So the Ak47 is 70 years old. That’s about as much time separating Waterloo and Rorkes Drift. That’s muskets to the Martini Henry rifle. How come despite our technology moving so much faster than it did during the 19th century has the AK not been rendered obsolete by more modern equivalents? Not just a “better rifle” like the M4, but to the musket/rifle comparison where it might be cheap and available but it’s just borderline useless against modern weapons.

It still works just fine. There might be better tools, but the AK gets the job done. Same reason why hammers with 50-year-old designs aren't obsolete.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It still works just fine. There might be better tools, but the AK gets the job done. Same reason why hammers with 50-year-old designs aren't obsolete.

Not necessarily. For example a spear or a sword can still kill a man. The issue is that any gun can kill you long before you get to use it. So those are obsolete weapons. The same was true of muskets. You had to stand up while reloading, you could only fire a few rounds a minute, the powder blocked your vision and it was only accurate at point blank range; versus a modern rifle that had none of those drawbacks. Better weapons came along and replaced these things. So, you’d think the same would be true of an AK. Why hasn’t something better come along and displaced it?

What are the drawbacks of the AK that a modern rifle doesn't have? Is avoiding those drawbacks worth the difference in price?

Why would it be? Very little actually new have been invented in firearms since 1900. Most popular sports pistol today is based on a design over 100 years old.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What are the drawbacks of the AK that a modern rifle doesn't have? Is avoiding those drawbacks worth the difference in price?

Iam not saying the AK47 is obsolete.

All things being equal a 70 year old gun should not be viable. You kind of have to pay for it at that point. It should be like taking a musket into WW1. This is a very old gun when in the century before 1950 you had incredible advancements in firearms technology. But then we made assault rifles and kind of shrugged our shoulders or something? Compare it to say, tank or aircraft development over the same 70 year period? Would you set a T34 against an M1A2? A T34 is cheaper, yeah, but it’s really not worth taking today.

Price isn’t an object. Expenditure on RnD was much higher after WW2 as mentioned with tanks and aircraft.

To list a few drawbacks. It needs heavy ammunition to function. It’s inaccurate. It’s loud and gives away your position if you fire it. The weapon can cause collateral damage. It requires training to use. The weapon doesn’t really help you locate your opponent who might be taking lot shots at you in the valley. Modern technology over seventy years should have addressed a few of these and led to those newer guns displacing the older ones. That not really happened except in a really minor manner. Nothing comparable to tanks and aircraft? Have infantry weapons just peaked as a technology or is all the RnD being sunk into planes and ships?



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Backfire wrote:
Why would it be? Very little actually new have been invented in firearms since 1900. Most popular sports pistol today is based on a design over 100 years old.

Because tanks and planes have. So why not guns?

It's still effective because rifle technology hasn't really changed since 1945, the AK-47 still works well enough for shooting people, and "which rifle do your troops have" has essentially nothing to do with who wins a war. In fact, since any rifle is about as good as any other rifle, the ease of logistics offered by the AK-47 can be a decisive advantage in choosing a rifle.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
All things being equal a 70 year old gun should not be viable.

Why not? This isn't a RTS where you level up your tech tree every year and old units are no longer effective, age alone is meaningless.

It needs heavy ammunition to function.

Not really. Per round it's about 50% more, but ammunition is only part of the weight a soldier is carrying. It's not going to make much practical difference. And remember, the AK-47 was largely replaced by the AK-47 outside of countries that just have stockpiles of cheap AK-47s and no funds to replace them, and the AK-74's round is almost identical to an AR-15's.

It’s inaccurate.

Nope. This is not a video game, the AK-47 is accurate enough for all practical purposes.

It’s loud and gives away your position if you fire it.

So does any other rifle without a suppressor, and even with one very very few weapons are truly "quiet" vs. "won't kill your hearing if you fire it without ear protection".

The weapon can cause collateral damage.

Lolwut? It's a rifle, not a grenade launcher.

It requires training to use.

So does any gun. FFS, we're talking about a gun originally intended to be issued to illiterate Russian peasant conscripts. Training is not an issue.

The weapon doesn’t really help you locate your opponent who might be taking lot shots at you in the valley.

