Angry Planet - The AK-47, a weapon so simple, even a child can use it - and they do

Episode Date: September 23, 2015

It’s the world’s most famous weapon, popular with soldiers, insurgents and video gamers alike. As many as 100 million of the world's guns are descended from Mikhail Kalashnikov's original Avtomat Kalashnikova, first prototyped in 1947. How many lives they've taken is unknown.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters' News. I don't know how many people have watched the movie Lord of War and what their opinions on it are, but there is a line in there that I feel sums this up perfectly when Nicholas Cage's character says, It's so easy a child could use it, and they do.

I'm Reuters' opinion editor Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt with War is Boring. With us today is War is Boring contributor Joseph Trivithic. Today we're talking about one of the most iconic weapons of war, the AK-47. The Russian rifle is ubiquitous, both on the battlefield and in the movies. You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines. Here's your host, Jason Fields.

Joe, can you tell us a little bit about the background of the rifle? Sure. It's a sort of great Soviet story. In 1942, Mikhail Kalashnikov, then a member of Soviet tank armies defending the motherland. it gets wounded and gets sent to a hospital in the rear areas. And basically while he's covalescing, he sketches out the design for a gun. Not the Kalashnikov that we know today, but a gun. And the people who are overseeing his treatment basically see a certain amount of technical aptitude. And they decide that they're not going to send him back to the front lines to get chopped up.

And instead they're going to send him to basically continue his technical training. and, you know, turn him into the great engineer for the Motherland. And after a few years, working with a number of noted Soviet firearms designers, basically conjures up the first sort of prototypes. You know, this is, by then, it's the Second World War has ended. And this is, hold on, this is Mikhail Kalashnikov, Kalashnikov, right? Yeah, of the Kalashnikov rifle. The guy himself, you know, in the Soviet style, you sort of honor the man, you know, the man behind the design.

And, you know, he became, you know, he was a sort of national hero. He died, he died only recently, and he continued to be a national hero even after the Soviet Union had collapsed. All right, Joe. What, what guns were the Soviets using at that time? And what was this intended to replace? Well, so the Soviets go into the Second World War with their main infantry weapon being a derivative of a bolt action rifle, a, you know, one shot, and then you have to rack the bolt to fire again, a rifle that had originally been designed in the 1890s for the Tsar. And they had shortened it up a bit as time went on. But that was still basically one of the standard infantry rifles of the time.

They had a number of semi-automatic rifles in very low numbers of debatable utility and reliability, you know, the mechanisms being infinitely more complicated than the bolt-action Mosen-Nagant rifles. And then a slew of basically really dirt-cheap, highly reliable submachine guns firing pistol cartridges, small pistol cartridges for use by shock troops and the like for clearing out, you know, trenches, buildings, whatever, you know, in the assault. Basically, the idea was that the Soviet army was going to get semi-automatic rifles, but full-size rifles, and then there was going to be something to replace submachine guns, these pistol caliber submachine guns.

And in the 40s during the war, they had captured a number of German prototypes, sort of, you know, what we would now consider today to be assault rifles, the first of these more compact, fully automatic weapons that fired what people refer to as an intermediate cartridge. Yeah, I actually know the ones you're talking about because, I mean, silly as it may seem, they appear in several first-person shooter games, and they actually look a bit like the, actually look a bit like the Klaschnikov. Yeah, and there is perhaps a certain amount of aesthetic that gets carried over, but they're

internally quite different from the, from the Kalashnikov. They, they look similar and clearly, you know, you can tell a good design when the designs that come afterwards, copy it, you know, and copy the basic aesthetics and the layout. The layout is similar, but the internals are different. Kalashnikov's design is perhaps a little less German engineering and a little more designed for the Soviet peasant army. And that's sort of the big, the big thing about the Kalashnikov is that it was designed to be utilized by a conscript force that was scrapped up from the villages and could not possibly require a significant amount of routine maintenance. We would say the tolerances are pretty wide on a Kalashnikov.

if you've ever had the opportunity to see one fired in slow motion without the so-called machinery cover at the rear open, which is possible to do. You know, it's just a cover for the internals. Larry Vicker is a former Special Forces soldier and firearms instructor and just all-around sort of notable gun person has some pretty good slow-motion footage of the AK on his YouTube channel. and you basically see the entire mechanism when it functions, it's wobbling all over the place, it's got a lot of room to move, it's, you know, there's very little space for things to get clogged in it in such a way that the action gets permanently jammed up. And that's sort of the, that was clearly the goal in this design.

