Mikhail Kalashnikov Dies

[bozon]

From an earlier discussion: The gas system is similar to the STG, but the rest is very different mechanically. There's some M1 Garand in there, some Browning. The folding stock on the AKS is from an MP40. The action is based on Kalashnikov's earlier carbine design, strongly influenced by the Garand, that lost to the SKS for service with the Red Army. To say the the AK-47 is a copy of the STG44 is just pure bollocks. That the STG influenced Kalashnikov's design layout is obvious.

The STG44's most direct descendant is the H&K G-3 series, even if the design moved away from gas operation to roller-delayed blowback.

They are all made of a barrel with a metal cartridge stuffed into it. They are all operated by holding them against the shoulder and pressing a trigger to punch the cap on the cartridge. How different can they be?

So this one has a folding stock and the other comes with a cup holder.

In any case the designer of the weapon that represented the greatest threat to the American and NATO serviceman, and was the iconic symbol of tyranny, murder and rape worldwide passed.  <S>

How was he an iconic symbol of rape?

[ReVo]

Bonnie and Clyde loved the BAR, I don't see anybody pissing on John Browning.  

[danny76]

What Ripley said. The Soviets copied everything they possibly could. The AK is simply a slightly improved STG44. They knocked off plenty of things. They knocked off a German jet design that was to follow up the Me-262, which became the Mig-15. They knocked of the British Rolls Royce Pegasus jet engine, to power the Mig-15.

boo

It was actually the Derwent/Trent who's design was handed over to the Russians, rather than knocked off by them. The Pegasus was the engine used to power the Harrier. Which was then knocked off by the US

[B3YT]

the only engine tech the Russians "stole" from RR was the materiel composition , which they got by walking through the factory with super tacky soles on their shoes.  Each Russian visitor had to gather machine swarf from different areas of engine manufacturing line .  The USA  copied far more British tech than Russia did (cough Miles M.52) .

[SmokinLoon]

The AK also was a leap in stamped metal pieces parts which reduced manufacturing costs.

You speak of the AKM.  The AK47 had a milled receiver.    The AKM came along later, I believe at the same time the Soviets introduced the AKMS with the under folder stock... ANOTHER copy of what the Germans used!!!  Take a look at the under folder stock on a MP40 sometime, then look at an AKMS. 

This whole argument of StG44 vs AK47 vs SVT vs G43 vs Garand vs SKS is amusing.  Sort of like which came first, the chicken or the egg?  It gets real interdasting when the experts come out.     

ReVo's animations tell volumes.  Pay attention to them.  There are so many pieces to this puzzle that it is sort of like Looshey's charts: I can make any chart and any set of figures say what I want them to say.  Read Mikhail's notes, he was not afraid to tell it exactly like it happened.  Then, look at the time lines to when what happened when.  Put the pieces together and it should be very obvious on certain things.  Also, the whole "who stole who's technology" is an amusing purse fight too.      

[Shuffler]

You have it reversed, the Germans created the STG-44 first, he took ideas from the M-1 Garand and the STG-44 and built his own rifle - after the war I think in late 1946 it got redesigned as the earlier version wasn't very reliable.

I feel bad for the guy, you would think of the millions made he would be rich, I think he lived in a 1 bedroom apartment on barely any money in the past 15 years. Secondly he was haunted because the weapons "ease" of manufacture and sell, terrorist and everyone else uses it. One point he blamed politicians for this and they cut his retirement money, putting much leaving him poor.

That is called socialism.

[SmokinLoon]

That is called socialism.

um... try one step further to the left... actually try two steps further to the left.

[mthrockmor]

USSR, United Soviet Socialist Republics
NAZI, National Socialist Democratic Party of Germany

Both socialists. Both believed in sovereignty of "the State" over individuals. Both existed in the absence of any political opposition thus the name of the ruling political party came to symbolize the 'form' of government. Communists were just socialists who believed in International Socialism. Nazis were just socialists who believed in Germany socialism ruling the world. Communists believed that the economy would be managed best in detail by government agents. Nazis believed that the economy would be managed best by corporations implementing the goals of State, closely monitored by government agents. This form of corporate socialism was developed by Mussolini's Italy, implemented by Hitler's Germany, also known as Fascism.

