PanSonic

Mihail Kalasnikov is admitting he was "helped" by the German inventor and arms maker Hugo Schmeisser to create the AK-47 assault rifle

-- The German inventor developed the first assault weapon Sturmgewehr 44 during WWII. After the end of the war Schmeisser was displaced and forced to work in the Soviet Union



Sturmgewehr 44 and AK-47


February 17 16:09

Famous Soviet arms builder Mihail Kalasnikov recently acknowledged he didn't worked alone at the design and development of the AK-47 assault rifle, but he benefited from the help of Hugo Schmeisser, the most prolific small arms inventor of the Third Reich. Kalashnikov and Schmeisser meet each other at the small arms factory of Izhevsk, writes Life.ru as quoted by Agerpress, the Romanian national news agency.

According to the Russian historian Aleksei Korobeinikov, Schmeisser arrived in Ijhevsk immediately after the war. The city of Suhl, Schmeisser's hometown in defeated Germany, was situated in the Soviet occupation zone. Schmeisser and another couple of dozens German small arms specialists received from the Soviet occupiers an offer they "couldn't refuse": to work at a Soviet small arms factory in the Urals. How the Soviets were making these types of "generous offers" after the war isn't a secret for anyone anymore. So as a result of the Soviet "proposal" a train with German specialists arrived at Izhevs on October 24th 1946. Together with Schmeisser and his colleagues, the train carried all the blue prints and plans the Soviets could grab from their occupation zone. Truth be told, the Western Allies did exactly the same thing.



Mihail Kalasnikov and Hugo Schmeisser



The Russian experts are claiming that it is pretty hard to determine Hugo Schmeisser contribution to the design and development of the AK-47 assault rifle because all official documents referring to this episode are still classified (gee, I wonder why?) and Schmeisser didn't left behind any kind of memoirs or letters about his life in the Soviet Union.

Referring to this period, Schmeisser evasively said "I gave the Russians some advice".
The German arms maker left behind in Izhevsk only a couple of letters and photographs. The house in which Schmeisser and his colleagues used to live is now in ruins. Aleksandr Ermakov, an employee of the Kalashnikov Museum declares: "only a few letters are in our possession in which Schmeisser is petitioning the Soviet Defense Minister for improving the substandard living conditions, complains about the food and asks for an increase in salary and a travel permit to visit his homeland.

Many historians are claiming Michail Kalashnikov has "stolen" the AK-47 design from the Germans. In opposition, the Russians claim that Schmeisser only role was to implement the new manufacturing technologies for mass producing the new assault rifle.
The assault rifle designed by Hugo Schmeisser during WWII (STG 44 - Sturmgewehr 44, also known as MP 43 and MP 44) looks very similar with the AK-47, designed by Kalasnikov. But the Russians are claiming that the similarities are stopping once you get to look inside the rifle. Kalashnikov is claiming he started work on his design in 1943 and by 1946 his rifle was already in the testing phase. However, denying the German contribution to the mass production of the AK-47 rifle would be a another Soviet lie historians say; it is undeniable that at Ijhevsk, Schmeisser took care of the AK-47 stamped receiver manufacturing process. Moreover, the merit for the mass production of the stamped receiver, the ammunition magazine and other important parts of the rifle are undeniably the product of Schmeisser's efforts.


Translation from Ziua Online by Transsylvania Phoenix

For the naysayers who say comrade Kalashnikov couldn't have been helped by Hugo Schmeisser in the design of his AK-47 rifle because he started working on his project in 1944 and the German inventor only arrived in the Soviet Union in 1946: you forgot a little detail, my friends.
And that is Schmeisser's StG-43/44 was already in service and issued to German troops in 1944. Not coincidentally, it was the same year Kalashnikov started his work on the AK-47.

So here is an easy question for you: on who's desk do you think the first Stg-43/44 captured by the Soviet troops on the battlefield landed once it arrived in the Moscow?
You don't need to be a rocket scientist to guess the answer: the Kalashnikov bureau of reverse engineering, or however the Russkies may have called it at the time.

Source: http://transsylvaniaphoenix.blogspot...rman-help.html

leib10

Except for the operating mechanism, the Stg. 44/AK47 are undeniably closely related, and it is obvious that the former had a huge influence on the latter.

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omon

yea i posted it before.
h.s. helped designing prosedure to stamp akm's recivers.


there was ak 46, that resambled StG-43/44 more , but ak 47 is a lot different,

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dalem

There's a shock.

It's like claiming the F-86 had nothing to do with the MiG-15. Please.

-dale

Andrey Egorov

AK was created in Kovrov. Not in Izhevsk. And you surely need to look inside of them - AK's insides have more common with M1 Garand than with Stg.44's

Though the conception of assault rifle for intermediate cartridge itself was widely adopted by everyone in the world

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Triple C

Hasn't this been debunked ad nauseum? The AK bears superficial similarity to the StG, but the internals of the Russian weapon was unique. Kalashnikov credited a large number of fire arms designers as his inspiration--as is unsurprising.

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