Apparently, Kalashnikov's very first gun design was rejected for being two mechanics, complex and they sent him back to the drawing board. And this is sort of what he came up with. So what are the consequences, though? I mean, by having something that sort of has such wide tolerances. Well, it's wobbling around a lot. I mean, basically the mechanism basically has a lot of freedom of movement, which means that as stuff gets jammed up in there, it can still, you know, it's not going to get squeezed

together and seize up on you. But it also means that, well, the gun is sort of bouncing around internally. and there's not a lot of stability, which then translates to poor accuracy, all sorts of other things. But, you know, the accuracy is the big thing, is that with the action sort of bouncing all over the place, well, that momentum is translated to the barrel, to the shooter, the gun sort of wobbles. And the anecdotal joke always was that when you fired an AK on fully automatic, the first round went where you aimed, and the second and the third, and every other shot after that went, well, somewhere else.

And I mean, but when you look at it, I mean, it was designed as a replacement for a submachine gun initially. Before becoming the standard Soviet infantry weapon, it was a submachine gun. And it was designed to be used by guys who were in very close quarters who just really needed to put a lot of rounds down range. And these larger intermediate cartridges, which are sort of, you know, in the most big, bare bones terms sort of halfway between a pistol cartridge and a full power rifle cartridge. And I mean, you know, there are way more technical differences in there, and it does sort of a disservice to phrase it that way. But that's a good way of trying to understand the basic parameters here is that they're little sort of baby rightful cartridges. And, you know, so it gives

them a fair amount of power to penetrate armor or obstacles or anything. And so, you know, it gives the infantrymen in the... close assault, a lot of firepower. Gotcha. You know, Joe, I just, something just occurred to me. We didn't really tell people what the name means, because, I mean, it does mean that AK-47. It's for automatat. Automat, Kalashnikov. Yeah. Great, great. So it's actually named after the guy, and 47 refers to when it was first

manufactured, though not distributed. Right. They're, the first prototypes actually probably built in 47. I mean, you know, there was a number of prototypes. And Kalashnikov, actually, the fact that his design was selected practically almost by chance. There were probably almost a dozen other designs of some type also in development and then a number of self-loading carbines and other rifle types that were also in development. And from one of the stories that I've seen apparently Sudiev, another firearms designer, his design was in the lead. and then he had the unfortunate fate of dying in 1944, and then his design sort of fell by the wayside

because nobody sort of knew what it was all about. By the 1950s, the AK-47s, the original AK-47s, have been replaced by the improved AKMs, and I forget the exact Russian word for modernized, but the M is for modernized, and so the AKM is really the rifle when most people think about these things, that you're talking about AKMs and not really

AK-47s to be pedantic about it. Where does the AK-7-4 fall into all of this? The AK-74 is just an AK-47 that uses a slightly smaller bullet. And the Soviets are actually late to this party, because the Americans have waffled around with all these little lighter cartridges and very, very small cartridges. And when we adopt the M-16, it's got this 22 caliber, the 5.56 millimeter cartridge. And, well, that's good and not and all these other things. And there are debates about the utility of a smaller bullet.

And, God, people have written books about this. And so I really can't get into the technical discussion about energy imparting and, you know, ballistic drop-off and the rest of it. But needless to say, let me be, let us be honest, though. If we let you, you would get into that. Actually, I might not, because the people who really get into this, they're scary people. to deal with in an internet comment section. They have some pretty strong opinions about what is better and I do not.

