The Gun

bullet to build up speed. In this manner, they depart the muzzle at such velocity, say twenty-five hundred or more feet per second, that they do not drop significantly over the course of two hundred or three hundred yards. But as barrel length increases, more steel is used, and the rifle becomes heavier, more cumbersome, and more expensive. Want a rifle that has long range and loads itself between shots? Adding such features adds complexity. A manually loaded bolt-action rifle can be as straightforward in construction as in use. Self-loading abilities require new components, and choices of gas tubes, springs, pistons, and rods. Add automatic fire, and the rifle needs some sort of selector switch that lets the shooter choose between settings: safe, semi, and automatic. And adding automatic fire means that the rifle will be subjected to more strain and much more heat. This requires a stronger, heavier design to withstand these burdens and remain reliable and safe. This will drive up weight and costs, too.

Until World War II, when rifles were designed, they were designed to have some, but not all, of these traits. Then came the breakthrough couples—the 7.92 Kurz and the sturmgewehr, followed by the M1943 cartridge and the Kalashnikov design bureau’s final prototype. As compromises go, these cartridges and rifles represented a pair of design feats. And after the German models fell out of production, their Soviet offspring appeared. Like the 7.92 Kurz, the M1943 claimed the largely uncharted ballistic territory between pistol and rifle rounds. But it cheated a little toward the rifle. And the AK-47 prototype took its place between the submachine gun and the traditional infantry rifle. But it cheated toward the submachine gun in size and weight. The result was a weapon that had the necessary firepower within the ranges at which most combat occurred, and yet was, at last, light enough to be carried by one man, along with a robust load of ammunition. The numbers made it clear. Rifles often were too big for the full range of uses. The Russian semiautomatic rifles in the Great Patriotic War, designed by Tokarev, exceeded four feet in length and weighed nearly nine pounds unloaded. The M1 Garand, the standard American infantry arm in World War II, exceeded forty-three inches and weighed almost ten pounds. Submachine guns were of a welcome size, but lacked range. The PPSh was thirty-three inches long and weighed eight pounds. The early American Thompson gun was almost a yard long and weighed nearly eleven pounds; a later form shed almost two inches but still came in heavy, at ten pounds and nine ounces. The Kovrov design bureau’s final prototype was just over thirty-four inches long and weighed slightly more than eight pounds—it was, at a glance, a weapon the size of a submachine gun that had much of a rifle’s power.

More than four years after the introduction of the M1943 cartridge, at last came time for the final field trials for an automatic weapon that would fire it. Tests began in NIPSMVO in mid-December 1947. Evaluating a proposed infantry rifle is an intensive process, typically involving engineering examinations, a series of firing tests for durability, accuracy, and reliability, and troop trials examining ergonomics and ease of use. The ballistics of the rifle and cartridge combination are also studied, including the so-called terminal ballistics—the effects the rounds have on objects they strike, from a wooden board to a car windshield to various parts of the human body, which can be determined, to a degree, by shooting large live mammals (adult pigs are a favorite; goats have often been used) or human cadavers.¹¹¹ Rifles are subjected to extreme cold and heat, and subjected to firing courses at various ranges and rates of fire. Some weapons face lengthy firing drills while slicked with excessive lubricant, others with no lubricant at all.¹¹² Testers try to break prototypes, and submit others to such extended firing, without rest or time to cool, that barrels can melt and wooden stocks can smolder, even burst into flames.¹¹³ Kalashnikov has provided few details over the years of the engineering testing of the weapon, and scant other details have been made public, though Western technical intelligence officials would conduct engineering tests on Kalashnikov rifles in the 1950s and early 1960s after defecting Soviet soldiers were dispossessed of their arms as they slipped through the Iron Curtain.¹¹⁴ Parts of the environmental testing have been shared.

