Mikhail Kalashnikov

Mikhail Kalashnikov is a Russian and Soviet designer of small arms. Doctor of Technical Sciences (1971), Lieutenant General (1999), Hero of the Russian Federation (2009), creator of the world famous Kalashnikov assault rifle (AK). From childhood, he was interested in technology, with interest studying the device and principles of operation of various mechanisms. At school he was fond of physics, geometry and literature. For the first time Mikhail got acquainted with the device of weapons, having disassembled the Browning gun with his own hands. .In the fall of 1938 he was drafted into the Red Army in the Kiev Special Military District. After a course of junior commanders, he received the specialty of a tank driver and served in the 12th Panzer Division. He showed his inventive abilities already there - he developed an inertial counter for shots from a tank gun, a device for a TT pistol to increase the efficiency of firing through slots in a tank tower, a tank life meter. Kalashnikov began the Great Patriotic War in August 1941 as a tank commander with the rank of senior sergeant, and in October he was seriously wounded near Bryansk. At the hospital, he really got into the idea of creating his own model of automatic weapons. He began to make sketches and drawings, comparing and analyzing his own impressions of battles, the opinions of his comrades in arms. Since 1942, Kalashnikov worked at the Central Research Range of Small Arms and Mortar Weapons. Here in 1944 he created a prototype self-loading carbine, which, although it did not go into mass production, partially served as a prototype for the creation of an assault rifle. Since 1945, Mikhail Kalashnikov began the development of automatic weapons under the intermediate cartridge 7.62 × 39 of the 1943 model. Kalashnikov assault rifle won the competition in 1947 and was adopted. In March 1948, Kalashnikov was sent to the Izhevsk to participate in the development of technical documentation and organize the production of the first experimental batch of his AK-47 assault rifle. In the shortest possible time, the task was completed: 1,500 assault rifles manufactured at the Motozavod successfully passed military tests and were adopted by the Soviet Army.