Neither does any other gun.

is all the RnD being sunk into planes and ships?

You got it. Rifle technology gives minimal, if any, return on R&D. Investment in other weapons and equipment potentially gives significant return.

Because you leave it in the dirt for three months and it still works.

Cheap to produce, easy to manufacture (stamped parts!), robust and reliable in function. Can kill people at the ranges most people shoot at other people, and is accurate enough for most of the population's talent for aiming.

It's one of the best gun designs in history and it hasn't become obsolete because it isn't obsolete - it's still doing what it was designed to do and doing it well.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So the Ak47 is 70 years old. That’s about as much time separating Waterloo and Rorkes Drift. That’s muskets to the Martini Henry rifle. How come despite our technology moving so much faster than it did during the 19th century has the AK not been rendered obsolete by more modern equivalents? Not just a “better rifle” like the M4, but to the musket/rifle comparison where it might be cheap and available but it’s just borderline useless against modern weapons.

guns haven't changed much. About all a modern AK or AR has over a 1960's iteration is the ability to mount optics and accessories.

Nothing much new has changed in physics, chemistry, or metallurgy to radically change firearms. Firearms technologies are mature. Advances have been incremental, barrels last longer and are more accurate now for example than 50 years ago, but only marginally so. What may have been a 4 MoA gun in 1960 might come out as a 3 MoA gun today, maybe 2.

Alternatives like lasers have their own technological hurdles.

Where we really see advances are in things like optics, durability of magazines, barrel life, accessory systems, and other such things.

I suspect that we'll see some other radical paradigm shift have to overtake the world before the AK47 will be made obsolete, and short of everyone sporting personal antiballistic laser arrays in a truly ubiquitous manner, I'm not sure what it would be

Simple.

Waterloo - Rorke’s Drift saw multiple advances in firearms technology. Development and refinement of cartridges, ignition systems, capacity, feeding, rifling and more all took place during that period.

Firearms tech since the invention of the AK-47 has largely stayed the same. Any refinement that has taken place has been successfully integrated into the AK design. There has simply been no need to abandon it.

It’s a street fighting short burst automatic weapon. It doesn’t have to be accurate, doesn’t have to be light in weight, doesn’t have to be quiet, and it doesn’t require lots of range time to point and shoot.

It’s incredibly durable and very cheap to produce. You can bury it in sand, dig it up five years later, and it will fire a clean round without jamming.

Good caliber of round that has stopping power.

The AK platform isn't obsolete, it's been constantly upgraded since it was called AK-47. It's decades since the Soviets switched to a smaller caliber bullet and a lot of other changes have been made regarding materials and the ability to add accessories. The Finnish versions still use the 7.62x39 ammo but the quality machining and improved iron sights make them a lot more accurate than AKs with the common sight setup - not that those are inaccurate either if the shooter is properly trained. Shouting religious slogans just doesn't make up for range time.

As for older versions, well, not everyone can afford the latest toys. Or the training and facilites needed to keep a "finer" weapon working for that matter. An AK is very simple to field strip and clean - there's only a few parts to remove, too big that you could conceivably lose them, and you need no tools for it. The barrels are chromed and very durable, the gas system incredibly sturdy and easy to keep clean. You don't need any special oils or solvents either unlike some more finicky rifles that won't work properly if you don't use manufacturer approved (extremely expensive) chemicals. And they're cheap, and plentiful, and relatively easy to pick up from unscrupulous dealers if you need to buy more. It might not be the best assault rifle but it's often the best option if you have to equip badly trained troops.

The AK-47 is obsolete as modern fighting weapon, if we define "AK-47" as the milled or stamped pattern chambered in 7.62x39. There are no first-world countries using it. Russia dropped it before I was born.

"Why are so many other countries still using it" is a better question, and of course the answer is that it's cheap and easy and 7.62x39 is a good, cheap round, and all that just works.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Compare it to say, tank or aircraft development over the same 70 year period? (snip)
Nothing comparable to tanks and aircraft? (snip)
Because tanks and planes have. So why not guns?

the B-52 is about the same age as the AK-47, and is expected to remain in service for another 30 years.