But needless to say, by the 70s, and again, another date, you know, the AK-74, by the 70s, NATO has completely transitioned to these smaller cartridges, and while the Soviets not wanting to be left behind, build an AK that fires their own version of this, the 5.45 millimeter. Instead of the 556.

Right. This is there, and it's just, it's a very similar cartridge. It's a small cartridge. The weapon is basically the same. It is an AKM that has been scaled down internally. The dimensions of the AK-74 are basically the same. But the internals have been scaled down to fire this smaller cartridge. Can you sort of take us through, I mean, Joe or Matt, I mean,

what makes it so? popular. I mean, it is I mean, for lackable another term, it's the all-time bestseller. I don't know how many people have watched the movie Lord of War and what their opinions on it are, but there is a line in there that I feel

sums this up perfectly when Nicholas Cage's character says, you know, it's so easy a child could use it and they do. It has become ubiquitous around the world. So essentially it's rugged, it's easy to use, and

And there was a large manufacturing infrastructure in the East that was set up to make a whole bunch of them, right? Well, every country basically, with the possible exception of the Czech Republic, who, I guess then Czechoslovakia, who insisted on building their own gun. You know, the East Germans made these, the Polish made these, the Hungarians made everybody, you know, their factories were churning out AK derivatives. the Chinese built copies, North Koreans built copies. I mean, the sheer volume of factories around the world that we're churning these things out, and still are.

Still are churning these things out is amazing. And by the time you get around to the AKM, they've transitioned from machining the basic components out of huge blocks of steel to making them out of steel stampings. And so it's cheap and it's quick. and then eventually they get rid of the wood furniture and replace it with plastics and bakelite and things like that. And so once you get rid of the wood buttstock and the wood for grips, well, it's even cheaper. And I mean, these things are dirt cheap to make comparatively to, you know, modern, you know, sort of, I guess what you would say, quote unquote, high-tech small arms, you know, that you see used today.

Then do you think the reason, Joe, that we see them so often in movies and in pop culture is just because they're ever. everywhere and because it's it has that kind of iconic look to it. Well, is it art imitating life or life imitating art at that point a little of both, right? Right, it's kind of a feedback loop. You know, if the historical accuracy pedants who are going to watch movies, in a lot of cases, people would be using AKs. Everybody would be using AKs. AKs are all over the place. It's not, it wouldn't be surprising to see one on a battlefield.

field. And then, especially with the civilian market, there is, you know, in this country, in the United States especially, the AK has this sort of allure as being that, that unbreakable piece of Soviet engineering. I feel like we should point out that you can break an AK. You know, they will break down if they don't get maintained eventually. You know, like things wear out, parts wear out, that does happen. They're not, they're not indestructible. The joke about when Mikhail Kalashnikov died of burying of burying him and digging him up a week later to put him back to work. Actually, War I was Boring published a story about Kurds fighting in Iraq who were complaining about their AKs falling apart.

And I don't doubt that because I imagine those AKs have seen a little bit of combat over the years and probably don't exactly have an armorer who's taking good care of them at the end of the day, you know, whatever small amount of maintenance is necessary. And people will also, you can go on YouTube and find no shortage of people who prove that you can set those front-hand guard on fire if you have wooden handguards by putting enough bullets through a gun. You know, it heats up and just, well, people love doing that. It's waste of wood, in my opinion. So who uses them now?

I mean, are they still state of the art enough that, I mean, they're used widely? Well, the Russians are still making improvements, and the Russians are looking to introduce their newest version, which I believe they're calling at the moment, the AK-107 or the AK-12. they keep sort of debating how they're going to phrase these things. And it gets confusing because other manufacturers now in what are now NATO countries like Bulgaria are also still making them for their domestic market and for the export market. And so they have their own AK variants. So people are still making certain improvements to them.

