Designed as a weapon of defence by the Russians and credited to Mikhail Kalashnikov, a sergeant, it was used within less than a decade against the Hungarian uprising in 1956, as a weapon of repression by dictatorships and monolithic states. It still is.
This book looks at the history of automatic rifles, from Gatling in the American Civil War to Maxim in World War 1, and as developed by Thompson, Lewis and Schmeisser subsequently.
The worldwide military/political/economic establishments were slow to learn the lessons taught by the machine gun in combat.
It took a country that couldn't even make a decent pair of shoes - Russia - to develop the ultimate machine gun. It was a weapon that didn't break, didn't jam, could be used by children after only a few days' training, and became the preferred weapon of the industrially undeveloped for guerrilla warfare and insurgency.
There is a very good section on why the United States lost the Vietnam War. The Americans were arrogant; their machine guns jammed in combat while the AK-47-armed Viet Cong's did not. This sorry saga (from a US perspective) reeks of corruption and hubris. It marked the end of the American belief that superior technology meant they would win automatically - no pun intended.
What use was their immense nuclear arsenal in a traditional shooting war when their guns didn't work properly?
For the past 60 years, production of the AK-47 has spiralled out of the control of the Russian military and political system. There are shattering anecdotes about what this has meant to those unfortunate enough to be involved. The curse of the almost indestructible AK-47 will hang over the world for many decades yet.
This is a book intended for readers fascinated by guns, by the technology and details of guns. Taken as a whole, it is a cautionary tale. The record goes way beyond appalling.
- Oliver Riddell is a Wellington writer.
