AK47 assault rifle designer Kalashnikov dies at 94
The Inventor of the Kalashnikov rifle “Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov” died on Monday 24 December 2013 in Izhevsk, the city where he lived 600 miles east of Moscowwas. He born on 10 November 1919 in western Siberia.
He was called up by the Red Army in 1938, and his design skills were used to improve the effectiveness of arms and equipment used in Soviet tank regiments.
He designed Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov. There were teething problems with early prototypes but in 1947 he completed the Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947, the name quickly shortened to AK47.
Mikhail Kalashnikov refused to accept any responsibility for the many people killed with the weapon.
“My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland,” he said.
“It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers.”