The Gun Part 3

Kalashnikov was not the first. Many had tried a similar design elsewhere. And other Soviet designers had been working on similar systems during the late war and postwar period. But this particular Soviet push for a gas-operated automatic rifle was different. The Red Army's designers were cogs in a much larger machine, working within a government that was hungry for a new weapon, and willing to expend deep human and material resources on finding a satisfactory result. The only hurdle, once a design was worked out, would be the judges' review.

Sergeant Kalashnikov's packet had been submitted to the Main Artillery Department by a deadline in late 1945, along with fifteen other entrants from around the Soviet arms-design community.4 The test commission planned to review the competing proposals and select several entrants to proceed to the next phase-constructing their guns for firing trials. The sergeant wanted what all designers wanted: to see his ideas take shape in metal. The Russian winter gripped the test range. He waited. The test commission planned to review the competing proposals and select several entrants to proceed to the next phase-constructing their guns for firing trials. The sergeant wanted what all designers wanted: to see his ideas take shape in metal. The Russian winter gripped the test range. He waited.

The sergeant, a small and intent man with pale blue eyes and a face pitted by the faint scars of childhood disease, was worried. Over the course of a week, he had heard that other collectives had been notified that their designs had met approval, and they could proceed to the next stage. For his case, there was only silence. Perhaps he had failed again. He knew well that his path to arms design, and his entry into the inner workings of the Soviet military complex, had been unlikely. He had been born in near penury and raised from peasant stock on the steppe of central Russia, just north of the current border with Kazakhstan. Though he did not talk openly about his past with his army peers, his and his family's lives had been a tour through many of the characteristic miseries of the early Soviet period. The sergeant worked in secrecy. He kept secrets of his own. He dared not speak of his family's suffering at the hands of Stalin's state, including that his father, Timofey A. Kalashnikov, had been declared a kulak, kulak, and exiled as an enemy of the people, when the sergeant was an eleven-year-old boy. He spent the rest of his childhood and early teenage years in Siberia, a run of bitter and difficult years. But the Great Patriotic War had reshaped him, just as it reordered much of Stalin's Russia. He had made his peace with the Communist Party, the inst.i.tution that had nearly destroyed his family. and exiled as an enemy of the people, when the sergeant was an eleven-year-old boy. He spent the rest of his childhood and early teenage years in Siberia, a run of bitter and difficult years. But the Great Patriotic War had reshaped him, just as it reordered much of Stalin's Russia. He had made his peace with the Communist Party, the inst.i.tution that had nearly destroyed his family.

Kalashnikov had been conscripted into the Red Army's tank forces in 1938. In 1941, soon after Hitler betrayed his nonaggression pact with Stalin and launched the invasion of Russia, he had been wounded in battle. Kalashnikov's wartime experiences, and his newfound access to educated and accomplished people inside the Red Army, had given him the handholds he needed for a social and professional climb. The sergeant had many talents, not the least of which was a twinkling charm. His politics took shape: He became an ardent nationalist and patriot, committed to the Soviet Union and to its survival. In addition to his mechanical abilities, Sergeant Kalashnikov possessed a mind informed by an unerring survival instinct. He repeatedly endeared himself to the officers and party officials who determined his fate. The war against Germany drew him into the system that had brutalized his family, and he had come to align his interests with the interests of the national cause. He knew what was at stake, and how to articulate his place in it. "n.a.z.i enslavement or victory!" he would later write. "The potential for a man worrying about the fate of his homeland in years of trouble is really unlimited!"

Now he was at a critical moment. He had found a place in the army's armaments-design branch, and had found security as well, as much security as was possible for a young man in Stalin's Soviet Union. His salary was fifteen hundred rubles a month, several times more than many Soviet workers received, and at least twice the national average.5 Still, he was nervous. The contest was a chance to excel even more and to earn greater security yet. Under the Soviet system, successful Still, he was nervous. The contest was a chance to excel even more and to earn greater security yet. Under the Soviet system, successful konstruktors, konstruktors, as the state arms designers were called, were given status, prizes, awards, and perks. But Sergeant Kalashnikov was only twenty-six years old. He lacked the reputation and sense of protocol of other designers. Moreover, the submission papers had to be completed with bureaucratic Soviet precision, and he was competing against some of the most established names in Soviet arms circles. He expected rejection. as the state arms designers were called, were given status, prizes, awards, and perks. But Sergeant Kalashnikov was only twenty-six years old. He lacked the reputation and sense of protocol of other designers. Moreover, the submission papers had to be completed with bureaucratic Soviet precision, and he was competing against some of the most established names in Soviet arms circles. He expected rejection.

Yekaterina Moiseyeva, the draftswoman, appeared at his door. Kalashnikov knew her as Katya. In their months working together, the pair had fallen in love. Other members of the collective had played endless practical jokes on them, sending them each on contrived errands or with contrived questions so that the two might meet. "May I come in?"6 she asked. she asked.

She brought news. "Our bureau has authorized me to congratulate you on your victory in the contest," she said, and held out her hand.

The sergeant turned his back. He thought it was another of his colleagues' jokes. She seemed confused, too, and walked away, leaving him to stare at the winter outside. He had failed again.

More members of the team rushed to his door. "Come on, hurry over to the headquarters and then to the shop!" one said. This was Russia; they suggested toasts. Inside the polygon's headquarters, he was told officially. His proposal for an automatic rifle had been selected for the next phase.

