in Moscow of inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose iconic AK-47 assault rifle has claimed countless lives worldwide.

A priest sprinkled holy water on the seven-metre tall statue of Kalashnikov gripping his deadly creation, which will now loom over motorists from a traffic island in one of the sprawling capital's central thoroughfares.

Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky praised the inventor and called the rifle — which has been reproduced an estimated 100 million times worldwide — a "cultural brand for Russia."

Kalashnikov had "the best traits of a Russian: an extraordinary natural gift, simplicity, integrity," Medinsky said.

Born in a Siberian village in 1919, Mikhail Kalashnikov died in December 2013 in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia, where he lived.

Kalashnikov came up with the idea of inventing a new automatic rifle that could work in all conditions after becoming disgruntled by the Soviet weaponry as he recovered from an injury during WWII.

Eventually that would lead to the creation of the AK-47 — short in Russian for Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 (Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle 1947) — that would become the standard issue for the Soviet Union's vast armed forces.

Known for its simplicity, the gun became a symbol for independence struggles and leftist radicals around the world during the Cold War, finding its way onto the national flag of Mozambique and the banner of Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah.

But Mikhail Kalashnikov never touched the fortunes from the sales of millions of the rifles that bear his name and used by the armies of over 80 countries. He stopped working only a year before his death, at the age of 93.

While his invention made Kalashnikov a household name around the globe, the man himself had a more nuanced view of his lethal creation.

Six months before his death he wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, expressing regret for his role in making the world's most commonly used rifle.

"My spiritual pain is unbearable," he wrote in the letter which was later published in the Izvestia newspaper.
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The erection of a monument to the gunmaker — who met personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2013 — has raised eyebrows among some Muscovites.




But the move chimes with a surge of nationalist pride under Putin that has seen the Kremlin glorify the military achievements of the Soviet period while playing down the gross abuses.
TOP COMMENT
This revolutionary invention is on par with the invention of atomic bomb. Hope nobody would invent such thingsvijay thommandra


The Kalashnikov factory that makes the rifles, in decline since the death of the inventor, has since been modernised, with most of its capital coming from private investors.




It has also been transformed by a PR campaign to improve its image in Russia and abroad, even opening a souvenir store in Moscow's main Sheremetyevo Airport.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
:salute:
 

HariPrasad-1

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The inventor of the iconic AK-47 assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died at the age of 94. "Today news sad news has arrived that Mikhail Kalashnikov has died after a lengthy illness," said the statement from the press secretary of the Udmurtia administration Viktor Chulkov. Kalashnikov, who had been suffering from heart-related problems in recent years, had been in intensive care in Izhevsk - where the plant that produces the eponymous rifles is located - since November 17. For most of his life, Kalashnikov was feted as an uncontroversial hero. The self-taught peasant turned tank mechanic who never finished high school, but achieved a remarkable and lasting feat of engineering while still in his twenties. But as the rifles, inextricably linked forever to their creator by name, were more and more commonly seen in the hands of terrorists, radicals and child soldiers, the inventor was often forced to defend himself to journalists. He was forever asked if he regretted engineering the weapon that probably killed more than any other in the last fifty years. "I invented it for the protection of the Motherland. I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it," he told them. On a few occasions, when in a more reflective mood, the usually forceful Kalashnikov wondered what might have been. "I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists," he said once. "I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work – for example a lawnmower."


Read more here-
Renowned rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94 — RT News
He had many innovations in military in addition to Kalashnikov. Salute to him. His weapon has send more people to hell than any other weapon in the world history. Score is 20 million+ +.
 

Johny_Baba

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Kalashnikov Convern is releasing a biographical movie on Mikhail Kalashnikov and his invention that bears his name

"Kalashnikov" - releasing on this friday



Here is the trailer


i kinda feel they've made loose attempts at recreating and showing original early prototype AK47s in this movie as very early prototypes looked like this instead of famous "Type-1" AK47 that went to mass production around 1949

Prototype AK-47
 

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