
AK47 assault rifle inventor Kalashnikov dies at 94 - yawz
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25497013
======
redthrowaway
I think it's telling to look at what the design goals of the AK were when it
was first conceived:

1) It was to be the primary weapon of the World Wide Socialist Revolution.
That means it had to operate reliably in every environment on Earth, from the
Siberian tundra to the jungles of Central America to the deserts of the Middle
East. It would have to work flawlessly in a -50C blizzard and a +50C
sandstorm, as well as in near 100% humidity while caked in mud.

2) It was to be cheaply produced by the million in not particularly advanced
Soviet factories, by people who were not highly trained, then shipped to all
corners of the Earth.

3) It was to be used by guerrillas, generally poorly trained peasants,
fighting to overthrow professional US-backed armies (see: Cuba). Thus the
rifle had to allow untrained fighters to go toe-to-toe with professional
warriors, given the constraints of the fight as it was imagined: hit-and-run,
ambushes, etc.

When you look at the number of design criteria it had to fulfill that had
nothing to do with its merits as a marksman's weapon, it's amazing how well
Kalashnikov achieved what he set out to do. The fact that it's still the
primary weapon of insurgents, rebels, and terrorists 60+ years later is
testament to that. As an engineering feat, it's an absolute marvel.

~~~
agrostis
Minor correction: in 1947, when the AK was developed, World Wide Socialist
Revolution, as you put it, was not on the agenda for quite some time. The idea
of Soviet autarky (“establishing socialism in one particular country”) has
been adopted by Stalin as far back as in 1924, the World Revolution slogan has
been removed from the USSR Constitution when it was revised in 1936, and by
1943 Stalin has done away with Comintern, the organization which was conceived
(by Lenin and Trotsky, originally) with the aim of propagating revolution to
capitalist countries.

In 1947, USSR was indeed preparing for a possible World War III against the US
and UK, but the general idea of this war, at least in the East, was that of a
conflict of nations. That said, guerilla tactics and the involvement of
irregular fighting forces had proved to be quite effective during WWII, and
so, of course, the new weapon had to be designed with such uses in mind.

~~~
walshemj
No pre ww2 research had proved in a number of places that a weapon smaller
intermediate cartridge around 7mm was better that the traditional bulky long
ranged rifle caliber weapons the SMLE for example - especially for non
professional army with little training.

The AK was just good implementation of the concept and influenced by the
German STG 44 and the use of SMG's like the PPSh-41 by Soviet forces.

the UK post Ww2 tried to move to this with the EM-2 .280 but was stymied by
the USA's instance on retaining the macho full power rifle cartridge.

~~~
agrostis
I have to confess that my knowledge of the history of weapons is rudimentary,
so I gladly accede to your point; my previous remark only concerned Soviet
geopolitics as it stood in 1947 vs. 1920.

~~~
redthrowaway
And your point was correct, and sloppy of me. I knew that one of the reasons
Trotsky split from Stalin was over Socialism in One Country (in addition to
the growing bureaucracy), but I'd thought it was still always the plan to
eventually spread socialism globally.

------
michalu
Of course he created it for defence. Few years before he made the design
Russia was invaded out of blue by an army with a goal to enslave whole nation.
The plans of Nazis executed in Poland included systematically malnourishing
nation to break the spirit and physique of young, giving no education to
slavic kids except counting to 500 and learning to serve Nazis like gods. And
this was actually executed. (add 16% of your population killed for no reason,
gas chambers etc.)

Now experience all this like Kalashnikov did, and I guess you would think
differently about the role of guns then most people do now in 2013.

~~~
refurb
_Few years before he made the design Russia was invaded out of blue by an army
with a goal to enslave whole nation._

Don't forget that Russia was invaded by the same army they colluded with to
split up and enslave the nation of Poland.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact)

~~~
michalu
They did, and so Great Britain and France pacted with Nazis to give in
Czechoslovakia in "Munich betrayal" Czechoslavakia was an ally with Fr/GB
agreeing to defend each other and they were much better prepared for war. In
WW2 none of the main actors were innocent.

~~~
gaius
As I said on here recently before, Chamberlain had no choice. Britain was not
ready to fight (see Dunkirk). He was playing for time.