From this moment forward, by his own telling, Mikhail Kalashnikov was on the path of designing the weapon that would be designated by the Soviet military as its new standard infantry arm. The result would become an object familiar to the world's eyes: a stubby black rifle, with a banana-shaped magazine, a steep front sight post, and a dark wooden stock. After many modifications over many years, from Sergeant Kalashnikov's initial design would flow the family of a.s.sault rifles now universally known as the AK-47-an acronym for Avtomat Kalashnikova-47, Avtomat Kalashnikova-47, the automatic by Kalashnikov designed in 1947. The significance of this secret contest was unknown in the West and not immediately evident even within the circle of officers who made the equipment decisions for Soviet land forces. But of all the many programs pursued in the Soviet arms complex in the years ahead-the ballistic submarines and transport and attack helicopters, the intercontinental missiles and strategic bombers, the armored vehicles and t.i.tanium-hulled tanks, and even the atomic bomb itself, which at the same time was the focus of a team of physicists in a project supervised by Lavrenty Beria, the feared leader of the secret police-none would claim as many lives as this seemingly mundane and uncomplicated invention. The man credited with its design would benefit, too. Sergeant Kalashnikov, a low-ranking the automatic by Kalashnikov designed in 1947. The significance of this secret contest was unknown in the West and not immediately evident even within the circle of officers who made the equipment decisions for Soviet land forces. But of all the many programs pursued in the Soviet arms complex in the years ahead-the ballistic submarines and transport and attack helicopters, the intercontinental missiles and strategic bombers, the armored vehicles and t.i.tanium-hulled tanks, and even the atomic bomb itself, which at the same time was the focus of a team of physicists in a project supervised by Lavrenty Beria, the feared leader of the secret police-none would claim as many lives as this seemingly mundane and uncomplicated invention. The man credited with its design would benefit, too. Sergeant Kalashnikov, a low-ranking konstruktor konstruktor in a sprawling bureaucracy, was destined to receive promotions that in time would elevate him to the honorary rank of lieutenant general. His surname would become an informal global brand. He would receive state prizes, ruble bonuses of enormous value in the parsimonious Soviet Union, an apartment, and eventually a dacha, or summer cottage, on the sh.o.r.es of a wooded lake. His second wife-Katya of NIPSMVO-would wear fur. in a sprawling bureaucracy, was destined to receive promotions that in time would elevate him to the honorary rank of lieutenant general. His surname would become an informal global brand. He would receive state prizes, ruble bonuses of enormous value in the parsimonious Soviet Union, an apartment, and eventually a dacha, or summer cottage, on the sh.o.r.es of a wooded lake. His second wife-Katya of NIPSMVO-would wear fur.7 And he would be appointed by the authorities as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet, the rubber-stamp national legislature that seated itself before Stalin and his successors in grand sessions within the Kremlin's tall red walls. For a peasant once in exile, he was now in a breathtaking climb. And he would be appointed by the authorities as a deputy in the Supreme Soviet, the rubber-stamp national legislature that seated itself before Stalin and his successors in grand sessions within the Kremlin's tall red walls. For a peasant once in exile, he was now in a breathtaking climb.

How exactly would all of this come to pa.s.s? Rough accounts of the contest, and of the early development of the Kalashnikov series, are known from official and personal versions. The basic outline is familiar. Sergeant Kalashnikov, the story goes, was a gifted young soldier, undeveloped but eager to serve his nation. His intuitive design skills, coupled with a desire to confront the marauding Germans and drive them from Russian soil, was given an outlet and direction by the Red Army and the Communist Party, enabling him to rise from obscurity and invent for his imperiled nation a rifle that was more reliable and effective than any previous design. By this account, everyone is put in a good light. Kalashnikov is the quintessential proletarian hero, a simple and seemingly una.s.suming man, a commoner, whose natural gifts and loyal dedication helped the Soviet Union arm itself and its friends against the encroaching West. And the Red Army, through the wisdom of its commanders and the timely and prescient intervention of Communist Party officials, channeled his raw talent for the workers' good. The durable frame of this story has been pa.s.sed down through government accounts and repeated often enough over the decades to have entered twentieth-century martial lore. But what were the precise circ.u.mstances and events that led to the creation of this weapon, now a centerpiece of modern war, and led to this previously unheralded man receiving credit for it?

The story becomes trickier at a finer grain of detail. The broad history of the evolution of military arms, deduced through ordnance reports, ballistic and technical studies, sales brochures, transcripts of officer and designer seminars, soldiers' accounts, medical records, and a host of materials in inst.i.tutional archives, is crowded with legends, quacks, apocryphal tales, and deliberately deceptive characters. Military secrecy has obscured many chapters; trade secrecy has prevented a full understanding of others. With the history of many weapons, the task is further complicated by the fact that essential sources have often not been fully trustworthy. Richard Gatling hewed in public to a profoundly naive dream and presented himself as a proper Southern gentleman who pitched up ready for America's industrial age. In private he plotted with no small amount of cunning-hiding and s.h.i.+fting his company's debt, paying a uniformed British army officer under the table to promote the weapon at officers' clubs, and concocting cagey plans to boost government support and sales, even if it meant planting stories in the Was.h.i.+ngton press. Ultimately, late in life, he admitted that he had offered his weapon for sale before it was ready. Hiram Maxim, an accomplished cad, suspected draft dodger, and accused trigamist, presented multiple and conflicting accounts of the origins of the Maxim gun. His ego was so immeasurably large that much of what he left behind in writing and in the transcripts of his public remarks was a celebration of himself. He was mischievous to boot, a prankster, which lent his memoirs and many of his statements the feel of an inside joke. This has made tracing a complete set of independent and verifiable details of his weapon's development, at least through what might seem its most important source-Hiram Maxim-a frustrating if not impossible task. The result is that it is often easier to evaluate any given weapon's impact and significance than it is to determine the exact circ.u.mstances of its invention.

But little in any independent inquiry into the evolution of automatic arms can compare in degree of difficulty to an examination of the origins of Kalashnikov's AK-47. The reasons are manifold. First and foremost, the weapon came into existence inside one of the most secretive and paranoid military systems the world has known. Within this system, the state-directed process was long, fundamentally bureaucratic, scattered across multiple cities and testing sites, and conducted in a cone of near silence by scores, if not hundreds, of partic.i.p.ants. The rules muzzled contemporaneous accounts beyond the limited statements made by the authorities, and Soviet authorities were given to lies. Later, when Mikhail Kalashnikov and his namesake weapon entered proletarian lore, the Soviet mythmaking mill produced simplified distillations and outright false official accounts. Inventions, handy fables, and propaganda wormed away at the story for decades, inst.i.tutionalizing falsehoods and calcifying legends, many of which then became part of the narrative in the West, where further repet.i.tion hardened and certified official Soviet accounts. As for Mikhail Kalashnikov himself, he sometimes complained of the false accounts and at other times partic.i.p.ated in them, including in his first encounter with a researcher who eventually became a curator at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. At their first contact, by letter in the early 1970s, Kalashnikov recommended a clumsily and transparently falsified official account of his personal biography and the weapon's history.8 The subterfuge was understandable in its context, part of both a bureaucratic and a diplomatic dance. Kalashnikov consulted with a senior KGB official in the region where he worked before replying to the letter, and his response was pa.s.sed through the acting Soviet military attache in Was.h.i.+ngton. Such conditions left little room for candor. The caution was characteristic of its time. Perhaps it was justified. Though Kalashnikov did not know it, the civilian researcher was quietly collaborating with, and seeking advice from, a senior American technical intelligence official, the very man whose primary responsibility for the United States government was to examine and evaluate Eastern bloc small arms. Whether the researcher's role was intentional or not, from a Soviet perspective he was acting as an agent. The subterfuge was understandable in its context, part of both a bureaucratic and a diplomatic dance. Kalashnikov consulted with a senior KGB official in the region where he worked before replying to the letter, and his response was pa.s.sed through the acting Soviet military attache in Was.h.i.+ngton. Such conditions left little room for candor. The caution was characteristic of its time. Perhaps it was justified. Though Kalashnikov did not know it, the civilian researcher was quietly collaborating with, and seeking advice from, a senior American technical intelligence official, the very man whose primary responsibility for the United States government was to examine and evaluate Eastern bloc small arms. Whether the researcher's role was intentional or not, from a Soviet perspective he was acting as an agent.9 Kalashnikov's deception was expected, to the point of being reflexive. The reflex fit the time. Kalashnikov's deception was expected, to the point of being reflexive. The reflex fit the time.

