The Gun

1. Early Rapid-Fire Guns: Clunky Beginnings of Mass Firepower

“The arm in question,” he added, “is an invention of no ordinary character.”

An inventor's vision. Richard J. Gatling, a physician, sought to reduce war's horrors by making it so deadly fewer soldiers would be needed. In 1862, he patented the Gatling gun, a hand-cranked, multi-barrel weapon capable of unprecedented rates of fire, a significant leap from earlier, unreliable volley guns.

• Gatling's motivation: Reduce troop exposure to battle and disease.
• Technology: Rotating barrels, hand crank, fed from a hopper.
• Early models: Heavy (up to a ton), temperamental, required a crew.

Initial resistance. Despite promising tests, the Gatling gun faced skepticism and bureaucratic inertia during the American Civil War. Military traditionalists didn't understand its potential, viewing it more as artillery than an infantry weapon.

• Union Army: Chief of Ordnance resisted new designs.
• Confederate Army: Bought a few, but used them little.
• Notable early use: Guarding the New York Times office during draft riots.

Finding a market. After the Civil War, Gatling improved his design and found buyers abroad, particularly in Russia and the Ottoman Empire, who saw its potential for colonial warfare. These early sales hinted at the weapon's future, even as its tactical role remained unclear to many.

2. Maxim's Revolution: The Birth of the True Automatic Gun

“That is the gun,” he said, “there is no other.”

Harnessing recoil. Hiram Maxim, an American inventor, moved to Europe and, unlike his predecessors, sought to use the energy of the fired bullet itself to cycle the weapon. In 1884, he demonstrated the first truly automatic machine gun, requiring only a trigger pull for continuous fire.

• Key principle: Using recoil or gas pressure to automate loading and firing.
• Maxim's background: Self-taught engineer, inventor, relentless salesman.
• Early design: Single barrel, water-cooled, belt-fed.

Colonial dominance. Maxim's gun proved devastatingly effective in colonial wars, particularly in Africa, where small European forces used it to mow down charging indigenous armies armed with older weapons.

• Battle of Omdurman (1898): British Maxims inflicted massive casualties on Sudanese forces.
• Tactical impact: Rendered massed infantry charges suicidal against machine guns.
• Psychological impact: Created a sense of invincibility for well-armed forces.

Market success. Maxim's invention quickly overshadowed hand-cranked designs like the Gatling. His company, later Vickers, became a major supplier to European powers, setting the stage for the next era of warfare.

3. World War I: Machine Guns Define Industrial Slaughter

“It’s not war but murder.”

Trench warfare. The widespread adoption and tactical deployment of machine guns by all major powers, particularly Germany, transformed warfare in World War I. Combined with rapid-firing artillery, they created a deadly environment that led to static trench lines.

• German advantage: Entered the war with more machine guns per battalion than opponents.
• Defensive power: Machine guns could easily halt infantry advances across open ground.
• Lethality: Capable of killing hundreds of men per minute.

Obsolete tactics. Military leaders were slow to adapt, repeatedly ordering massed infantry assaults across "No-Man's-Land" into devastating machine-gun fire, resulting in unprecedented casualties.

• Bayonet charges: Proved futile against entrenched machine guns.
• Casualties: Battles like the Somme saw tens of thousands killed in a single day.
• Soldier's view: Many troops recognized the futility and horror of the tactics.

A new reality. The war cemented the machine gun's place as a central battlefield weapon. It forced a rethinking of tactics, emphasizing dispersion, cover, and supporting fire, though this adaptation came at immense human cost.

4. The Assault Rifle Concept: A Mid-Range Breakthrough

The sturmgewehr, or storm rifle, which in translation became assault rifle, the designation that stuck.

Filling a gap. World War I highlighted the need for a weapon bridging the gap between short-range submachine guns (firing pistol rounds) and long-range rifles/machine guns (firing powerful rifle rounds). This led to the concept of an intermediate cartridge and a versatile automatic rifle.

• Submachine guns: Effective up close, but limited range.
• Rifles: Long range, but heavy, powerful recoil, often semi-auto or bolt-action.
• Need: A weapon with automatic fire capability and effective range out to typical combat distances (a few hundred meters).

German innovation. Germany, secretly developing arms after WWI, pioneered the intermediate cartridge (7.92 Kurz) and the rifle to fire it, the Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44). This weapon could fire semi-automatically for precision or automatically for suppressive fire.

• Intermediate cartridge: Less powerful than rifle rounds, less recoil, lighter to carry more ammo.
• StG 44: First widely issued assault rifle, combined features of submachine gun and rifle.
• Tactical role: Increased infantry firepower at medium ranges.

A captured lesson. Though the StG 44 arrived late in WWII, its effectiveness impressed the Soviet army, who captured specimens and recognized the value of the intermediate cartridge and the assault rifle concept.