~~~
bradleyjg
That's true, in 1938 Britain wasn't ready to fight. Probably not in May 1937
when Chamberlain became PM either. But Chamberlain was a high government
official (arguably #2 overall) from 1931. The fact that the British military
was where it was, and the German military was where it was, in 1938 was partly
his responsibility.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Hindsight is always 20/20\. Chamberlain didn't see it coming in 1931, events
moved swiftly after 1937.

------
TallGuyShort
I'm biased by being a gun enthusiast and AK-variant owner myself, but I quite
admire him as an engineer. It is an excellent design: simple, robust, time-
proven, and easy to manufacture. Always a shame when great engineering is
shadowed by violence, however. He has said that it should have been a weapon
of defense, not offense. "It is painful for me to see when criminal elements
of all kinds fire from my weapon".

~~~
rayiner
Violence is a key part of the human experience and unsurprisingly we devote
tremendous intellectual resources to the task. Much of the history of
engineering is devoted to facilitating violence. I never got engineers who
tried to distance themselves from that aspect of the profession.

~~~
mertd
In what way is prematurely ending a fellow humans life "key" to my experience?

~~~
obstacle1
The situation into which you were born and the condition of your life are/were
shaped by violent action. Ask yourself what your life would look like had the
World Wars not happened, or had the UK not built an industrial empire based on
forceful colonization, or had the American civil war never happened, as
examples.

~~~
mertd
I'm not sure what your point is. A lot of negative factors contributed to the
state of the world that we were born into. Are we supposed to accept these as
essential elements of life and keep the status quo?

~~~
obstacle1
The point is that violence _is_ key to your experience. You (and most of us
postimg here) are just lucky enough to reap the benefits from a safe distance.

------
dsy
_However, pride in his invention was tempered with sadness at its use by
criminals_

This makes me wonder if when I am 94, people will look at me, a data
scientist, in much the same way: "well of course AK-47 was not only used to
defend Russia's border but also by criminals and militant countries to kill a
ton of people"

    
    
      :s/AK-47/your favorite AI algorithm/
    
      :s/defend Russia's borders/some harmless ad targeting platform/
    
      :s/criminals and militant countries/aggressive BigCo/
    
      :s/kill a ton of people/something really evil/
    

Clearly, it's a lot easier to see the evil consequences when you design a
rifle. And yet, maybe I'm just being blind too.

</technophobic comment. back to work on some convolutional neural network
implementation, and back to job hunting at companies that promise "don't be
evil", rather than "won't be evil">

 _Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable
and easy to maintain_

    
    
      "ayy
    

Edit: typos (thanks herge)

~~~
mnemonicsloth
Upton Sinclair: _It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when
his salary depends upon his not understanding it_

You aren't blind. Now what are you going to do about it?

------
danohuiginn
To be honoured by a 100-million-gun salute?

I'd highly recommend "The Gun", a history of the Kalashnikov by New York Times
journalist CJ Chivers. [his blog and articles are also excellent].

Kalashnikov-like guns are maybe comparable to the shipping container:
relatively simple mass-produced objects that have transformed the world in all
kinds of ways. Kalashnikov the man was only a small part of that (he was more
figurehead than sole creator).

~~~
sitkack
We used shipping containers to kill captured Afghans via asphyxiation in 2001
[http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/07/13/the-convoy-of-
de...](http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/07/13/the-convoy-of-death-will-
obama-investigate-the-afghan-massacre-of-november-2001/)

from the linked newyorktimes article:

    
    
        Survivors and witnesses told The New York Times and Newsweek in 2002 
        that over a three-day period, Taliban prisoners were stuffed into closed
        metal shipping containers and given no food or water; many suffocated
        while being trucked to the prison. Other prisoners were killed when
        guards shot into the containers. The bodies were said to have been
        buried in a mass grave in Dasht-i-Leili, a stretch of desert just
        outside Shibarghan.
    

If I were to do it again, I'd use autonomous drones with buggy firmware, or
just change the Rules of Engagement so that it was a free fire zone until I
decided it wasn't.

