The AK-47 Assault Rifle was the basic
infantry weapon for both the
North Vietnamese Army and the
Viet Cong during the
Vietnam War. Though of
Russian design, most of the weapons used in that conflict were built in the
Peoples' Republic of China.
The rifle was designed by Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, a Russian soldier who had only the equivalent of a high school education. In 1938 he was drafted into the Soviet army. He was trained as a tank driver and in 1941, after being seriously wounded during the battle of Bryansk, Kalashnikov spent six months of his recuperation designing a machine gun with his machinist friend Zhenya Kravchenko.
The two men sent their basic design to the Main Artillery Commission in Moscow, and over the next six years continued to work on the prototype. Their design was finalized in 1947.
By 1949 the weapon had become standard issue in the Soviet Army, designated Avtomat Kalashnikova Obrazets 1947.
The rifle has remained basically unchanged since then, and is the most popular assault weapon in the world, currently used by more than fifty armies. Since the Vietnam War, the AK-47 has enjoyed something of a "cult" status among gun collectors as well as criminals and drug smugglers.
It utilizes a standard 7.62 mm bullet, is extremely sturdy, compact, reliable, and relatively light in weight at 4,876 grams fully loaded. Its magazine holds 30 rounds which, in fully automatic mode, can be fired at the rate of 600 rounds a minute.
Its high muzzle velocity of 700 meters per second and the "tumbling" nature of the bullet on impact make the weapon extremely effective, and--coupled with its high rate of fire--means that soldiers do not need as much training in marksmanship as those utilizing more traditional weapons. It has an effective killing range of 1500 meters.
In the early days of the Vietnam War, the AK-47 was considered superior by many American soldiers to their own weapon, the Colt M-16. The original M-16 was difficult to keep clean in humid jungle conditions and it was prone to jamming when fired on full automatic. Consequently many G.I.'s took AK-47's from dead enemy soldiers and used them instead of their M-16's, in spite of the fact that the Kalashnikov's distinctive "popping" sound in combat threatened to draw fire from their own forces.
--References: AK-47, The Complete Kalashnikov Family of Assault Rifles, Duncan Long.
AK-47.net
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