What is the most effective weapon of the 20th century?
You think first of the atomic bomb, estimated to have killed as many as 200,000 people when the United States dropped two on the Japanese cities.
But another is responsible for far more battlefield carnage – numbering up into the millions. It’s the Kalashnikov assault rifle, commonly known as the AK-47.
An estimated 100 million AK-47s and its variants have been produced. It is now found throughout the world, including in the hands of many American civilians, who annually buy as many AK-47s as the Russian police and military
Mikhail Kalashnikov invented the weapon that bears his name in the middle of the 20th century. Born on Nov. 10, 1919, Kalashnikov was a tank mechanic in the Soviet military during the Second World War. He was wounded during the German invasion of the USSR in 1941.
Having seen firsthand the combat advantage conferred by Germany’s superior firearms, Kalashnikov resolved to develop a better weapon. While still in the military, he produced several designs that lost out to competitors before eventually producing the first AK-47.