If Kalashnikov would have "invented" the AK-47 in Nazi Germany he would have finished the war hiding in his villa with millions of Marks in suitcases under his bed. Then, upon capture, spent some time before a judge at Nuremberg with the rest of the Nazi machine.

boo

[Karnak]

USSR, United Soviet Socialist Republics
NAZI, National Socialist Democratic Party of Germany

Both socialists. Both believed in sovereignty of "the State" over individuals. Both existed in the absence of any political opposition thus the name of the ruling political party came to symbolize the 'form' of government. Communists were just socialists who believed in International Socialism. Nazis were just socialists who believed in Germany socialism ruling the world. Communists believed that the economy would be managed best in detail by government agents. Nazis believed that the economy would be managed best by corporations implementing the goals of State, closely monitored by government agents. This form of corporate socialism was developed by Mussolini's Italy, implemented by Hitler's Germany, also known as Fascism.

If Kalashnikov would have "invented" the AK-47 in Nazi Germany he would have finished the war hiding in his villa with millions of Marks in suitcases under his bed. Then, upon capture, spent some time before a judge at Nuremberg with the rest of the Nazi machine.

boo

What they called themselves doesn't have much bearing on what they are.

The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is neither democratic nor a republic, but it sounds nice on paper.

[GScholz]

Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP). "Democratic" was not part of it.

[mthrockmor]

Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Worker's Party (NSDAP). "Democratic" was not part of it.

Going back to college days I've read both and since I don't read or speak German...

boo

[B3YT]

The Nazi Party was also RIGHT wing where as Russia was LEFT wing . Nazi Party encouraged Private enterprise and wealth while central government provided for those that had no work or money .  It did not see itself as the provider for all or equalizer . That is the complete opposite to left wing socialism and communism . The Nazis and Communists are at oposite  ends of the political spectrum .

[GScholz]

That the Nazis were "right-wing" is postwar thinking, and usually from "left-wingers" that want to distance themselves from the Nazis (who wouldn't?) and attack their political enemies. The fact is that Nazism was political centralism with a socialistic economy (although not total like in the Soviet Union). National Socialism is based upon Marxism (Hitler even said so); it's just a different interpretation and adaptation of Marxism than what became Leninism and Stalinism in the Soviet Union. The only significant "right-wing" aspect of the Nazis was their appeal to nationalism as a tool to rallying support from the WWI veterans and people who hated the Treaty of Versailles. Soviet Communists differed only in being less nationalistic, and even more extreme in their opposition to the fundamental human right to own property.





"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

- Adolf Hitler

[B3YT]

National Socialists were technically central right  more than central left .  While some of it's ideology was very much Marxist it also had Ideology  connected more with right wing ideals (individual responsibility , promotion of private enterprise and de-centralisation of some government) . If some one else had been in charge of the nazi party it would have been a very good system of government , unfortunately it didn't . It cherry picked the best of both systems  . On the whole the weight was more on the right than to the left  .         

[mthrockmor]

What gscholz said. The statements of the Nazi party being 'right wing' is pure, postwar propaganda pushed aggressively by the left, and now taken as gospel by most. No one every considered the Nazis at the time as being anything other than a variation of socialism. They openly preached it, practiced it and lived it. They are not even "center-right" in any reasonable discussion.

They supported total state
They supported gun control
They supported socialized medicine
They supported the bureaucratic state
They practiced Eugenics, which was the basis of the concentration camps and the final solution.

Where is their individual rights you speak of? Heck, they were so centralized in every aspect they killed homosexuals, mentally and physically retarded, by the hundreds of thousands. Clearly, these people did not have an "individual rights" to speak of as they did not fit the ordered socialist state the Nazis sought to establish. They even began to breed German women with ideal Nazi warrior/men to create a master race of babies.

Any nation that can walk into your house without due process, pull you from your family and throw you into the back of a truck on the way to a concentration camp has ZERO individual rights. I would also be interested to read of where the Nazis supported deregulation. In reading several texts on the Nazi economy it was very centralized and full of red tape down to the local level. One family that owned a dairy and had a small cafe to sell their products with sandwiches, etc noted they were required to change the shape of their tables to round, from square so that people would not hurt themselves on corners of the tables. They couldn't afford this regulation and dozens others so simply closed the cafe. I could post hundreds of such examples of the complete lack of deregulation. Regulations increased dramatically. Again, I'd be interested to read of examples to the contrary.

No, Nazis were hardcore socialists. There is nothing to the "right" about them.

boo