In the
Living category, Jim Garrison's Briefs selects:
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov inventor of the AK-47 Assault Rifle
Quote:
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"I am still ready to shake hands with anyone who designs a better assault rifle than mine."
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Kalashnikov
http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/mk.html
Kalashnikov was conscripted into the Red Army in 1938, and became a tank driver-mechanic...He was wounded in combat during the defense of Bryansk and released for six months recuperation due to illness. While in the hospital, he overheard some soldiers complaining about the Soviet rifles of the time. He also had bad experiences with the standard infantry weapons at the time, so he was inspired to start constructing a new rifle for the Soviet military.
The design process culminated in 1947, when he created the AK-47 (standing for
Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947). In 1949, the AK-47 assault rifle became the Soviet Army's standard issue rifle; after that, the design became Kalashnikov's most famous invention. A range of the unified models of automatic small arms developed by Kalashnikov was adopted by the Soviet Army in 1950.
The Goverment highly estimated M. T. Kalashnikov's services to the country. He was twice honored as Hero of Socialist Labour (1958 and 1976) and became Stalin Prize (1949) and Lenin Prize (1964) laureate. In 1969 he was given the rank of Colonel and in 1971 awarded degree of Doctor of engineering science. M. T. Kalashnikov was decorated with three Orders of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labour, Order of the Great Patriotic War of the First Class, Order of the Red Star and many medals. Since 1980 M. T. Kalashnikov has been a citizen of honour in his native village of Kurya. His bronze bust was placed there as he was twice awarded Hero of Socialist Labour. In 1987 he became a honourable citizen of Izhevsk.
The cause of such great popularity of Kalashnikov submachine guns is in fact that Mikhail has achieved an optimum combination of a number of qualities which provide the usage of guns with high efficiency of application and exclusive reliability in battles.
The bottom line on the AK-47 is that it is widely considered the greatest small arms rifle of all time by people that have used the rifle as well as faced it in battle. It has liberated nations, as well as been the face of terror in many countries. The rifle is so feared because it is so damn good at what it does. Kalashnikov's impact on historical events in the 20th and modern century cannot be denied.
Some U.S. military members believed that one of the issues the U.S. faced in Vietnam was the superiority of the AK-47 over the M-16 in the wet and muddy jungle environment. I've heard the same thing said from Marine buddies in Afghanistan and Iraq about the performance of the AK in the desert sands.
There are an estimated 100 million Kalashnikov rifles in circulation worldwide, Kalashnikov does not profit from their sale, living on a state pension.
Quote:
"My work is my life, and my life is my work. I invented this assault rifle to defend my country. Today, I am proud that it has become for many synonymous with liberty."
"It is the Germans who are responsible for the fact that I became a fabricator of arms. If not for them, I would have constructed agricultural machines. (...) If someone asks me how I can sleep at night knowing that my arms have killed millions of people, I respond that I have no problem sleeping, my conscience is clean. I constructed arms to defend my country."
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