The biggest improvements are finding ways to add these sort of NATO standard, accessory rails. And there's this, it's this, you may have seen them, but they look sort of like slots on the side of guns. And the idea is that you can clamp like lights or laser pointers or optics or other things like that to these accessory rails. And there, it's a standard pattern. And so people, you know, and the original AK rifles did not come with sort of any real provisions for any accessories, whatsoever. And the original scope mounts that were developed were basically bolted onto one side of the gun and didn't exactly sort of hold the so-called zero, you know, hold the point of aim so you could reliably believe that it was going to shoot where you were aiming at. And so, you know, those are

the improvements that people are making. And so there are these additions. And Soviet Special Forces units, you know, the Spetsnas are still using AKs. And they might have the option to go, and seek other weapons. And so they are still being used by elite forces in actual, you know, who might actually have a combat situation that they'd run into. So they're definitely still on the front lines, also still used by militant groups and other people around the world, you know, so they're definitely not going away anytime soon in general.

All right, Joe, what about America and its allies? Well, it's sort of an interesting thing. You know, we associate the AK primarily with, you know, as Matt said, the East. the Eastern Empire and the Soviet bloc. The reliability of the AK, it's world-renowned. It's nigh legendary. It's something that ever, you know, if you know anything about the AK, you know about its reliability. And there's something to be said for that. So the United States, during the 1960s in Vietnam, captured a number of these weapons. Special operations units like the seals put them back into service.

You could also potentially dress people up as the enemy, you know, gave you the option of sort of pretending to be the enemy. The AK has, you know, people say the AK has a very distinctive report. When you shoot one, it sounds like an AK. Soviet ammunition. And then sort of odd reversal, the American tracers burned red and Soviet tracers burned green. And so if you had Soviet ammunition,

you might be able to confuse your opponent. So there were benefits to having these weapons around. And there was actually at least one instance where the Army rebuilt a number of AKs for special operations units in Vietnam so they could be fitted with sound suppressors. And they sent these silenced AKs back to Vietnam for use on covert operations and the like. Do people just have a preference between the AK-47 and let's say the M-16? Or now I guess it's the M-4 is the current one. Oh, yes. There is no end to personal preferences. And I think it's fair to say that almost every platform you can find has its pros and cons.

I really, really want to steer away from that debate because, like I said, people are very passionate about the reasons why one type of gun is garbage and why others aren't. All right, Joe. How about this, then? you've fired an AK before. Yes. Correct? How did you find it? Put in the immediate caveat that I, you know, fired in a range situation,

having had to defend my life with it. It works. It goes bang. You can, I've never had an AK, give me grief. I've had various other types of firearms, even on the range, give me grief.

And I've never, ever shot an AK and had it give me grief. So there's definitely, in my personal experience, the reliability has been flawless. When it comes to actually hitting what I'm aiming at, well, the bullets hit the paper at respectable ranges, but in terms of getting all of my bullets to go in the same place, but then again, I don't know how much of that is the fact that I'm a crappy shot. Yeah, that probably wouldn't help.

Yeah, so, but I guess that's interesting, though, because you are talking about the best possible conditions, right? Oh, yeah. And you're out on a range. I'm assuming the weapons have been. recently maintained and clean. And even then, you've had trouble with other... Okay, so what gave you trouble?

I mean, now I've got to ask. Well, I've had trouble with the AR-15 M-16 pattern guns, and then I've had trouble with a slew of sort of, you know, Mac 10s, a lot of open-bolt, you know, semi-automatic versions and fully automatic submachine guns have given me trouble. But then again, these guns are crude anyways. The thing is that, especially among civilian shooters, people change parts out, people sort of try new things around the variety of, there's no consistency in ammunition. And, you know, if the ammunition is underpowered or doesn't function properly in some other way, well, it affects the whole rest of the action.

