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| Science & Technology |
| End of an Era - Russian army stops buying Kalashnikov rifles |
| 2011-09-30 |
| The Russian army has ceased ordering the famed Kalashnikov rifle for its arsenal and is waiting on a newer model its manufacturer is developing. The army already has more of the weapons than it requires, Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia Nikolai Makarov told Russian media. The inventor of the weapon, Mikhail Kalashnikov, 91, has reportedly been deliberately kept uninformed about the decision. "We do not want to have it on our conscience and tell him such bad news. He might not live through it," Russia's Izvestia newspaper quoted an unnamed friend of Kalashnikov as saying. According to the weapon's manufacturer Izhmash, the AK-47 is still adopted by armed and special forces in over 100 countries. When Kalashnikov turned 90 in 2009, the day was celebrated in Russia on a scale akin to a national holiday. He was decorated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev with the country's highest order, the Hero of Russia. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #7 What does that have to do with the discussion, Devilstoenail? It seems to me the others were praising the AK series rather than otherwise. Fortunately, there are other things we do better than they, or you and we would all be speaking Russian now, and my husband wouldn't have put a good deal of time in traveling on business over there. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2011-09-30 18:07 |
| #6 To Iblis How many of your own troops did your nation manage to get killed in Vietnam using jamming and faulty M16's? |
| Posted by: Devilstoenail 2011-09-30 18:01 |
| #5 Sounds like they are just waiting for a next gen AK. Not really a big deal. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2011-09-30 10:31 |
| #4 They haven't been buying classic AK-47s since the late Fifties, have they? The most-commonly made variant was the AKM, and it's been AK-74s and variants since the late Seventies in Russia proper. The AK-74 doesn't even use the classic heavy AK round... - CNN screwed up, it's the AK-74 series which is being dropped. Way to go, CNN editor - you managed to jabber on about AK-47s for entire paragraphs without once mentioning the actual weapon series being discontinued for Russian government purchase. "We are designing new firearms, and we currently have 10 million Kalashnikovs for our army of one million servicemen," said General Nikolai Makarov, chief of the armed forces general staff. Huh, so the Russians have no plans to keep armories for call-up of the militia, in case of oh, I don't know, Chinese invasion of Siberia? How untypically Russian of them. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2011-09-30 08:35 |
| #3 According to wikipedia it was techniocally closer to the M1 Garand than to the Sturmwgewehr |
| Posted by: JFM 2011-09-30 01:53 |
| #2 Of course, it was based on the German sturmgewehr. Cleaned up the sturmgewehr's problems and made it into something that could be turned out by third world metalworkers. |
| Posted by: gromky 2011-09-30 01:06 |
| #1 Probably the only Soviet invention that ever and always worked. |
| Posted by: European Conservative 2011-09-30 01:02 |