Years later, toward the end of the Soviet period, Kalashnikov presented, in both his writings and his scores of public interviews, a somewhat more expansive account of the weapon's development and design. This brought more detail to the discussion. But as Kalashnikov circulated more accounts, he sometimes contradicted himself and thereby made the history even more debatable. Memoirs might be expected to help, as they would presumably be rendered with more deliberation and care than extemporaneous remarks in interviews, and Kalashnikov would be able to consult his own records to check facts and shape revisions. And yet for a man with a reputation for mechanical precision, his memoirs are a sloppy affair. He has written several, or, put another way, several have appeared under his name (two were cowritten with other authors, and at least one of his critics suspects there has been a ghostwriter, too).10 They beg for an editor, and not just because his accounts veer between sentimental, doctrinaire, folksy, and at times scalding. Stylistic s.h.i.+fts are a mere nuisance. Deeper problems lie in the s.h.i.+fting facts. Accounts of key events differ from text to text. Simple errors intrude in some places; in others, he has reclaimed chunks of the official history or other writers' work and recast it. They beg for an editor, and not just because his accounts veer between sentimental, doctrinaire, folksy, and at times scalding. Stylistic s.h.i.+fts are a mere nuisance. Deeper problems lie in the s.h.i.+fting facts. Accounts of key events differ from text to text. Simple errors intrude in some places; in others, he has reclaimed chunks of the official history or other writers' work and recast it.11 Throughout the memoirs, his recollections and the dates, even the years, for important events change. The dialogue changes as well, often in ways that alter the meaning of events as he recalls them. Even what might seem the most basic details come unmoored. (Was the AK-47 accepted as the winner of the design contest in late 1947 or in early 1948? Kalashnikov's memoirs have said both. The answer, from other sources, is clear: January 1948. How exactly was Kalashnikov wounded? Again, there are many answers, depending on the memoir.) An independent researcher is left to wonder: Is Kalashnikov simply imprecise? Or is he a serial embellisher and cunning censor? The record indicates that he was, variously and sometimes simultaneously, all three. Throughout the memoirs, his recollections and the dates, even the years, for important events change. The dialogue changes as well, often in ways that alter the meaning of events as he recalls them. Even what might seem the most basic details come unmoored. (Was the AK-47 accepted as the winner of the design contest in late 1947 or in early 1948? Kalashnikov's memoirs have said both. The answer, from other sources, is clear: January 1948. How exactly was Kalashnikov wounded? Again, there are many answers, depending on the memoir.) An independent researcher is left to wonder: Is Kalashnikov simply imprecise? Or is he a serial embellisher and cunning censor? The record indicates that he was, variously and sometimes simultaneously, all three.

Sorting through these varied accounts and small details might be possible with extended and detailed interviews with Kalashnikov, or with unfettered access to primary doc.u.ments. But Kalashnikov, while he makes himself accessible, is nearing senescence. He spent his life in a system that discouraged openness, encouraged deception, and punished disobedience, and he arrived at old age adept at evasion; in his memoirs, he openly admits to misleading Soviet officials and the public about his past, and in interviews he mixes a proletarian and peasant persona with gentle refusals to answer almost all questions he labels "political." He often answers questions with stock lines he has repeated for years, or decades. When pushed, he grows dismissive. The Soviet legacy endures in other telling ways, too. In the matter of archives, important collections that would be expected to contain information on the weapon's development, and the roles of partic.i.p.ants, remain closed. Primary doc.u.ments have not been shared, even with the museum that bears the designer's name and celebrates his work. And many doc.u.ments are presumed to have vanished. "Here if something is once cla.s.sified it will in most cases be cla.s.sified until destroyed," said one prominent Russian firearms researcher.12 Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which created possibilities for more openness, other factors added to the uncertainty. Freed from silence by the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the fall from power of the Communist Party, two partic.i.p.ants in the compet.i.tion in the 1940s, including a Red Army major who helped evaluate the prototype a.s.sault rifles, staked partial claims on the weapon's parentage. Moreover, further research suggested that the renowned German arms designer Hugo Schmeisser, who was captured by the Red Army after n.a.z.i Germany's defeat, worked at the same arms-manufacturing complex where the AK-47 was first ma.s.s-produced and modified-raising the possibility that the weapon's production, if not its design, was directly influenced by an expert and innovator who was effectively held as a prisoner. Kalashnikov was also accused in a Moscow newspaper of lifting important components of a compet.i.tor's design and applying them to his final submission, the prototype that became the basis for the AK-47. Two post-Soviet Russian-language accounts using official sources-one by a partic.i.p.ant in the contest's evaluation, and another by an arms museum curator-lend support to counterclaims, though they do not dismiss the central narrative outright.

Mikhail Kalashnikov is a proud, energetic, and sometimes intense man, and as a lingering proletarian hero, whose narrative has served both his interests and the interests of the state, he always reb.u.t.ted such claims emphatically, often with thinly masked fury. But strong and angry denials serve only as denials; absent full access to the primary doc.u.ments, sorting through the exact lines of parentage remains impossible, at least without taking leaps of faith, which many of the people who embrace the stock story have been willing to do. These leaps fit patterns. First they were expected as part of the Communist Party's recasting of history; history, during the bulk of Kalashnikov's work life, was as the party defined it, and the public was to accept the fabricated and debased versions as presented. Later, accepting the updated but still self-serving versions that emerged in post-Soviet years was a requisite part of access to Kalashnikov, which many writers cherished and did not jeopardize with inconvenient questions. Fighting this tide was not easy. In Russia, the simple story is a minor industry. Its upkeep has been a determined project.