I mean, there's so many factors, you know, and so the militaries try to go for consistency, which is probably one of the reasons why the AK has been so successful. and why the U.S. government loves to train foreign troops still on things like the AKs, and we buy AKs. There's a whole mechanism that the Army and the Pentagon itself has set up to buy AKs from people who are now our friends and allies like Bulgaria. And then we buy them, and then we ship them to places like Afghanistan, you know, and then we train people on how to use them. That's something that they're familiar with, right? I mean, if you're sending it to Afghanistan, it's something they already need. know as opposed to training them on a different piece of equipment.

Of course, the amusing thing is that, you know, because it's not an American weapon and we don't use them on a regular basis, you know, it's referred to in the Pentagon speak as non-standard. These are non-standard weapons. Apparently non-standard for us, probably standard for a lot of the rest of the world. So we talked very briefly about, you know, that Russia is constantly trying to improve the gun even now. But do you think that there's going to be a real replacement for the AK-47? And additionally, I mean, if we're going to, if there is a replacement, I mean, what do we see as the legacy of this thing?

I think there's always going to be a market for the AK, whether it's just civilian shooters or what have you. There's probably always going to be a market for AKs or AKs, were AK variants of some sort. You know, and there are a slew of AK variants. The AK has been transformed into all sorts of things, and that, the basic mechanism, I mean, there are Saiga 12

line of 12-gauge semi-automatic shotguns is based on an AK action. So, I mean, there are just a slew of guns. So the Soviets first, and then the Russians now have spent a significant amount of effort trying to develop better guns, new different kinds of guns. With a certain amount of success,

in terms of building interesting functional weapons, cost gets in the way. Cost always gets in the way. When you have to replace weapons across a huge military, especially when it comes to standard issue small arms, something that everyone is going to have, and you're going to need to replace a significant number of rifles, cost really gets in the way,

and complexity gets in the way. And so you've seen that guns like the AN-94, which was built sort of finalized right after the fall of the Soviet Union, was a very interesting gun with a lot of really interesting features. It had an entire setup by which the propellant gases would help compensate for themselves, essentially, and try and keep the muzzle level so that it wasn't wobbling around. try and correct one of these historical AK issues, and be able to fire two rounds more or less at the same time. It fired so fast it could fire basically, you know, there were two bullets in the barrel traveling at the same time. And it was a very interesting weapon. And a certain amount of them seemed to be floating around with Spetsnaz units now. But there was no money to buy them, you know, in any great quantity.

And so that program has sort of, you know, it's faded into obsceneas. I mean, there's probably more A&94s in video games than there are in real life. There's something I just wanted to mention, because this was really, really striking to me. Unlike so many weapons, this one does have a name, as we talked about, and a man directly behind it, whether or not he was working alone, or, I mean, he really was, of course, part of munitions factory. You know, there's only so much blame to go around for one man, but he wrote a letter shortly before he died. He lived to be 91, and he died in 2012. And I just want to read just a small part of what he said.

I keep having the same unresolved question. If my rifle claimed people's lives, then can it be that I, a Christian, and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths? The longer I live, the more this question drills itself into my brain, and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed, and aggression.

So it sounds to me like a man who may have regretted what he unleashed on the world. There was an interview where he talked about this as well, and he said that he was not entirely ashamed of the AK-47, but that he wished he had also designed something that was non-lethal. He suggested a lawnmower. He suggested that, you know, if I had also developed a lawnmower,

maybe that would have been nice. He also in 2007 said that he sleeps well, and it's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence. And he also lent his name to a whole line of vodka, if I remember correctly. I mean, right at the end of his life, too. There was Kalashnikov-branded vodka being sold, so...

So much from my somber note. Well, I think it's probably an accurate comment. I imagine that you can only be the name behind the AK and not have those questions late at night every so often. All right. Well, thanks, guys, for a really interesting conversation. Listeners, if you like us, please rate and subscribe. on iTunes, let us know how we're doing. Give us five stars. Give us four stars. But please, like, subscribe, share with your friends. If you want to keep here in Great War College,

more interesting interviews, let us know how we're doing. Next time on War College. I can literally go through the grocery store and I think remove at least 50% of its contents. if I take anything that has a military origin or influence.