~~~
greedo
We? Who is the "we" you're referring to? If you're an afghani, or a relative
of Dostum, you can say "we." But this was an afghani atrocity, not one
perpetrated by the West. And before you say that the CIA is connected due to
their aid to the Northern Alliance, correlation doesn't mean causation.

Ask the hazara how well they were treated by the Taliban. This neck of the
woods is full of people who make it a game to kill off their rivals. I
wouldn't be surprised if the translation of "compromise" in pashto means "wait
til we can kill all of them."

~~~
hisham_hm
> And before you say that the CIA is connected due to their aid to the
> Northern Alliance, correlation doesn't mean causation.

"correlation doesn't mean causation":, you're using it wrong.

------
mpg33
Title is slightly misleading...he invented the widely used AK-47. The first
assault rifle was the Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) invented by the Germans during
WW2.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#Legacy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#Legacy)

~~~
chops
So he's _an_ assault rifle inventor, not _the_ assault rifle inventor. The
title isn't necessarily misleading so much as ambiguous.

~~~
goldenkey
It's neither. AK47 assault rifle + inventor. What's not to get?

~~~
chops
_Insert comment about how changed titles make entire threads of conversation
make it seem like people are talking about different things_

------
yawz
We live in a strange world. I guess because we are a strange species. Humans
have been good at killing (each other) since the dawn of time (well... since
we were able push, hit, bite, etc. each other). So I don't doubt that if it
wasn't for AK-47 then something else would have taken its place but it is,
nonetheless, a very creepy thing to have your name becoming popular thanks to
the one of the most popular killing tools/machines out there.

~~~
_delirium
He did mention in an interview once that he wished he had become famous for
inventing an agricultural machine instead: "Blame the Nazi Germans for making
me become a gun designer. I always wanted to construct agricultural
machinery."

Quoted in this artice:
[http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/12/23/mikhail_kalashn...](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/12/23/mikhail_kalashnikov_designer_of_ak47_rifle_dead_at_94.html)

~~~
k-mcgrady
The BBC article I read on this mentioned something similar although it was
more along the lines of he said didn't make any money from the gun, he would
have been better off (made more money) by designing a lawn mower.

~~~
_delirium
I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with the money, but his desire
to improve production rather than destruction. Here's an article with the
lawn-mower comment you're thinking of:
[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/30/russia.kateconn...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/30/russia.kateconnolly)

Another comment of his (quoted in the thestar.com article above) suggests that
he didn't think much of making money from inventions: "At that time in our
country patenting inventions wasn't an issue. We worked for Socialist society,
for the good of the people, which I never regret".

------
tlear
AK47 is a masterpiece of design, I bet it will still be in wide use when all
of the people reading this are long dead.

~~~
qwerta
I would not call it masterpiece. It is cheap and easy to make. But otherwise
it was "good enough" weapon even for soviets.

~~~
mikeash
Being cheap and easy to make while still being an effective weapon of war is
what makes it a masterpiece.

------
brudgers
In the abstract, the Kalshnikov is interesting as a design which scaled well
and that provided the right set of design trade-offs to remain a viable choice
among small arms for more than half a century.

~~~
dingaling
Indeed! By accounts Korobov's 1946 rival ( the TKB-408 ) was technically more
sophisticated with more potential, but that ensnared it during testing and the
AK passed. Excellence vs good enough.

Ten years later Korobov tried again with the 517 rifle, but again Kalashnikov
prevailed with the AKM because of its commonality with the vast installed-base
of AKs.

~~~
varjag
> By accounts Korobov's 1946 rival ( the TKB-408 ) was technically more
> sophisticated with more potential, but that ensnared it during testing and
> the AK passed. Excellence vs good enough.

TKB was prone to jams and had worse accuracy than the AK prototype. It also
looked ugly. So the better design won, although it sounds dull ;)

------
waterlesscloud
He's holding like the Cadillac of AK-47s in that pic.

~~~
cynwoody
Is that an AK-74? Bin Laden's favorite weapon?

