AK47 assault rifle designer Kalashnikov dies at 94

[Gob]

The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian officials say.



The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons.

Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.

Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower.

Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November.

Mikhail Kalashnikov's 1947 design became the standard equipment of the Soviet and Warsaw pact armies. Versions were manufactured in several other countries, including China.

With its distinctive curved magazine, the Kalashnikov became a revolutionary icon in the hands of militants and insurgents around the globe.

When I met him in Paris, he proudly wore the insignia of a Hero of Socialist Labour on his jacket. He seemed perplexed at the extraordinary changes that had engulfed his country.

He was sensitive to any criticism that his gun had caused countless casualties around the world. He told me he had simply designed the rifle to defend the Soviet Union. The uses to which it had been put elsewhere were nothing to do with him, he said.

The Kalashnikov - which is still widely used today - will go down in history. If the name of Samuel Colt and his revolver is associated with the 19th Century, then the gun of the 20th Century is undoubtedly the Kalashnikov.

He died on Monday in Izhevsk, the city where he lived 600 miles east of Moscow, an official there said.

[dales]

Sturmgewehr 44


The StG 44 (Sturmgewehr 44, literally "storm [or assault] rifle [model of 19]44") was an assault rifle developed in Nazi Germany during World War II that was the first of its kind to see major deployment and is considered by many historians to be the first modern assault rifle.[5] It is also known under the designations MP 43 and MP 44 (Maschinenpistole 43, Maschinenpistole 44 respectively), which denote earlier development versions of the same weapon with some differences like a different butt end, muzzle nut, shape of the front sight base or with an unstepped barrel, all only visible with close inspection.