In that interview with Popular Mechanics, he makes reference to a German weapons designer that might have had a lot to do with the weapon that ultimately became the AK-47. That would be Hugo Schmeisser, the father of the Sturmgewehr. I personally think he’s probably right.
He’s also got a blog where he’s posted pics and commentary of his travels researching the weapon.
In that interview with Popular Mechanics, he makes reference to a German weapons designer that might have had a lot to do with the weapon that ultimately became the AK-47. That would be Hugo Schmeisser, the father of the Sturmgewehr. I personally think he’s probably right.
Interesting to note, The original AK46 (forty six) had a left side non-reciprocating CH, two selector switches on the left side (one for fire selection and other for fire/safe), and also what appears to be a straight insertion mag well.
Also one of the experimental AK47’s had a typical AK style selector switch that had a tab closer to to the center, possibly to be operated with your trigger finger like a blackjack swift lever.
Instead, we get the AK47/AKM that we know today. Dumbass soviets.
I know Mikhail wants to deny that the MP43/44 had an impact on his design, but I have to ask myself how it’s possible that the designs are so similar (out least in outward appearance).
To the best of my knowledge MP43’s were airdropped to Wehrmacht troops in Russia before he actually began working on his actual design, is that not correct?
Actually, there were some Haenal MKb-42’s airdropped into a German unit that had been encircled on the Eastern Front in very early '43. They fought their way through. Something like 9,000 or 10,000 of the MKb-42(H)'s were made before they switched over to the improved MP-43/MP-44/StG-44 series.
The MKb-42 fired from an open bolt. It was the only one of the series to have a bayonet lug.
I took this pic when I was at Aberdeen’s museum a few years ago.
Hans-Dieter Handrich tried to find out if Kampfgruppe Scherer had MKb42s at Cholm for his book Sturmgewehr! (pp168-171). What he ended up with was a ‘maybe, but probably not’. The Cholm breakthrough came in early May 1942, at which point only 50 production Haenel MKb-42s had been manufactured. 25 of those went to the Infanterieschule in April, 1942. The other 25 are not accounted for, nor are 250,000 rounds of 7.92x33mm ammo. It’s therefore possible that the other 25 guns were dropped to Kampfgruppe Scherer at Cholm. The captured MKb-42(H) in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, however, has serial # 503, which (according to Handrich) indicates it was part of a batch of 2,000 MKbs shipped to HGr Nord in April, 1943.
they still wouldve lost, the MP44 alone cant turn the ride against what really won the war - the Allies industrial capacity, both US and Soviet manufacturing power. Some of the battles wouldve been a bit tougher tho.
It would have been murder in the hedgerow country in France also.
It wouldn’t have won the war but it could have made a difference in those 2 close in battles were armored war-fare didn’t work.
Just saying
I had two MP44 that were found in Iraq at the end of 03’ along with 60 rds of East German 7.92 Kurz and one mag. Did track down about another 4-6 found over there at the time.
Notice the selector and safety (two different switchs, push thru selector and on left side safety like on a AR15, like the test AK46)
Someone had to fire that 60 rds of ammo.
I enjoyed the article and look forward to the book and since this is about the AK series, Iraq has them all!
Here’s a part that I don’t think got the whole story:
Why did the Soviet Union think a lightweight, automatic rifle was needed?
The Soviet military had faced the world’s first mass-produced assault rifle—the German sturmgewehr, or storm rifle—in battles on the Eastern Front in World War II. It was impressed and wanted its own version. The AK-47 was fundamentally a conceptual copy of the German weapon. The Soviet Union was exceptionally skilled at copying its enemies’ ideas and was proud of its espionage and intelligence successes in obtaining enemy equipment and grasping the significance and utility of its opponents’ gear. In this case, it wanted an equivalent: a compact rifle, with modest recoil and weight, that could be fired on automatic or semiautomatic and that used smaller ammunition than the rifles of its time. Some people think of the Kalashnikov as revolutionary in design and idea, but it was evolutionary. In hindsight, it marked a natural step in a progression that had been under way for decades—a weapon midway between the large rifles and small submachine guns of the era, the ultimate compromise arm. This had many benefits, including that because the weapon used lighter, lower-powered ammunition, it would be less expensive to manufacture and supply and less burdensome, and each soldier could carry more cartridges per combat load. It all made military sense, and the Soviet arms-design community understood this immediately and went to work on its conceptual knockoff of the pre-existing German arm.
There’s on thing missing in this picture. How the Russian fighting doctrine changed during ww2. It is well known that after the painful experiences in Finland, in the last half of the war, the Soviets started to use a lot of submachine guns. More than all other major powers. In the crowded European cities this were very effective weapons and the soviets sometimes armed entire companies with nothing but PPSh submachine guns. Same tactics were used by the Chinese in Korea.
Sure the Sturmgewere had some influence and is most likely the spark that started it all, but I think the AK is a logical evolution of a rifle to match the new doctrine heavily based on mass full auto fire.
I had the pleasure of firing one of the authentic STG-44’s one time. Cool experience historically speaking, but the gun was a jammomatic. No idea if it was because of ammo, mags, or some other issue with the gun (which is probably very hard to source parts for, but i dunno). I’d guess the thing malfunctioned every 6 rounds or so.
In keeping with the original thread topic, thanks for the link, its interesting to see people who have put that much research into firearms
That’s odd. I was speaking to an MP44 owner about 2 weeks ago and he said the gun runs great. I wonder if there was something going on that you weren’t aware of.
Looks interesting.