At some point the basic design, whether it be the airframe of the B-52 or basic receiver\gas system of the AK simply becomes as good as it's going to get for the job you're doing with it.

 Ouze wrote:
the B-52 is about the same age as the AK-47, and is expected to remain in service for another 30 years.

At some point the basic design, whether it be the airframe of the B-52 or basic receiver\gas system of the AK simply becomes as good as it's going to get for the job you're doing with it.

This is a very good example. The B-52 is obsolete in its original role of attacking well-defended Soviet targets and has been completely replaced in that role, but it has found a much less demanding role as a bomb truck against targets that can't shoot back. Sure, you could sink huge amounts of money into designing and building a new bomber, but what is there to gain? The B-52 is already perfectly adequate for the job of moving bombs from point A to point B, so at best a new bomber could keep doing the B-52's job equally well. And so the B-52 will continue to serve until fatigue life limits force a replacement.

Same thing with the AK-47. You might be able to build a better gun, but the role it fills is not a demanding one and the AK-47 is perfectly adequate for it. Unless you're the US and have an unlimited military budget there are better places to spend your resources.

There's even a fair number of decent smaller forces still sporting new guns that are basically new 7.62x39 AK's with rails (I'd even include something like the Galil ACE in that, as used by Vietnam), for a lot of them the advantages of a SCHV round just don't come into play as much, and the 7.62x39 round doesn't really lose any viability.

The AK-47 is stupidly durable and reliable. It's one of very few guns you can take into basically any environment, expose it to the harshest elements in that environment for a week, pick it up and have it still work.

Most guns jam and degrade in the desert, the snow, where ever without regular and sometimes constant maintenance. The AK on the other hand can be placed into any kind of bull gak and at the very least function manually.

You can juggle bullet weight and velocity, but humans haven't massively changed in how they can handle recoil. The difference between a repeating firearm and a non-repeating one is a huge gulf, the difference between one automatic weapon and another is tiny.

There's no real room to go other than adding rails/sights/bling to the gun and that doesn't change how it works fundamentally. As other people have said it's a mature technology, it's done.

Or maybe the simplest answer: the gun is good

What are the innovations which have been introduced since the AK47 was designed?

Low calibre ammunition -- available as the AK74.
Caseless ammo -- which proved to be more trouble than it's worth.
Bullpup design -- this doesn't have overwhelming advantages over conventional design.
Red dot sight and tactical rails can be retro-fitted to the basic AK-47 if you wanted. For example, there are AK47s with grenade launchers.

Taken as a whole, there have not been any fundamental advances in infantry rifle design since WW2. This is partly because the weapons are already good enough.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is partly because the weapons are already good enough.

Which if you think about it, isn't that kind of weird? it's almost 2020 and we're still mostly killing people with little pieces of flying metal. I was sure by now we'd have, you know, lasers and flying cars and robot butlers.

The future is here and with the exception of readily available, thoughtfully curated pornography, it's been largely disappointing.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's still effective because rifle technology hasn't really changed since 1945, the AK-47 still works well enough for shooting people, and "which rifle do your troops have" has essentially nothing to do with who wins a war. In fact, since any rifle is about as good as any other rifle, the ease of logistics offered by the AK-47 can be a decisive advantage in choosing a rifle.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
All things being equal a 70 year old gun should not be viable.

Why not? This isn't a RTS where you level up your tech tree every year and old units are no longer effective, age alone is meaningless.

It needs heavy ammunition to function.

Not really. Per round it's about 50% more, but ammunition is only part of the weight a soldier is carrying. It's not going to make much practical difference. And remember, the AK-47 was largely replaced by the AK-47 outside of countries that just have stockpiles of cheap AK-47s and no funds to replace them, and the AK-74's round is almost identical to an AR-15's.

It’s inaccurate.

Nope. This is not a video game, the AK-47 is accurate enough for all practical purposes.

It’s loud and gives away your position if you fire it.

So does any other rifle without a suppressor, and even with one very very few weapons are truly "quiet" vs. "won't kill your hearing if you fire it without ear protection".

The weapon can cause collateral damage.

Lolwut? It's a rifle, not a grenade launcher.

It requires training to use.