As a result of these processes, the precise circ.u.mstances are, at best, historically unsettled. But a middle view is possible within a wider context. It is this: Any distillation that treats the AK-47 as a spontaneous invention, the epiphany of an una.s.suming but gifted sergeant at his workbench, misses the very nature of its origins as an idiosyncratic Soviet product. The weapon was designed collectively, the culmination of work by many people over many years, and the result of a process in which Senior Sergeant Kalashnikov was near the center in the mid and late 1940s. This process was driven not by entrepreneurs.h.i.+p or by quirky Russian innovation and pluck, but by the internal desires and bureaucracy of the socialist state. The motivations that fueled it were particular to a moment in history. The Soviet Union, once a technologically backward society that had been brutalized and organized by Stalin's police state, had been militarizing throughout its existence, and it had recently been fully transformed into a military-industrial economy by war and its fear and hatred of Hitler. As. .h.i.tler exited the stage, this economy's potential for arms-making was harnessed again, this time to a mix of almost religious revolutionary ideology-socialism was, according to the party's core teaching, to sweep the world in an irresistible advance-and to a rational suspicion of the United States, with which it was compelled to compete.

Out of these forces, the compet.i.tion for an automatic rifle was ordered. Unlike the Maxim and Gatling guns, the Soviet result, as near as a close reading of the available accounts can allow, flowed from official directives and widespread collaboration and not from a flash of inspiration. The AK-47 was a product of Stalin's state, not of a single man; it was the work of a government and the result of the vast resources the government applied to creating it. Kalashnikov himself has hinted at this himself. "When I grew older, I understood that my invention was not only the culmination of the fervent desire of all of our soldiers to have a worthy weapon to defend our Homeland but also what is often described in seemingly trite words-the 'creative energy of the people,'" he said. "I am sure that the AK-47 has become the embodiment of this energy. And let it be a common monument to us all-people whose names are known and the nameless. Let it be a symbol of the people's unity in a time of trial for the homeland."13 Later, in a public presentation in Russia commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the weapon's design, he expressed the fuller view more clearly. "Today we are celebrating the work of a big collective," he said. "I was not by myself sitting at a desk. It was a thousand-strong collective working at different factories." Later, in a public presentation in Russia commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the weapon's design, he expressed the fuller view more clearly. "Today we are celebrating the work of a big collective," he said. "I was not by myself sitting at a desk. It was a thousand-strong collective working at different factories."14 Such declarations are, of course, narrow. What makes the origins of the AK-47 interesting are not these easy plat.i.tudes, but the larger insights its story provides. The Soviet Union of the late 1940s was at a high point in its history. When it focused on technical tasks, it could excel. And when it focused on creating an automatic weapon that could be carried and managed by almost any man, it was able to quickly make one of the world's superproducts, and one of the truest symbols of itself. The weapon, which Kalashnikov emphasizes as a defensive tool and a shared monument to the population's creative energy, was rather a marker of the planned economy under totalitarian rule, a nation that could make weapons aplenty but would not design a good toilet, elevator, or camera, or produce large crops of wheat and potatoes, or provide its citizens with decent toothpaste and bars of soap. This is not to say that the planned economy was completely inefficient, though broadly it was. In the planned economy, when the plan worked, the nation got what its planners ordered. Main battle tanks became st.u.r.dy, reliable, and fearsome. Refrigerators barely worked. The AK-47 and its descendants in many ways form an apt emblem of the Soviet legacy, a wood-and-metal symbol of what the socialist experiment came to be about.

Certain aspects of the history are unchallenged.

The project that would change military rifles as combatants understood them began in strict secrecy in the Soviet Union just after the end of the Great Patriotic War. The Workers-Peasants Red Army was seeking a replacement for the infantry rifles, some of them dating to the turn of the century, that had served for decades as a standard arm for Russian and Soviet land forces. The Soviet Union had tried fielding automatic rifles for years, with disappointing results in battle. In the fight against the much more fully equipped German troops many Red Army soldiers found themselves carrying a Mosin-Nagant rifle largely unchanged since 1891.15 A hurried effort during the late war years by a prominent Soviet designer, Sergei G. Simonov, had produced a serviceable but not quite satisfactory carbine that was matched to a new, smaller cartridge than previous Soviet rifles had fired. Simonov's result, the SKS, A hurried effort during the late war years by a prominent Soviet designer, Sergei G. Simonov, had produced a serviceable but not quite satisfactory carbine that was matched to a new, smaller cartridge than previous Soviet rifles had fired. Simonov's result, the SKS, Samozaryadny Karabin Sistemy Simonova, Samozaryadny Karabin Sistemy Simonova, the self-loading carbine system by Simonov, was a semiautomatic. It was light, simple, and inches shorter than most infantry rifles of the time, which made it easier to handle in thickets, in urban combat, in armored vehicles, or on parachute duty. But it fired only one round for every pull of the trigger, and was fitted with a fixed ten-round magazine. The Red Army's Main Artillery Department was interested in an individual soldier's weapon with more firepower. For more firepower, something else was needed. the self-loading carbine system by Simonov, was a semiautomatic. It was light, simple, and inches shorter than most infantry rifles of the time, which made it easier to handle in thickets, in urban combat, in armored vehicles, or on parachute duty. But it fired only one round for every pull of the trigger, and was fitted with a fixed ten-round magazine. The Red Army's Main Artillery Department was interested in an individual soldier's weapon with more firepower. For more firepower, something else was needed.

The project's early luck had not been good. Another konstruktor, konstruktor, Aleksei I. Sudayev, had been working on a true automatic rifle for the new cartridge, and soon after the war his project had undergone two cycles of prototypes and tests. Sudayev was a young man, but already a celebrated figure among Soviet designers. Working in Leningrad during its encirclement and long siege, he had designed a submachine gun and helped oversee its production within the city, all in conditions approaching starvation. The weapon was issued to the Red Army soldiers who finally pushed the Germans back. Aleksei I. Sudayev, had been working on a true automatic rifle for the new cartridge, and soon after the war his project had undergone two cycles of prototypes and tests. Sudayev was a young man, but already a celebrated figure among Soviet designers. Working in Leningrad during its encirclement and long siege, he had designed a submachine gun and helped oversee its production within the city, all in conditions approaching starvation. The weapon was issued to the Red Army soldiers who finally pushed the Germans back.16 His energy seemed boundless, his talents immense. His second prototype for an a.s.sault rifle, the AS-44, was submitted in 1945. The evaluators found it promising, but heavy. They directed Sudayev to develop a third prototype of lesser weight. Sudayev fell severely ill in 1945 and died the next summer at the age of thirty-three, stalling the rifle's development. By then the Main Artillery Department had decided to commit the country's military infrastructure more fully to the cause. It had issued a new set of instructions. A compet.i.tion among design collectives throughout the arms complex would be held, and each would offer proposals for an automatic rifle-for the army's review. His energy seemed boundless, his talents immense. His second prototype for an a.s.sault rifle, the AS-44, was submitted in 1945. The evaluators found it promising, but heavy. They directed Sudayev to develop a third prototype of lesser weight. Sudayev fell severely ill in 1945 and died the next summer at the age of thirty-three, stalling the rifle's development. By then the Main Artillery Department had decided to commit the country's military infrastructure more fully to the cause. It had issued a new set of instructions. A compet.i.tion among design collectives throughout the arms complex would be held, and each would offer proposals for an automatic rifle-for the army's review.

The contest's timing all but predicted its result: A weapon would be created and it would be ma.s.s-produced. The Great Patriotic War had radically altered the Soviet Union. Since the October Revolution, the population of the former Russian empire had suffered civil war, collectivization, purges, and labor camps. The revolutionary promises of socialism had given way to the centralization of a police state and single-party rule. The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the NKVD, had grown in size and role, and its secret police had become a princ.i.p.al arm of a government that ruled by violence and fear. By the time of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's plan to invade the Soviet Union in 1941, show trials had thinned the ranks of the Bolshevik revolutionaries and party luminaries. Much of the senior military leaders.h.i.+p had been liquidated. Within schools, factories, and families, people were forced to denounce those near them, producing fresh crops of counter-revolutionary suspects to be arrested, tortured into confession, and sentenced to execution or forced labor in the network of GULAG camps. Stalin's personality cult had overtaken the land, and the national conversation was smothered by official propaganda and state lies. The nation was being consumed by the general secretary's whim, and the whims of those who acted under his hand.

The German invasion changed the national mood. The Third Reich's thrusts onto Russian soil had rallied a terrified people with a sense of shared peril and common purpose, and provided an impetus for militarization and industrialization on a scale not imagined immediately after the Bolshevik coup. Hitler's armies drove almost effortlessly through the Soviet Union's outer defenses, upending the Russian belief, central to the party's propaganda, that the Red Army would stop all enemies at the edge of Soviet soil. "We will never concede an inch of ground" was one popular slogan.17 The reality was different. Many divisions along the border were not dug in. Many units had no maps. Many officers were on leave. As the Germans attacked, Stalin issued an order that deepened the confusion. Awakened in the predawn hours and told of the attack by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the general secretary was in disbelief. "That is provocation," he said into the phone. "Do not open fire." The reality was different. Many divisions along the border were not dug in. Many units had no maps. Many officers were on leave. As the Germans attacked, Stalin issued an order that deepened the confusion. Awakened in the predawn hours and told of the attack by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the general secretary was in disbelief. "That is provocation," he said into the phone. "Do not open fire."18 Russian units were routed. Russian units were routed.

Ukraine and much of western Russia, the location of a large portion of the Soviet Union's population and the nation's industrial base, fell under n.a.z.i occupation, abandoned by the battered Red Army as it retreated. A drive for modernization had preceded the war. Stalin's Five-Year Plans, coupled to prison labor made available through repression, had rushed the Soviet Union through centralization and development apace, and the military sector had benefited. A huge pool of talent had been directed toward arms production and design. Laboratories, design bureaus, and research centers were dedicated to help.19 As the German Blitzkrieg bore down on Moscow, creating cascades of refugees, the nation was energized more. The Soviet Union tottered. Its defense establishment swelled. As the German Blitzkrieg bore down on Moscow, creating cascades of refugees, the nation was energized more. The Soviet Union tottered. Its defense establishment swelled.

By 1944, three years later, the ordeal and the turnabout had both been spectacular. The Soviet Union had lost as many as 20 million of its citizens, including nearly 8 million soldiers-losses that dwarfed those of all other partic.i.p.ating nations. But the tide had s.h.i.+fted. Germany's army, pressed from east and west, was nearing collapse. As the war approached its end in 1945, the Red Army, its ranks swelled by ma.s.s conscription, pursued the retreating German forces. The Kremlin gained control or primary influence over an expansive swath of territory extending from the Baltic states through Central and Western Europe and looping back to the banks of the Black Sea and almost into Yugoslavia, where t.i.to's resistance had evicted the Germans and a socialist state had taken hold. Stalin's prewar visions of socialist expansion had come to pa.s.s. This belt of nations would fall under Soviet influence and become the front line of the Eastern bloc, the buffer zone.

Stalin knew that large military forces would be necessary to occupy and administer this new socialist frontier, and to face down the West. These forces would need weapons. The timing was ideal for arming them. The Soviet Union had gone through an industrial transformation and remained on a war footing. It now had a labor force skilled in making weapons. Its arms and munitions factories, which had grown in size and number and worked around the clock in the war years, were producing weapons at an extraordinary rate. By one official estimate, in slightly less than four years of war, the Soviet Union managed to manufacture 12 million rifles, more than 6 million submachine guns, and almost a million machine guns-more than 13,000 weapons a day.20 But this was an average over a four-year period during which production in the first years was small. By the end of the war, at least one enterprise, the sprawling gun works at Izhevsk, claimed at peak production to be making 12,000 weapons each day by itself, consuming fifty tons of steel every twenty-four hours. But this was an average over a four-year period during which production in the first years was small. By the end of the war, at least one enterprise, the sprawling gun works at Izhevsk, claimed at peak production to be making 12,000 weapons each day by itself, consuming fifty tons of steel every twenty-four hours.21 This was the state of Stalin's defense complex as it considered its needs for a new infantry arm, a small automatic rifle that could be issued to every man. This was the state of Stalin's defense complex as it considered its needs for a new infantry arm, a small automatic rifle that could be issued to every man.

Stalin liked contests. The dictator believed they motivated designers of military equipment, winnowed ideas and accelerated development's pace. Contests were central to the Red Army's research efforts across a spectrum of design pursuits, including not just infantry arms but aircraft, too.22 He rewarded winning designers and at times summoned them before him-a terrifying prospect, considering that some designers, including the aircraft engineer Andrei N. Tupolev, worked from a He rewarded winning designers and at times summoned them before him-a terrifying prospect, considering that some designers, including the aircraft engineer Andrei N. Tupolev, worked from a sharaga, sharaga, a secret NKVD research camp, where he was a prisoner living under fear of even worse. a secret NKVD research camp, where he was a prisoner living under fear of even worse.