------
iluvuspartacus
A Kalashnikov only lasted for 94 years? Must be defective. Those babies last
forever.

------
jotm
While I respect Kalashnikov and his rifle (very simple, among the best weapons
in the world IMHO), the design was taken from the Germans, just like it was
with the Makarov pistol.

The MP43 and MP44 saw action right at the end of WW2, when the Russians
stormed Berlin. Just like the Walther PP, Russians basically copied and
(slightly) improved upon the design.

Gotta give credit where it's due...

~~~
commandar
>Gotta give credit where it's due...

From a mechanical action standpoint, the AK looks more like the American M1
Garand than it does the MP43/44.

> Just like the Walther PP, Russians basically copied and (slightly) improved
> upon the design.

You probably have a stronger case here, though, again, when it comes to the
specifics, the Makarov has a parts count nearly half that of the Walther.

Really, firearms design is incredibly iterative. If we're talking service
handguns, for example, there are really fewer than a half-dozen designs that
nearly every modern, full size service handgun made today derives from in some
manner.

------
bhousel
Wow, one of 18 children?

------
mathattack
Compare his lack of regret with Alfred Nobel.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel)

~~~
xorgar831
Exactly.

Also, the impact of the Manhattan Project on Richard Feynman:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ah7f-1M2Sg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ah7f-1M2Sg)

"I simply didn't think"

------
lomnakkus
I wonder if this is someone we might consider even worse than Thomas Midgley,
Jr. [1]. (In retrospect, of course.)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr).

------
rectangletangle
Simple, and easy to use UI; Robust and reliable; Extensible design; Massively
scalable

------
mladenkovacevic
I think one of my countrymen wrote a perfect song to play at Mr. Kalashnikov's
funeral: [http://youtu.be/cHfpSx3N-nY](http://youtu.be/cHfpSx3N-nY)

~~~
hedgie13
OK, you win the Internet!

Mr. Kalashnikov might have liked it too.

------
inrev
Russia Today short documentary on AK-47:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtFYkvascA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQtFYkvascA)

------
dnqthao
It seems that the AK-47 invention is very similar to our open source software:
open design (a lot of copy cat and improvement), no royalty pay, work
everywhere , etc...

------
pearjuice
I wonder what his thoughts were on his rifle being the cause of so many
deaths.

------
inanov
may he rest in peace

------
rubiquity
First ClanBase dies and now the inventor of the AK-47? It's like the world is
trying to steal my youth of playing Counter-Strike.

------
uparix
At least he managed not to die on his own invention.

------
lanbird
94 : 2 =

------
negamax
2 * 47

------
johansch
I wonder how many were killed by this thing? BS guess: 200 million? (2 per
produced rifle according to wikipedia)

~~~
aaronem
Zero; a firearm has neither agency nor volition. The question, in order to be
sensible, would have to be one of how many people were killed, by other
people, who used a firearm of Gospodin Kalashnikov's design to do so.

~~~
mikeash
Approximately nobody who reads "killed by an AK-47" understands this to mean
anything besides "killed by a person firing an AK-47".

And clearly _you_ know what it means, as you proposed that exact
interpretation in your comment.

What's the point in arguing about it? It's an idiomatic phrasing that
everybody understands.

~~~
aaronem
I proposed no interpretation in my earlier comment; I identified the fallacy
in the comment to which I responded, and restated the intended question in
terms which made sense.

"Killed by an AK-47" implies that, had the weapon been made unavailable
beforehand, the killing would not have occurred. This has been tried many
times in history. It has never worked. As I discuss in a comment elsewhere in
this sub-thread, the range of human ingenuity is far too broad, and the human
carcass is far too easily rendered inanimate, for the prohibition of one
particular class of tools to bring about an end, or even a meaningful
reduction, in killing. Banning firearms to save lives is precisely as absurd a
proposition as banning hammers to prevent carpentry -- indeed, in a nation as
historically awash with firearms as the United States, even more so.

~~~
stcredzero
* This has been tried many times in history. It has never worked.*

I am a supporter of the 2nd amendment, but for the sake of accuracy, gun
violence in Australia was indeed reduced when they made gun ownership a lot
harder there.

The societal cost of gun ownership is still a lot less than the societal cost
of car accidents. I'm more concerned about the societal cost of playing fast
and loose with amendments to the constitution.