So does any gun. FFS, we're talking about a gun originally intended to be issued to illiterate Russian peasant conscripts. Training is not an issue.

The weapon doesn’t really help you locate your opponent who might be taking lot shots at you in the valley.

Neither does any other gun.

is all the RnD being sunk into planes and ships?

You got it. Rifle technology gives minimal, if any, return on R&D. Investment in other weapons and equipment potentially gives significant return.

I think you’re really underselling how much the rest of our technology has moved on since 1949. We replace every piece of technology within a few years. Why not guns like the AK?

It wouldn’t necessarily take a revolution in rifle technology to render the AK obsolete. For example, let’s say you developed a cheap form of protection that rendered the ammunition ineffective at a certain range. Well, that would render most of the guns in the world pretty pointless beyond making a lot of noise. Likewise, what if you had a cheap drone that you could send out into a valley and pick off anybody from a mile away unseen. Well, that would render fighting in the old way as pointless as going in line or square.

People used similar arguments in the 19th century for keeping muskets and not bothering with iron sights. The mentality of “its good enough and not worth the R&D” cost quite a few lives. Crimean War and Austro-Prussian war for example. Muskets vs rifles; hilarity ensues. If you can fire faster at longer ranges more accurately or have other advantages that can translate into very real benefits.

Technology has been pretty much exponential over the past 200 years. We still had cavalry fighting with swords and lances in 1914; 31 years later we were dropping nukes on people. I doubt people in 1800 assumed the musket or cavalry would become obsolete or that war could be waged beyond the horizon.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I think you’re really underselling how much the rest of our technology has moved on since 1949. We replace every piece of technology within a few years. Why not guns like the AK?

It wouldn’t necessarily take a revolution in rifle technology to render the AK obsolete.

There are a lot of really well reasoned, articulated posts answering exactly this. Why are you reiterating the original question again?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Technology has been pretty much exponential over the past 200 years. We still had cavalry fighting with swords and lances in 1914; 51 years later we were dropping nukes on people. I doubt people in 1800 assumed the musket or cavalry would become obsolete or that war could be waged beyond the horizon.

I think WW2 would have ended substantially differently had we not actually dropped the bomb until 1965

 Ouze wrote:
The AK-47 is obsolete as modern fighting weapon, if we define "AK-47" as the milled or stamped pattern chambered in 7.62x39. There are no first-world countries using it. Russia dropped it before I was born.

Very few first world countries used AK in the first place. They used FAL or G3. Plenty of those still in service too, especially G3's.
Finnish Army still has something like 100k+ AK-47s, and in fact our current infantry rifle is not much different from AK-47.

AR-15 is only about decade newer design than AK-47.

 Ouze wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I think you’re really underselling how much the rest of our technology has moved on since 1949. We replace every piece of technology within a few years. Why not guns like the AK?

It wouldn’t necessarily take a revolution in rifle technology to render the AK obsolete.

There are a lot of really well reasoned, articulated posts answering exactly this. Why are you reiterating the original question again?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Technology has been pretty much exponential over the past 200 years. We still had cavalry fighting with swords and lances in 1914; 51 years later we were dropping nukes on people. I doubt people in 1800 assumed the musket or cavalry would become obsolete or that war could be waged beyond the horizon.

I think WW2 would have ended substantially differently had we not actually dropped the bomb until 1965

Providing more examples isn’t restating the question. When you debate something you come up with examples and no honestly I don’t feel anyone has answered the question. Not everything can be spat out and addressed in a single sentence. Why has there been technological stagnation in infantry weapons when normally they would either be displaced by better systems or rendered obsolete. The statements people have made boil down to “its good enough”, “technology just hasn’t advanced”, “R&D has went elsewhere”, “you don’t get a good return on improvements”; those are answers which create additional questions. I think those questions are worth asking. If you don’t then why are here?

Oh sorry, 31 years from cavalry to atomic bombs. That actually makes the case stronger for technology advancing really rapidly over the years.. Also, I don’t actually mention Hiroshima so yeah.

 Ouze wrote:


the B-52 is about the same age as the AK-47, and is expected to remain in service for another 30 years.