The extremes were Sovietesque. When the Hero of Socialist Labor prize was introduced in 1939, Stalin arranged that the first of the medals be given to him-and only him. The second prize, issued in 1940 by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, was awarded to Vasily Degtyarev, the weapons designer. In 1941, the Soviet Union awarded nine more, all to designers of military equipment and arms. (The prize was meant to recognize achievements in culture, the economy, and the arts; that ten of the first eleven prizes went to arms designers says something about national priorities.) One of the recipients in the third batch was Aleksandr Yakovlev, another aircraft designer, for whom Stalin had a special fondness. After asking Yakovlev directly about the due date for an expected fighter plane, the general secretary said that if the deadline was met, "the drink would be on me."23 Yakovlev was wary of this offer. The system had its perks, but the men who led it were mercurial, fickle, and exceptionally dangerous. Things often were not as they seemed. Another successful designer, Yakov G. Taubin, whose work gave the Red Army a reliable automatic grenade launcher, and who had also been awarded high state honors, was arrested early in the war and accused of being a supporter of Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, a senior Red Army commander who had been arrested, tried in secret, and executed in 1937. Tukhachevsky's liquidation had been part of the purge's effort to remove the dictator's potential rivals, including figures popular in the public eye. Taubin's design successes did not save him once he was in the clutches of the state. Nor did the fact that the charges against Tukhachevksy had been contrived, and his supposed network of plotters did not exist. Taubin received no trial. His service to the Soviet Union ended in October 1941. He was summarily shot. The system often wasted men, no matter their potential and their willingness to be of service to the same system that by turns rewarded and persecuted them. Arms designers had better prospects for survival than most Soviet citizens. But even they were not fully spared. No one was immune. Yakovlev was wary of this offer. The system had its perks, but the men who led it were mercurial, fickle, and exceptionally dangerous. Things often were not as they seemed. Another successful designer, Yakov G. Taubin, whose work gave the Red Army a reliable automatic grenade launcher, and who had also been awarded high state honors, was arrested early in the war and accused of being a supporter of Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky, a senior Red Army commander who had been arrested, tried in secret, and executed in 1937. Tukhachevsky's liquidation had been part of the purge's effort to remove the dictator's potential rivals, including figures popular in the public eye. Taubin's design successes did not save him once he was in the clutches of the state. Nor did the fact that the charges against Tukhachevksy had been contrived, and his supposed network of plotters did not exist. Taubin received no trial. His service to the Soviet Union ended in October 1941. He was summarily shot. The system often wasted men, no matter their potential and their willingness to be of service to the same system that by turns rewarded and persecuted them. Arms designers had better prospects for survival than most Soviet citizens. But even they were not fully spared. No one was immune.

Against this backdrop, the rifle project also fit within a larger pattern by which the Soviet army exploited what it could from Germany as design efforts were intensified. The Soviet Union's war with the n.a.z.is, its postwar occupation of German arms plants, and its interrogation of German designers and engineers had exposed the army both to its own weaknesses and to the most modern and carefully considered developments in German military designs. Throughout the 1940s, the Soviet Union had upgraded its suite of military equipment, often incorporating concepts from preexisting German systems. By the late 1940s, all of the defense sectors were at work on new weapons. The T-34 tank was being replaced with the T-54 and T-55 main battle tanks (which in time would be replaced by the T-62, the T-72, and the T-80, all of which would themselves be continually upgraded). Soviet submarines were being updated, influenced in part by German design. Aviation bureaus were experimenting with helicopter prototypes, and Stalin had browbeaten the Soviet Union's fixed-wing aircraft designers and instructed them to hurry jet aircraft into production. The Soviet Army was also in midproduction of its first rocket-propelled grenade, the RPG-2, an antiarmor weapon based on a n.a.z.i-era German pattern. (Further development would lead, in the 1960s, to the RPG-7-a system that, like the Kalashnikov, has lasted for decades.) At NIPSMVO, one of many centers in the Red Army's constellation of research inst.i.tutes, the contest for a new cla.s.s of automatic arm was to proceed in phases. In the first phase, the design bureaus were ordered to submit technical descriptions of their proposals by a deadline late in 1945. The most promising candidates would then proceed to a second step: making working prototypes for tests. The compet.i.tion was not only a state secret. It was veiled in anonymity, at least at the start. Each design collective was to work separately from others, and to submit doc.u.ments under a pseudonym, so the review commission's members would not know which submission came from which bureau. There was reason for precaution. Among the partic.i.p.ating designers were established names, and past experience had shown that favoritism was a risk. Stalin had been rumored to have liked Fedor V. Tokarev, another famous Soviet armorer, and in a previous contest, in the 1930s, the desire by officers on the commission to please the general secretary was said to have led to the selection of a Tokarev rifle design over other submissions, including a better weapon proposed by Simonov.24 Tokarev's weapon had not been a success, though that was not entirely Tokarev's fault-all the arms designers, in the Soviet Union and the West alike, who had tried making automatic rifles that fired the heavy rifle ammunition of the time had encountered difficulties. But the new contest drew from the lessons of the old. The use of pseudonyms was meant to prevent the taint of political interference from influencing the commission's decisions, and to give all partic.i.p.ants, even unknowns like Sergeant Kalashnikov, a fair chance, at least at the first cut. Kalashnikov's team convinced him to submit his packet under the name "Mikhtim," a shorthand for his first name and patronymic. "I was young then and felt a little awkward about it," he said. "But my friends told me not to be shy." Tokarev's weapon had not been a success, though that was not entirely Tokarev's fault-all the arms designers, in the Soviet Union and the West alike, who had tried making automatic rifles that fired the heavy rifle ammunition of the time had encountered difficulties. But the new contest drew from the lessons of the old. The use of pseudonyms was meant to prevent the taint of political interference from influencing the commission's decisions, and to give all partic.i.p.ants, even unknowns like Sergeant Kalashnikov, a fair chance, at least at the first cut. Kalashnikov's team convinced him to submit his packet under the name "Mikhtim," a shorthand for his first name and patronymic. "I was young then and felt a little awkward about it," he said. "But my friends told me not to be shy."25 As the collective worked, the Soviet project differed sharply from the earlier age of rapid-fire arms design, when General Origen Vandenburgh or Richard Gatling or Hiram Maxim labored with small teams in private workshops, puzzling over plans they hoped would find financial backing and a manufacturer to convert them into products for sale. The Soviet contest was wholly different. It was a state-directed pursuit, a process born of Leninist ideology and Stalin's will, freed from the restraints of Western patents and combined with Red Army administration. It was a secret matter of state security, pursued on a large scale and according to a full set of rules, not the individual entrepreneurs.h.i.+p and inventiveness of a Gatling or a Maxim. Moreover, the Soviet state was not merely issuing demands and timelines and serving as the evaluator. It was the primary influence in determining the nature of the weapon to be created. This influence extended beyond the contest's guidelines. It involved a cardinal decision, without which the AK-47 would be impossible: the selection of the cartridge the rifle would fire. It was a new cartridge, the M1943, unknown in the West, but destined to be the most common rifle cartridge on earth.