~~~
aaronem
With regard to the Australian experiment, what of violent crime in general?

~~~
stcredzero
That old saw. Okay, if you wanted to restrict the cutting of grass, you could
do this by raising the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers. Would this
then result in an increase of other kinds of gardening and lawncare? Maybe.
I'm not sure that's relevant.

The real harm that comes out of the so-called "gun debate" is a polarization
of American society and a failure of both sides to recognize our legal and
societal framework as a treasure everyone holds in common. Instead, both sides
vilify each other and only talk to their own to showboat their intransigence.

As a programmer, I can certainly understand the frustration of pro-gun side.
I'm very familiar with the ridiculousness of laws trying to restrict
technology written by clueless politicians. Many gun laws fit into this
category. I just can't see this situation being resolved in an attractive
manner the way things are going now.

The solution? Get people actually talking to each other.

~~~
aaronem
> I'm not sure that's relevant.

If your intent is to raise the hassle and expense of owning lawnmowers, then
the effect of so doing on gardening and lawn care is entirely irrelevant. If
your intent is to reduce the extent to which gardening and lawn care take
place, it's entirely relevant. In such ambiguities originate the suspicions of
the pro-lawnmower faction.

As regards the rest, I think you've got cause and effect mixed up; it seems to
me not so much that the "gun debate", and similar "debates", polarize American
society, as that what we call American society, and in particular the politics
of the United States, revolve around a conflict between two fundamentally
irreconcilable perspectives on -- well, on everything, more or less. A century
and a half ago, this conflict erupted into open warfare, which concluded in a
decisive victory for one of the two factions; while neither side has taken up
arms in any meaningful way since, the conflict itself remains unresolved, and
has simmered under the surface ever since.

On the other hand, the side which won that war I mentioned has done a sterling
job of consolidating its gains and pushing to expand them, to the extent that
it would be all but impossible for their opponents to pull off an upset by any
conceivable means -- and God be thanked for that! It's the only thing which
stands between our comfortable lives here in the United States, and chaos.

So, on the whole, I'm satisfied. Of course, I'd be happier still if I thought
the winning side had a program with a snowball's chance of actually working
when implemented on a platform of some three hundred million or so human
beings, but I figure that, by dint of careful neglect of my health, I can more
or less ensure that I won't be around to see anything worse than, at most, the
initial stages of the collapse which I expect, in the fullness of time, will
arrive. Sure, I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am -- and, in
the meantime, there's Calvados, and good fellowship among friends, and even a
few programming languages to work in which aren't as terrible as the rest, and
who can say fairer than that?

~~~
cdoxsey
Not sure where you were going at the end there, but for what it's worth:
modern day conservatives are not equivalent to the confederacy in the civil
war. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

The issues that polarize Americans today are very different from what they
were 150 years ago.

~~~
aaronem
What polarizes Americans today is exactly what polarized Americans then. Any
given "issue", for example gun control, means precisely as much, in the
context of that conflict, as Afghanistan meant in the context of the Cold War.

But you will note that at no point, in the comment to which you replied, did I
give a name to either faction of which I spoke. This was quite deliberate. I
have names for those factions. So do you. So does anyone who might take part
in a discussion like this one. But those names aren't all that often the same,
and even when they are, it usually turns out that each party has his own idea
of precisely what they mean. Throwing names around, in my experience, tends
very strongly to confuse the matter, rather than to clarify it.

That said, I'll grant I did not expect a comment like yours. Where did you
happen upon the remarkable idea that "Republican", a century and a half ago,
meant anything remotely similar to what it means today?

------
ommunist
We had it studied at secondary school back on the USSR. AK47 was an ecosystem
of assault rifle, heavy machine gun and shorty mod. You had to assemble-
disassemble it in seconds to get respect at school. This weapon changed the
history of humanity, and benefits far outweight losses. It is true weapon of
freedom.

