The most popular rifle of the 20th century

One of the most incredible songs that Goran Bregovic once made with Boban Salijevic in Vladicin Han begins with words: "Gypsies! You are rushing!!!"Wherever he performed it, with is multinational and multi-confessional "Orchestra for Weddings and Funerals", that song aroused the same feelings - wild dancing and smiles when repeating to the majority of audience incomprehensible words in Romani language. ( A concert in Poznan, Poland is one of the good examples of music without borders, only if you hit the G string).

The future holder of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called had a similar enthusiasm and once stated: "If I became a creator of weapons, Nazi Germans is blame for that.. I'm proud of mine invention. I would rather be able to create machines that would help the peasants to work, for example, a lawn mower. I was a soldier and I created a rifle for a solder, to defend the homeland."

The creator of the best automatic rifle of the 20th century, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, was born in 1919 in the village of Kirja in the Altai as the seventeenth child of barely literate peasants. From time to time sick, poet in heart, he wrote poetry throughout his life. Apart from the modest garden, the family also survived by hunting, and the boy used a gun from an early age. Somewhat later, he worked, self-taught, as a tractor mechanic. However, the partial leader noticed his skill and transferred him to the weapons production bureau. In October 1941, he was severely wounded in the battle of Bryansk, in the defense of the Moscow.

In the hospital, he listened to Soviet fighters who complained about bad rifles and admired German machine guns. As soon as he was released from the hospital, he started working on a weapon that by 1947. became the famous Ak-47 assault rifle, the "Kalashnikov". Two years later, the Soviet army was armed with this rifle.

During his working life, Kalashnikov developed a whole family of infantry weapons, and everything was adorned with a simple appearance and easy maintenance in all conditions, from sand to tundra. By 2009, about 100 million pieces of this rifle have been produced, according to the pride of the American infantry , the M-16 rifle, produced in eight million copies. It is officially used today by the armies of 55 countries, and it decorated the flags of Mozambique and Hezbollah, as well as the coats of arms of Zimbabwe and East Timor, when these countries began to free themselves from the colonial slavery of their European invaders. Among "descendants" of this rifle were rifles from many countries, including the Kragujevac M-70. Kalashnikov himself died in 2013.

Compared to other rifles, the AK-47 was lighter, more compact, with a choice of fire, and was developed around a 7.62 x 39 mm bullet. When the so-called rifle box to be made of pressed material, instead of milling, it significantly accelerated production. Cleaning and maintaining the rifle is also a measure of simplicity - a large gas piston and large gaps between the moving parts made it withstand any dirt on the battlefield longer than any rival. The piston, front and rear sights, enable single or burst firing of exceptional accuracy up to 25o meters away from the target. The chrome plating of the barrel, chamber and gas piston has contributed so much to durability that this treatment has become the standard for all other automatic rifles in the world.

Because of its real, deadly effectiveness, the "Kalashnikov" has become a favorite mythical weapon of all kinds of "bad guys" in literature, film and comics, and often serves as a backdrop for war reporters from those unfortunate parts of the world that are not currently ours.

Literature and images: Politica's Entertainer, number 3563