The origins of the M1943 preceded the Red Army's experiences in the war. In the 1930s the German army developed a prototype cartridge of intermediate size, the 7.92 Kurz. Until that time, the ammunition used by the riflemen of major powers was almost universally of high power, both by today's general-issue rifle standards and for the tasks that they could reasonably be expected to perform. Armies had been bewitched by the ballistic possibilities of high velocity, which could lead to long range, flat trajectory, and, with a heavy bullet, devastating wounds to victims struck. To fire heavy bullets at the great velocities then desired, bullets were seated in long cartridge cases that carried large charges of propellant. The globally used British .303 round, a mainstay from the turn of the century through the 1940s, was 78 millimeters long in all, as was the French MAS round used in World War II. The American round stretched to about 85 millimeters, and the Russian was just more than 77 millimeters long. s.h.i.+fting away from these big rounds in favor of something smaller had proven difficult in Hitler's Germany, and impossible elsewhere. Armies remained invested in them, materially and psychologically. Who, after all, would propose undertaking the substantial costs of overhauling ammunition factories to produce a cartridge that, on paper at least, was less less lethal? lethal?

After World War I, however, groups of ordnance officials and infantry officers had been asking whether such cartridges were necessary, and whether fidelity to ideas of maximum velocity and stopping power was a handicap forced on the ranks by tradition rather than sound a.n.a.lysis. What was the point of a rifle bullet that could strike a man two kilometers away now that soldiers wore camouflage and moved by infiltration? There were few targets at ranges beyond a few hundred yards, and when targets did present themselves out farther, not many marksmen could be expected to hit them. Rifles seemed to have been designed for tasks that did not exist, at least not for the typical foot soldier in the situations he was most likely to face. (Snipers, as specialists at long-range marksmans.h.i.+p, were another matter, but not every conscript needed a rifle capable of fulfilling sniper duty.) To those willing to question the status quo, the drawbacks of traditional rifle cartridges were obvious. To fire effectively out to this excess range, rifles had to be made heavier, which consumed more resources, drove up their costs, and made many models unwieldy. Their ammunition was heavy, too, meaning that it was expensive and soldiers carried fewer rifle cartridges than they otherwise might.

Between the wars, Germany was the first nation to pursue fully the concept of a smaller round, though German officers quarreled, too, about the merits of reducing a cartridge's power. The Treaty of Versailles officially had idled most of Germany's arms industry, but officers and their friends in industry actively circ.u.mvented the treaty and surrept.i.tiously continued research and manufacturing. As early as 1934 the Wehrmacht's Army Weapons Office had secretly issued a contract for a smaller round to the GECO firm, which developed the M35, a cartridge that was 55 millimeters in total length. In 1935, once the M35 rounds became available, Heinrich Vollmer, a designer from Biberach, worked out a rifle to fire them. Vollmer's rifle was almost thirty-eight inches long and weighed a little more than nine-and-a-quarter pounds, making it shorter than a standard rifle but within the typical weight range of rifles of the time. And it had a feature that had eluded everyone who had tried to design a rifle of this size: It could fire automatically, like a machine gun. The smaller cartridge had allowed Vollmer to solve the decades-old problem of miniaturization. In a short time, he had made a rifle that hammered out rounds at a rate as high as one thousand rounds a minute but did not weigh more than its single-shot cousins. Twenty-five of Vollmer's prototypes were made by hand for testing. The Army Weapons Office liked the weapon. The army itself did not. It was not approved, which may have been due to a pair of concerns regarding production: The M35 round would have required extensive retooling at ordnance plants to be brought into ma.s.s production, and the rifle was complex in design and tedious to manufacture, making it less than ideal for soldiers and a military economy alike.26 In 1938, the Weapons Office started again from scratch, issuing a contract to a second ammunition firm, Polte, which began its own tests for an intermediate round. This led to the 7.92 Kurz. Kurz Kurz means short. The word summarizes what Polte produced. In making the new cartridge, the firm had taken the 8-millimeter Mauser, the army's standard high-powered rifle cartridge for its rifles and machine guns, with an overall length of 82 millimeters, and trimmed it, creating a version with a shorter case and shorter bullet length. The result was a similar but lighter bullet but within a cartridge that was 49 millimeters long from end to end. The Kurz offered an industrial advantage over the M35. Because it was based on the 8-millimeter Mauser, producing it would not require as many changes to factory lines to bring it into large-scale use. The result had other favorable qualities. In the most basic sense, a shorter cartridge case meant less propellant would be put into the cartridge to drive the bullet down the barrel and out the muzzle. This reduced the power of the round to roughly midway between pistol and rifle ammunition, though the 7.92 Kurz round leaned more toward a traditional cartridge's power. It was also lighter in weight, which meant supply chains and individual soldiers could carry a larger number of rounds of ammunition into combat without increasing their load. Manufacturing it required fewer resources and cost less money. And because the cartridge had less energy, it had less excess energy, which meant it would produce less recoil. Any rifle that would fire it, if designed well, would be easier to handle than conventional rifles of the time, and might allow recruits to be trained in marksmans.h.i.+p more swiftly. means short. The word summarizes what Polte produced. In making the new cartridge, the firm had taken the 8-millimeter Mauser, the army's standard high-powered rifle cartridge for its rifles and machine guns, with an overall length of 82 millimeters, and trimmed it, creating a version with a shorter case and shorter bullet length. The result was a similar but lighter bullet but within a cartridge that was 49 millimeters long from end to end. The Kurz offered an industrial advantage over the M35. Because it was based on the 8-millimeter Mauser, producing it would not require as many changes to factory lines to bring it into large-scale use. The result had other favorable qualities. In the most basic sense, a shorter cartridge case meant less propellant would be put into the cartridge to drive the bullet down the barrel and out the muzzle. This reduced the power of the round to roughly midway between pistol and rifle ammunition, though the 7.92 Kurz round leaned more toward a traditional cartridge's power. It was also lighter in weight, which meant supply chains and individual soldiers could carry a larger number of rounds of ammunition into combat without increasing their load. Manufacturing it required fewer resources and cost less money. And because the cartridge had less energy, it had less excess energy, which meant it would produce less recoil. Any rifle that would fire it, if designed well, would be easier to handle than conventional rifles of the time, and might allow recruits to be trained in marksmans.h.i.+p more swiftly.