5. Stalin's Secret Contest: The Collective Invention of the AK-47

The automatic Kalashnikov was the result of state process and collective work, the output not of a man but of committees.

State-driven development. Unlike earlier firearms born from individual inventors, the AK-47 was the product of a deliberate, state-sponsored competition within the Soviet military-industrial complex after WWII. Stalin's regime prioritized arms development, channeling vast resources.

• Motivation: Equip the Red Army and socialist allies, counter Western military power.
• Process: Secret competition among design bureaus, multiple phases of testing.
• Key requirement: A reliable, simple automatic rifle firing the new M1943 intermediate cartridge.

The M1943 cartridge. The Soviet Union developed its own intermediate round (7.62x39mm M1943), similar in concept to the German 7.92 Kurz. This cartridge was crucial for enabling a lightweight, manageable automatic rifle.

• Characteristics: Midway power between pistol and rifle rounds, lighter weight.
• Advantage: Allowed soldiers to carry more ammunition.
• Origin: Possibly influenced by captured German designs.

Kalashnikov's role. Mikhail Kalashnikov, a wounded tank sergeant, was part of a design collective. While credited as the lead designer, the final AK-47 prototype incorporated ideas from other designs and was refined through collaborative effort and state direction.

• Design features: Gas-operated system, loose tolerances for reliability in harsh conditions, simple disassembly.
• Competition: Kalashnikov's design won after multiple rounds of testing and refinement.
• Official narrative: Portrayed as the sole invention of a heroic, unlettered soldier for propaganda purposes.

6. Mass Production & Global Spread: The AK-47 Becomes a Socialist Standard

The Soviet state is the inventor here—both of the weapon and its fables.

Industrial might. Following its selection in 1948, the AK-47 (and its later, improved version, the AKM) was put into massive production in state-controlled factories like Izhevsk. The planned economy, while inefficient in consumer goods, excelled at prioritizing and manufacturing military hardware.

• Production scale: Millions produced annually across the Soviet bloc.
• Refinement: Early AK-47 design flaws (e.g., stamped receiver issues) were addressed in the AKM.
• Key features: Reliability, simplicity, ease of manufacture.

Socialist standardization. Under Khrushchev, the Kremlin actively shared AK-47 technology and licenses with Warsaw Pact nations and other socialist allies (China, North Korea, Egypt). This created a vast network of manufacturers and standardized small arms across the bloc.

• Warsaw Pact: Treaty formalized military cooperation and equipment standardization.
• Arms transfers: Used as a tool of foreign policy to build alliances and counter Western influence.
• Result: Created a massive surplus of Kalashnikovs beyond the needs of standing armies.

Early leakage. While primarily intended for state militaries, the sheer volume and political transfers meant Kalashnikovs began appearing outside the immediate Soviet sphere, hinting at their future ubiquity.

7. Repression's Rifle: The AK-47's Bloody Debut Crushing Uprisings

The AK-47 was christened with blood not as a tool for liberation or to defend the Soviet Union from invaders. It made its debut smashing freedom movements.

First combat use. Contrary to later propaganda portraying it as a tool of liberation, the AK-47's first known uses in combat were by Soviet forces suppressing popular uprisings in Eastern Europe.

• East Germany (1953): Used by Soviet divisions to put down protests.
• Hungary (1956): Soviet troops, many armed with AK-47s, invaded Budapest to crush the revolution.
• Border control: Used by East German guards to shoot civilians attempting to flee to the West.

A symbol of state power. These early uses established the AK-47 as a weapon of the state, employed to maintain control and enforce the will of the ruling communist parties against their own populations.

• Contrast with fable: Directly contradicted the narrative of the rifle as a defender of the homeland or a tool for the working class's freedom.
• Legacy: Set a precedent for the rifle's use in state repression globally.

Unintended consequence. While used by the state, the Hungarian uprising also saw rebels capture AK-47s and turn them against their former owners, foreshadowing the rifle's later role in insurgency.

8. The M-16 Fiasco: America's Bungled Response to the AK-47

A rifle that failed in battle was worse than useless. It was detestable.

Caught flat-footed. Despite its industrial capacity, the U.S. military was slow to recognize the significance of the assault rifle concept, remaining committed to older, heavier rifle designs like the M-14.

• Ordnance Corps: Resisted new ideas ("Not Invented Here" bias).
• M-14: Heavy, difficult to control on automatic, based on outdated concepts.
• AK-47 advantage: Lighter, easier to handle, more effective automatic fire in close combat.

Rushed adoption. Facing the AK-47 in Vietnam, the Pentagon, under Robert McNamara, abruptly pushed for the adoption of the AR-15 (renamed M-16), a lightweight rifle developed by a private company, despite inadequate testing and unresolved technical issues.

