The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova, is a gas-operated assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, it is the originating firearm of the Kalashnikov family of rifles. After more than seven decades since its creation, the AK-47 model and its variants remain one of the most popular and widely used firearms in the world.
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was a Soviet and Russian lieutenant general, inventor, military engineer, writer, and small arms designer. He is most famous for developing the AK-47 assault rifle and its improvements, the AKM and AK-74, as well as the RPK light machine gun and PK machine gun.
The SVT-40 is a Soviet semi-automatic battle rifle that saw widespread service during and after World War II. It was intended to be the new service rifle of the Soviet Red Army, but its production was disrupted by the German invasion in 1941, resulting in a change back to the Mosin–Nagant rifle for the duration of World War II.
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that can be carried and used by one person, but is sometimes used for larger weapons. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in World War I until the Korean War. While medium and heavy tank armor became too thick to be penetrated by rigid projectiles from rifles that could be carried by a single soldier, anti-tank rifles continued to be used against other "soft" targets, though recoilless rifles and rocket-propelled grenades such as the bazooka were also introduced for infantry close-layer defense against tanks.
JSC Kalashnikov Concern, known until 2013 as the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant, is a Russian defense manufacturing concern and joint-stock company headquartered in the city of Izhevsk in the Republic of Udmurtia as well as the capital city of Moscow. The concern designs and produces a wide range of civilian and military weapons including assault rifles, sniper rifles, designated marksman rifles, machine guns, squad automatic weapons, hunting rifles, shotguns, guided artillery projectiles, and a wide range of other precision weapons including remote controlled weapon stations, unmanned vehicles and military robots.
The Fedorov Avtomat or FA is a select-fire infantry rifle and one of the world's first operational automatic rifles, designed by Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov in 1915 and produced in the Russian Empire and later in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. A total of 3,200 Fedorov rifles were manufactured between 1915 and 1925 in the city of Kovrov; the vast majority of them were made after 1920. The weapon saw limited combat in World War I, but was used more substantially in the Russian Civil War and in the Winter War. Some consider it to be an early predecessor or ancestor of the modern assault rifle.
Sergey Gavrilovich Simonov was a Soviet weapons designer who is considered one of the fathers of the modern assault rifle.
The AVS-36 was a Soviet automatic rifle which saw service in the early years of World War II. It was among the early selective fire infantry rifles formally adopted for military service.
The PTRS-41 is a World War II-era semi-automatic anti-tank rifle firing the 14.5×114mm cartridge.
Imperial Tula Arms Plant is a Russian weapons manufacturer founded by Tsar Peter I of Russia in 1712 in Tula, Tula Oblast as Tula Arsenal. Throughout its history, it has produced weapons for the Russian state. Its name was changed from Tula Arsenal to Tula Arms Plant during the Soviet era.
Yevgeny Fyodorovich Dragunov was a Soviet weapons designer, best known for his role in helping invent the semi-automatic rifle bearing his name, the Dragunov sniper rifle.
Vladimir Grigoryevich Fyodorov was a Russian and Soviet scientist, weapons designer, professor, lieutenant general of the Soviet technical-engineering service and a founder of the Soviet school of automatic small arms.
Nikolay Mikhailovich Afanasyev, also known as Nicolai Michaelovich Afanasiev, was a Russian firearms designer.
An assault rifle is a select fire rifle that uses an intermediate-rifle cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first put into mass production and accepted into widespread service during World War II. The first assault rifle to see major usage was the German StG 44, a development of the earlier Mkb 42. While immediately after World War II, NATO countries were equipped with battle rifles, the development of the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War prompted the adoption of assault rifles by the rest of NATO. By the end of the 20th century, assault rifles had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing full-powered rifles and submachine guns in most roles. The two most successful modern assault rifles are the AK-47 and the M16 designs and their derivatives.
The AS-44 is a series of prototype Soviet assault rifles designed and developed by Alexey Sudayev in 1944—1945, they were produced in limited numbers and tested in 1944—1945, but its development ended in 1946 due to the death of its designer.
The Laotian Civil War was a military conflict that pitted the guerrilla forces of the Marxist-oriented Pathet Lao against the armed and security forces of the Kingdom of Laos, led by the conservative Royal Lao Government, between 1960 and 1975. Main combatants comprised:
