General and particular in weapons: Kalashnikov assault rifles of "brothers" and "non-brothers"
An Afghan Border Police officer with a modernized Hungarian AMD-65 assault rifle (September 2010)
"Esau said, I have plenty, my brother; let what is yours be with you."
Genesis 33:9
Genesis 33:9
stories about weapons. Most people are envious and believe that everything that belongs to others is better than their own. The same often applies to weapons - countries try to adopt the best of what they have. But they don't forget their own either. And here sometimes there are very funny situations: the main rival of the Kalashnikov assault rifle is considered to be the American M16 rifle, but it turns out that the same Belgian FAL was in service with 70 countries, and the M16... only a little more than 20! But in the Guinness Book of Records, the Kalashnikov assault rifle is called the most widespread weapon in the world, since by now there are more than 100 million of them in the world. And all because the Soviet Union not only sold licenses for the production of AK, but also generously supplied it to its allies, friends, and various freedom fighters. And although now the assault rifle is officially produced in only 12 countries, it is almost impossible to count its unlicensed manufacturers, as well as consumers.
But what about our immediate allies in the Warsaw Pact, signed in 1955, such as Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, the GDR (1956-1990), Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia? And there, modifications of our machine gun with minimal changes were produced by all these countries, except Czechoslovakia.
The Hungarian People's Republic was the first to receive a license to manufacture this weapon, as well as all the technical documentation and equipment, in 1955. Moreover, its AK-55 was an exact copy of the Soviet assault rifle. But the Hungarians still decided to add something of their own: they installed a compensator on the barrel, which improved the accuracy of automatic fire, and an additional pistol grip under the fore-end. Moreover, they did not make a new one, but simply took the one that was on the assault rifle itself, but attached it backwards!
As a result, the Hungarians produced a very good machine gun, which Yemen, Afghanistan and a number of other third world countries began to buy from them. In 1999, Hungary joined the NATO bloc, whose standard machine gun cartridge is 5,56 × 45 mm, and committed to switching to NATO standards, but the 7,62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifles still remained the main type of small arms in the Hungarian army.
Liberian soldier with a Romanian MD 63 assault rifle
After Hungary, the Kalashnikov assault rifle was produced in the GDR, Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. Surprisingly, each country made its own, albeit unimportant, changes to it that did not affect the design of the weapon itself. So to speak, to emphasize its national "I", although there was no particular sense in this from a technical point of view. Czechoslovakia stood apart. It had its own weapons school, the Czechs did not want to lose it, and our military and politicians did not put pressure on them, clearly respecting "national feelings". So the Czechs refused to accept the AK-47 into service and developed their own vz. 58 assault rifle instead. Moreover, it was very similar in appearance to the "Kalashnikov", but had a completely different design. True, all small arms of the Warsaw Pact countries were standardized for the Soviet 7,62 X 39 cartridge.
Afghan policeman with a vz. 58 assault rifle (January 2010)
Work on the project called "Broom" began in 1956. The head of the project was Jiří Čermák from Brno, an engineer at the design bureau of the state arms factory "Česká Zbrojovka" in Uherský Brod. Things were going well, so that already in 1958 the assault rifle called vz. 58 was accepted into service and began to be delivered to the troops, replacing the self-loading rifle model 1952 (vz. 52) and the submachine guns Sa 24 and Sa 26.
Over 25 years, more than 920 thousand of these machines were produced, which also entered service not only in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, but also in Cuba and a number of countries in Asia and Africa.
Czechoslovakian machine gun model 1958 with a set of accessories
The "58" automatic system allows both single and continuous fire, and, like the AK, is based on the removal of powder gases from the barrel bore through a hole drilled in it. But it works due to the short stroke of the gas piston, which delivers one short impulsive blow to the bolt carrier. In this case, the piston moves back only 19 mm, after which its own return spring returns it to its previous position.
The bolt carrier moves back after the piston strikes it. After moving 22 mm, the wedge-shaped surface of the bolt carrier is under the locking element and lifts it up, disengaging it. This movement allows the empty cartridge case to be ejected using the ejector, which is fixed between the grooves in the lower part of the bolt.
The weapon is fed from 30-round box magazines made of aluminum to reduce weight. After the last shot, the bolt will remain open until a new magazine is inserted. The magazine release is located on the left at the base of the receiver. The ejector is at the base of the magazine well. 10-round clips (similar to those used in the SKS) are also available. However, the Czech machine gun's magazines are not compatible with the AK family of machine guns.
This machine also has an interesting feature in the form of a quick change of the buttstock. At the same time, there is a regular wooden and folding metal buttstock, as well as AR-15 style butts for installation. To select any buttstock option, it is enough to pull the bolt out of the receiver and then change the buttstock.
Automatic rifle vz. 58. Left view
The same machine gun. View from the right
Modernized model vz. 58V (new forend with sighting bar installed)
Sample vz. 58 with "openwork butt"
The machine gun is distinguished by its high quality of manufacture. The receiver is milled. The bolt cover is made of sheet steel. The bolt, gas piston and barrel bore are chrome-plated, and the outer surfaces of all parts are phosphated, and also coated with a special varnish for protection against corrosion. The buttstock, pistol grip and fore-end are made of wood (early models) or plastic filled with wood shavings (late models). A bayonet-knife can be attached to the machine gun, as well as (for some models) bipods and an under-barrel grenade launcher. That is, the Czechs got a weapon that is not much inferior to the AK, but somewhat lighter (2,9 kg compared to the Soviet machine gun, which weighed 3,15 kg), although the use of aluminum in the magazines is a rather controversial decision. In any case, the "58" turned out to be the only "national machine gun" for all the armies of the Warsaw Pact countries! A total of about 920 Cermak machine guns were produced. They were supplied to the Czech Republic and Slovakia (after the collapse of Czechoslovakia), as well as Libya, Cyprus, Angola, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mozambique, Somalia, Tanzania, India, Iraq, Cuba and Guatemala.