• AR-15 origin: Developed by ArmaLite, later manufactured by Colt's.
• Sales pitch: Promoted for its light weight, low recoil, and perceived lethality (often exaggerated).
• Political pressure: McNamara and allies pushed adoption over military resistance.

Combat failures. The early M-16s and their ammunition proved unreliable in Vietnam's harsh environment, suffering frequent jamming (failure to extract) due to design flaws, inadequate maintenance supplies, and unsuitable propellant powder.

• Technical issues: Lack of chrome plating, tight tolerances, ball powder fouling.
• Human cost: Soldiers died because their rifles malfunctioned in firefights.
• Cover-up: Military leadership initially blamed soldiers for poor maintenance and suppressed reports of failures.

9. Stockpiles & Leakage: Cold War Arsenals Fuel Global Black Markets

Where assault rifles are wanted, recent history shows, they appear.

Massive surpluses. Decades of high-volume production in planned economies created enormous stockpiles of Kalashnikovs across the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations, far exceeding the needs of their standing armies.

• Storage: Weapons cached in depots, tunnels, and factories (e.g., Artemovsk salt mines, Albanian bunkers).
• Scale: Millions of rifles stored, often with billions of rounds of ammunition.
• Purpose: Intended for conventional war that never came, or for arming workers' militias.

System collapse. The fall of communism led to a breakdown in state control over these vast arsenals. Weak successor governments, corruption, and inadequate security resulted in massive leakage of weapons onto the global market.

• Looting: Arsenals were raided during periods of civil unrest (e.g., Albania 1997).
• Diversion: Weapons were sold or traded by military personnel and officials.
• Unattended stocks: Abandoned depots became sources for illicit trade (e.g., Ukraine).

Market forces. The sudden availability of millions of cheap, durable assault rifles fueled an international black market, supplying conflicts and criminal groups worldwide, often facilitated by brokers and smuggling networks.

• Price: Abundance drove down prices, making Kalashnikovs highly accessible.
• Trade routes: Weapons moved across continents via ships, planes, and overland routes.
• Result: Transformed regional conflicts and empowered non-state actors.

10. Everyman's Gun: The AK-47 Becomes the Tool of Terror and Crime

The people’s gun, defender of Russian soil and socialist ideal, had evolved into a familiar hand tool for genocide and terror.

Beyond state control. The proliferation of Kalashnikovs made them readily available to a wide range of non-state actors, including terrorist organizations, criminal gangs, warlords, and child soldiers.

• Accessibility: Simple design, durability, and low cost made them ideal for untrained users.
• Versatility: Effective for ambushes, raids, close combat, and intimidation.
• Symbolism: Adopted by various groups as symbols of resistance, revolution, or power.

Terror's tool. The Munich Olympics attack in 1972 highlighted the AK-47's utility in high-profile terrorist operations against civilians, a tactic that would become increasingly common.

• Munich 1972: Black September used Kalashnikovs to seize and kill Israeli athletes.
• Impact: Changed global security perceptions and led to increased counter-terrorism efforts.
• Later uses: Assassinations (Anwar Sadat), massacres (Rwanda, Srebrenica), school sieges (Beslan).

Empowering brutality. The rifle's availability enabled and amplified atrocities and criminal violence in regions destabilized by conflict or weak governance.

• Child soldiers: Easy to train and arm (e.g., Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda).
• Criminality: Used in organized crime, banditry, and extortion.
• Human cost: Millions killed or wounded, predominantly civilians.

11. The Designer's Burden: Kalashnikov's Complex Legacy

Ultimately, Kalashnikov was left, by both his circumstances and his decisions, atop his contradictions.

A national icon. Mikhail Kalashnikov was elevated by the Soviet state as a symbol of national ingenuity and a proletarian hero, receiving numerous awards and public recognition for his role in designing the AK-47.

• Propaganda: His life story was edited to fit the ideal Soviet narrative.
• Status: Enjoyed privileges and fame unavailable to most citizens.
• Post-Soviet role: Continued as an ambassador for Russian arms, celebrated despite the system's collapse.

Conflicting narratives. Kalashnikov's own accounts of the rifle's invention and his life often shifted, and he faced challenges to his sole designer status from colleagues who claimed their contributions were overlooked.

• Collective effort: The AK-47 was a product of a large design process, not a single mind.
• Borrowing: The design incorporated features from other weapons, including German and Soviet prototypes.
• Disputes: Colleagues claimed credit for key design improvements.

Denial of responsibility. Despite the rifle's widespread use in crime and atrocities, Kalashnikov consistently denied personal responsibility, stating he designed it only for national defense and that its later uses were beyond his control.

• Justification: Claimed the rifle was necessary to protect the Motherland.
• Regret: Occasionally expressed sadness at its use by criminals and terrorists, but maintained a clear conscience.
• Contrast: Unlike figures like Andrei Sakharov, he did not publicly challenge the system or the consequences of its creations.

Last updated: May 30, 2025