At NIPSMVO, the loaded rifles were submerged for long periods in swamp water, then expected to fire. Then came the “sand bath,” with each rifle dragged through ash, broken bricks, and fine sand—first by the barrel, then by the stock—until the rifles were filthy and every opening in the weapon was clogged. “After that, without any sort of cleaning… they were fired,” Kalashnikov said.¹¹⁵ Again uncertainties stalked the designer. “Despite myself, I began to doubt that further shooting would proceed without failures,” he wrote. Zaitsev consoled him. The prototype fired almost flawlessly. “Look, look,” Zaitsev said, during one course of fire. “The sand is flying in all directions, like a dog shaking off water—look.”¹¹⁶ This was the result of two design choices: loose fit and massive operating parts.

The weapons were subjected to extreme cold in a special chamber. Kalashnikov said the weapons were also exposed to salt water to determine how they would withstand its corrosive effects. The AK-47 proved more reliable than the others, though accuracy remained a Soviet army concern. “The advantages of my modification were blindingly obvious,” he said. “I was jubilant.”¹¹⁷ Next the weapon was dropped from heights onto a concrete floor so it would land on its barrel, then its stock. The weapon survived and functioned normally afterward. For assessing terminal ballistics, Kalashnikov said, the rifles were fired at dead animals. The soldiers requested vodka for this duty, Kalashnikov added; this was considered an unpleasant task.

Tests continued until January 11, 1948.¹¹⁸ The results were presented to a thirteen-member technical and scientific commission, which decided Kalashnikov’s avtomat most closely fulfilled the requirements of the 1945 order. Mikhail Kalashnikov’s submission had won. It was not without flaws, and needed much follow-on work, which would be assigned to other engineers. But it was an acceptable descendant of the sturmgewehr. As the news was released, an assistant rushed to Kalashnikov. “Today you must dance, Mikhail Timofeyovich,” he said. “The Avtomat Kalashnikova has been accepted as the standard weapon.”¹¹⁹ The AK-47, a rifle that had existed only for weeks, was heading for production.

CHAPTER 6 The Breakout: The Mass Production, Distribution, and Early Use of the AK-47

K. Marx and F. Engels taught that in order to win victory over the class enemies the proletariat had to be armed, organized and disciplined. A resolute rebuff had to be given to any attempt on the part of the bourgeoisie to disarm it.

—Andrei A. Grechko, Soviet minister of defense¹

THE AK-47 ARRIVED TO A TIME AND GEOPOLITICAL SITUATION like no other. Through technical intelligence and the dedication of enormous resources, Stalin’s military had developed a firearm with promise to be the standard weapon for legions of socialist workers and peasants. A working prototype of a compact automatic rifle had been made that was well suited for most uses in modern war and could be readily mastered by conventional conscripts and violent revolutionaries alike. Yet the assault rifle’s practical merits do not explain the proliferation that followed. The AK-47 was not to break out globally because it was well conceived and well made, or because it pushed Soviet small-arms development ahead of the West.² Technical qualities did not drive socialist arms production. It was the other way around. Soviet military policies mixed with Kremlin foreign- policy decisions to propel the output that made the AK-47 and its knock-offs available almost anywhere. Were it not for this more complicated set of circumstances, the AK-47 would have been a less significant weapon, an example of an evolutionary leap in automatic arms that became one nation’s principal infantry rifle. Mikhail Kalashnikov would have remained an obscure figure, a man with a surname—like that of Schmeisser or Garand—recognized by specialists, not as an informal global brand.

In the long history of automatic arms and their roles in war, there were periods when everything changed. In the 1860s, Richard Gatling began selling the first rapid-fire arms that worked well enough for battle. His guns offered small or isolated military detachments a one-sided advantage in colonial actions. In the 1880s, Hiram Maxim contributed an awesomely lethal efficiency when he invented the first truly automatic gun and peddled it in Europe’s officer courts. From 1916 through 1918 machine guns became common to all modern ground forces, at terrible cost to men led by officers whose tactics had not kept pace with the instruments of war. Then came the Soviet Union and the design stimuli resulting from World War II. From 1943 to the early 1960s, and centered on the 1950s, automatic arms reached an evolutionary end state. Everything changed once more. In the 1950s, socialist assault