On April 18, 1938, even before the Kurz round took final form, Hugo Schmeisser, who had designed the Maschinenpistole 18 on a hurried schedule during World War I, was tasked with working out plans for a new cla.s.s of rifle at his shop in Suhl. The rifle was to have an effective range of eight hundred meters and be capable of automatic or semiautomatic fire. It was also to be designed for ready ma.s.s production. The initial name would be Maschinenkarabiner-or machine carbine-a small rifle that would fill the gap between submachine guns and machine guns, and create new possibilities for infantrymen to ma.s.s firepower. Though the Germans were in a hurry, it took Schmeisser two years to make a prototype, during which time Hitler launched World War II. His first effort was machined from solid steel. The Weapons Office wanted a weapon with components fas.h.i.+oned from stamped sheet metal, which would be cheaper and trim manufacturing time. Schmeisser had limited experience in sheet-metal processes, and as the German army was busy fighting in Europe, another firm, Merz in Frankfurt, was a.s.signed to rework his prototype in stamped metal. At last, in summer 1942, the Merz gun works, working with Schmeisser, delivered fifty prototypes of the Maschinenkarabiner 42. By then Hitler had invaded the Soviet Union, too.

Schmeisser's automatic rifle was the world's first intermediate-power automatic rifle to be approved for ma.s.s production and general issue to the infantry-a medium-range weapon firing at rates that rivaled machine guns and could be managed by a single soldier. The rifle was compact and had modest recoil and limited muzzle rise. And it was versatile. It could be fired one shot at a time or on automatic, as each soldier and situation required. A concept with scintillating military promise had been given shape. Schmeisser had won a race; another firm, Carl Walther, also tried to offer a prototype, but it did not produce as many by the deadline. Schmeisser's model went into action. Most of the prototypes were sent to the Russian Front for combat trials, and several were used against the Red Army in early 1943 by a battle group under the command of Major General Theodor Scherer. The group survived a months-long encirclement after Russian ski troops severed its supply lines in Cholm. One account credited the new weapon's firepower with helping the Germans to keep the Russians back. "It was this circ.u.mstance that made it possible for them to hold out," the account read, "until they were relieved."27 Germany tooled up for production, though critics in the military complained about integrating a new cla.s.s of ammunition and the risk of complicating supply. The next version of the gun mixed subterfuge with refinement. Hitler had discovered that the army was experimenting with an intermediate weapon and was firmly opposed to it. As a veteran of World War I, including the Battle of the Somme, he retained a commitment to powerful cartridges. To avoid the Fuhrer's scrutiny, the weapon's proponents relabeled the modified arm as a Maschinenpistole, and dubbed it the MP-43. This version merged elements of the Schmeisser and Walther prototypes, and slowly went into production under its misleading label. By early 1944 production had reached 5,000 pieces a month, and 9,000 of the rifles were made in April. The Wehrmacht was clearly satisfied. Production was projected to reach 80,000 rifles a month by 1945-a pace nearing a million a year-signaling that the Wehrmacht planned to distribute its invention widely. Germany tooled up for production, though critics in the military complained about integrating a new cla.s.s of ammunition and the risk of complicating supply. The next version of the gun mixed subterfuge with refinement. Hitler had discovered that the army was experimenting with an intermediate weapon and was firmly opposed to it. As a veteran of World War I, including the Battle of the Somme, he retained a commitment to powerful cartridges. To avoid the Fuhrer's scrutiny, the weapon's proponents relabeled the modified arm as a Maschinenpistole, and dubbed it the MP-43. This version merged elements of the Schmeisser and Walther prototypes, and slowly went into production under its misleading label. By early 1944 production had reached 5,000 pieces a month, and 9,000 of the rifles were made in April. The Wehrmacht was clearly satisfied. Production was projected to reach 80,000 rifles a month by 1945-a pace nearing a million a year-signaling that the Wehrmacht planned to distribute its invention widely.28 By then Hitler had swung round and become a strong supporter. He renamed Schmeisser's automatic yet again: the By then Hitler had swung round and become a strong supporter. He renamed Schmeisser's automatic yet again: the sturmgewehr, sturmgewehr, or storm rifle, which in translation became a.s.sault rifle, the designation that stuck. A new cla.s.s of firearm had been named. or storm rifle, which in translation became a.s.sault rifle, the designation that stuck. A new cla.s.s of firearm had been named.

Schmeisser's weapon was short-lived in battle; Germany's defeat ensured that. But in the long compet.i.tion among nations for perfected infantry arms, it marked a critical moment: the arrival of the reduced-power automatic rifle. The sturmgewehr sturmgewehr was only an inch beyond three feet. Like a submachine gun, it cycled out blistering automatic fire, not with short-range pistol ammunition, but with bullets that traveled at more than twenty-two hundred feet per second and had the power to incapacitate a man beyond the ranges ordinary to modern combat. It was not a full machine gun; it had no large-capacity feeding device, no tripod or sled or traversing equipment that would enable it to be firmly emplaced and used for fixed fire-the sort of accurate, long-range menace that allowed the Maxim gun and its descendants to rule the open ground of Omdurman and the Somme. But it was an exceptionally versatile firearm, well suited for all single-shot shooting at a rifleman's typical combat ranges, and its automatic fire made it ferocious for close combat and effective for suppression fire to cover an infantry unit's movement. As German units fell back late in the war, the was only an inch beyond three feet. Like a submachine gun, it cycled out blistering automatic fire, not with short-range pistol ammunition, but with bullets that traveled at more than twenty-two hundred feet per second and had the power to incapacitate a man beyond the ranges ordinary to modern combat. It was not a full machine gun; it had no large-capacity feeding device, no tripod or sled or traversing equipment that would enable it to be firmly emplaced and used for fixed fire-the sort of accurate, long-range menace that allowed the Maxim gun and its descendants to rule the open ground of Omdurman and the Somme. But it was an exceptionally versatile firearm, well suited for all single-shot shooting at a rifleman's typical combat ranges, and its automatic fire made it ferocious for close combat and effective for suppression fire to cover an infantry unit's movement. As German units fell back late in the war, the sturmgewehr sturmgewehr was picked up by Soviet troops. The Red Army grasped the significance of the weapon falling from its enemies' hands. A s.h.i.+ft in rifle capabilities had occurred. The Red Army set out to replicate it, but with a more fully considered gun. was picked up by Soviet troops. The Red Army grasped the significance of the weapon falling from its enemies' hands. A s.h.i.+ft in rifle capabilities had occurred. The Red Army set out to replicate it, but with a more fully considered gun.

The first Soviet step was not