[Cuz5150]

47 seconds of silence in honor the great Mikhail Kalashnikov!

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ad-94-21310543

[MisterSkiMask]

he had a pretty good run
rip

[PINeely]

RIP

I had just picked up this SBR AK-47 two days before.

[US///M3]

He was a hack, he ripped off the Germans' StG 44, pictured below.

[MisterSkiMask]

yeah, but would the German gun run with pound of gravel in it?

[US///M3]

Originally Posted by MisterSkiMask

yeah, but would the German gun run with pound of gravel in it?

By the Soviets' own admission, Hugo Schmeisser was part of the AK-47 design along side othe Germans. So who's responsible for most of the design, a tank commander with no previous achievement in assault rifle design or the most renowned designers at the time?

And before working with the Germans, Kalashnikov's previous design was so bad it was rejected by the red army.

from wiki...
In 1944, he designed a gas-operated carbine for the new 7.62x39 mm cartridge. This weapon, influenced by the StG 44, lost out to the new Simonov carbine which would be eventually adopted as the SKS; but it became a basis for his entry in an assault rifle competition in 1946."
Using Schmeisser's designs didnt start with the AK-47.

On April 3, 1945, American troops began to occupy the city of Suhl. Weapons manufacturing was completely prohibited during this time. Hugo Schmeisser and his brother Hans were interrogated for weeks by weapon expert teams of the American and British Secret services. At the end of June 1945, American troops evacuated Suhl and all of Thuringia. One month later, the Red Army assumed control over the area, starting a civilian works project to manufacture weapons for the Soviet Union. By August 1945 the Red Army had created 50 Stg 44s from existing assembly parts, and had begun inspecting their design. 10,785 sheets of technical designs were confiscated by the Soviets as part of their research. In October 1945 Schmeisser was forced to work for the Red Army and instructed to continue development of new weapons.

Schmeisser's brilliance continued to impress the Red Army, and he, along with other weapons designers and their families, was relocated to the USSR. On October 24, 1946, the German specialists rode a train to Izhevsk in the southern Ural Mountains, where a center of Russian firearms development was located. Schmeisser's work while in the Red Army in Izhevsk (1946–1952) is shrouded in darkness. Little is known of his life during this period, until 1952 when he and other German specialists returned home to Germany. Russians officially claim that he neither nor his rifle influenced the design of the AK-47; he is said to have only assisted in developing stamping technologies for the new rifle, allowing IzhMash to churn out 24000 of them per day. With short notice, his stay in the Soviet Union was extended beyond that of the other weapon specialists by a half year. He finally returned home on June 9, 1952. Schmeisser died on December 9, 1953, and was buried in Suhl.

While the name of Hugo Schmeisser is known internationally, it is unknown to most Germans. The 50th anniversary of his death was honored by a ceremony held in Suhl, as he is recognized as one of the most important technical designers of infantry weapons of the 20th century.

[Litos]

Kalashnikov did not invent the AK......

[smyles]

Originally Posted by US///M3

..
from wiki...

One sec, let me fix that wiki...

[PINeely]

Originally Posted by Litos

Kalashnikov did not invent the AK......

And Edison didn't invent the light bulb, Gutenberg ripped off the printing press, and Shakespeare plagiarized from the Greeks and Romans.

“It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.” – Mark Twain

[US///M3]

Originally Posted by PINeely

And Edison didn't invent the light bulb, Gutenberg ripped off the printing press, and Shakespeare plagiarized from the Greeks and Romans.

“It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.” – Mark Twain

I think there's a difference between improving on existing inventions vs forcing a group of German inventors to design a simpler version of their assault rifle because of the crude manufacturing process in the Soviet Union at the time and then taking credit for their work.