The Czech (top) and Soviet (bottom) machine guns were very similar in appearance!
Czech Armed Forces reservists with vz. 58 assault rifles (August 2008)
The Chinese were also among the first to master the production of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and immediately began to make their own changes to it. Their model was called "Type 56". At the same time, the main "trademark" of the Chinese assault rifle was... a needle bayonet, which folded under the barrel in the marching position. The quality of Chinese assault rifles was low.
A Chinese Type 56 assault rifle. Photo by the U.S. Department of Justice.
In 1963, Romania received a license to produce its own AK from the USSR. This time, it all started not with the very first model, but with the AKM, which in the Romanian version was called PM md 63. It is quite easy to distinguish this weapon from many other models by the forward-curved grip for holding, made in one piece with a wooden fore-end; everything else in the weapon is completely analogous to the Soviet version of the machine gun, down to the smallest details. The length of the weapon is 870 millimeters, the barrel length is 415 millimeters. The weight of the machine gun without ammunition is 3,7 kilograms, the rate of fire is 600 rounds per minute. It is very easy to distinguish the Romanian copy from the real Russian machine gun - on the third day of its use, the Romanian clone simply fell apart.
After China, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania, AK production was established in the GDR, Poland, North Korea and Yugoslavia with a minimum time gap. In addition, screwdriver assembly was carried out from Soviet components in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Lebanon and India. In Finland, it turned into the Valmet Rk 60/62. Being an exact copy of the Kalashnikov assault rifle in terms of all mechanisms, it was quite noticeably different from the AK in appearance. The Finnish version of the AK is considered the highest quality of all clones of the Kalashnikov assault rifle produced worldwide.
In the 60s, when the Arab-Israeli wars were going on, the Israeli army's small arms were the Belgian FAL automatic rifle. It was not entirely satisfactory, since it was too sensitive to sand dust. In this regard, a competition was announced to create an assault rifle for the Israeli army. The winner was a modification of the Finnish Valmet Rk 60.
Djibouti. National Police training with the Galil rifle
It was called "Galil" and was, according to experts, a successful version of the machine gun on the AK platform. Then the Finns sold the Israelis some of the equipment and technical documentation for their model, after which the new rifle was used by the Israelis until the end of the 80s. True, it was then replaced by the American M16 automatic rifle, which weighed one and a half kilograms lighter than the Finnish-Israeli modification of the AK-47. However, after that, Israeli soldiers began to often encounter a problem when the "American", having been in sand or water, often let them down. By the way, the machine gun based on the "Galil" also ended up in South Africa, so our "Kalashnikov" and its clones have been in many countries and were not in service...
A Georgian army unit with Galil rifles in Afghanistan, June 2013.
Here is an interesting metamorphosis that happened to the Kalashnikov assault rifle in East Germany. The first assault rifles that were produced by the GDR industry were almost completely identical to the Soviet original. But with some differences. The main one was the absence of a cleaning rod. However, this did not mean that the GDR army did not clean weapons. The cleaning rod was simply carried by the serviceman in a pouch and was flexible.
In 1985, they also became concerned about creating a machine gun for the NATO 5,56 x 45 mm cartridge. They remembered this not because life was good: East Germany simply needed currency, especially since the example of neighboring socialist countries (the Poles, for example, sold their AKMs to Nicaragua for $89 each) was very inspiring. So the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) decided to start selling such a machine gun, wanting to receive at least 200 of them per year.
It was supposed to create a whole family of automatic weapons from five models: an assault rifle with a fixed butt, with a folding butt, with a folding butt and a shortened barrel, a light machine gun with a weighted barrel and bipods, and a sniper rifle with an extended barrel, optical sight and bipods. The weapons were based again on the life-tested Kalashnikov assault rifle.
"During military tests in Peru and India, the new machine gun, designated the "Viger 941", left the assault rifles from the USA and West Germany far behind in accuracy,"
— it was reported following these tests. Reliability was on the same level as that of Kalashnikov assault rifles. Production began in 1989, and the first foreign contracts arrived at the same time — Peru, having tested these assault rifles, decided to order them for its police, and a little later the Indians joined the Peruvians. But due to the withdrawal of the GDR from the Warsaw Pact, and then the unification with West Germany in 1990, production of these assault rifles was stopped, and the contracts were cancelled by the FRG government (with the payment of fines). This is where the history of the "Viger 941" ended, although the history of the Kalashnikov assault rifles themselves continues today, and sometimes it makes very whimsical zigzags. In particular, we are talking about the passion of many gunsmiths not so much for alterations, but for gilding and silvering of weapons. It happens that our AK is also covered with 10-karat gold, turning the weapon into a souvenir worth 10 thousand dollars or more! At one time, none other than Saddam Hussein gilded his personal AK, becoming the Middle Eastern trendsetter for "golden machine guns". That's where it all started!
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