At some point the basic design, whether it be the airframe of the B-52 or basic receiver\gas system of the AK simply becomes as good as it's going to get for the job you're doing with it.

Another good example is the M2 Browning. That gun is 100 years old this year. I'm unaware of any plans in the US military to replace it (they tried once only to find that there was no practical improvement to be gained).

You've basically identified one of the core reasons its still in use - body armour. Whilst there is some around not every army has widespread access to it and even the armour that is used doesn't cover the whole body. In addition civilians, support units and a huge number of people don't have any access to it.

So the 47 can still shoot through cloth and bodyparts and kill so why replace it? There's no counter-arms race going on (esp in 3rd world and many other poorer nations where the 47 is popular) to really cause a need to replace.


And that's another aspect, most of the countries making heavy use of it are poorer nations. They don't have a huge R&D budget (if they have one at all); they don't have huge resources to pour into top end machining and equipment.They want a cheap, easy to maintain, decent killing weapon that is easy to get ammo for and supply. The AK 47 provides pretty much all those things and will still make everyone duck their heads when it fires and it will still kill people at decent ranges for combat.

Whilst technology has come on in leaps and bounds in some markets (esp computing); its not been as fast in others. Furthermore some of the advances at the high tech end are very advanced, but ultimately not feasible for a warzone. The weapons are too high maintenance; too unreliable; too expensive for mass production and use etc...

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
. I think those questions are worth asking. If you don’t then why are here?

Since you seem to be content to handwave away the detailed, reasoned answers you gave as "one sentence answers", and then just reiterate your stance without addressing any of them, it's definitely a question I'm asking myself as well.

The answers you got were actually good answers. if you look at how modern combat happens in terms of engagement range, and the reality that weapons development (much like the development of literally everything else) starts to reach a part of increasing costs vs diminishing returns, you have your explanation whether you like it or not. What actually wins wars in the first world? It's not the number of people killed via small arms combat between infantry units, not anymore.

To paraphrase someone else, why haven't hammers got significantly better in like a thousand years?


As an aside, I think we really need to standardize the terms we are talking about here. Are we talking about the AK pattern using 7.62x39, or the AK74 and its descendants, or what? Because I I mentioned earlier, the former really IS functionally obsolete, but much as how some countries still use WW2/Korean War era planes as frontline fighters, it fits their needs, is plentiful, and works on a tight budget.

The latter is not at all obsolete and is still under active development just as the modern M4 is.

A lot of the technologies mentioned by the OP are in use - we have armed drones and pinpoint bombs/missiles that can surgically target relatively small areas even with friendly troops close by. The fact remains we still need to arm our troops since we still need them to actually hold ground or clear people out of buildings or engage enemies otherwise too difficult to target with long-range munitions.

As everyone else already pointed out, rifle technology is basically a solved problem at this point and most of the issues you're bringing up are more related to cost and training than technology. More accurate rifles exist, more powerful rifles exist, lighter rifles with overall better performance exist and many of these are in use by militaries around the world. Fundamentally they all do exactly the same thing and the reason for that is we haven't found a better way to do it yet. It may be that we never will. Perhaps the most efficient way for soldiers to kill their targets at fairly close ranges is and always will be firearms?

Things like guided bullets may become a part of warfare eventually, but one of the things history has taught us about weapons development is that cost and ease of use are at least as important as the quality and features of the weapon, if not more so. The AK-47 works and is extremely cheap and durable. It's by no means the best at anything it does (save possibly not breaking) but that doesn't really matter. Rifles are now quite a small part of warfare anyway so that's why most R&D is sunk into weapons that make a difference like ships, planes and missiles/bombs.

There has been attempts to improve our current firearms technology (which is basically late 19th century level) but they tend to produce small/debatable advantages and huge increase of cost, so not really worth it.



Basic principle of the modern firearm has proven hard to improve in meaningful fashion. There is a bullet, and a propellant. If you make propellant much more powerful, it means more recoil and heavier weapon. If you increase rate of fire, it means gun heats up faster.
Metal cased ammunition works well because each expended case absorbs some of the heat generated when propellant is ignited. In plastic case (or caseless) ammunition this does not happen, the gun absorbs all the heat, that is not a good thing.

So as I see it, if we want to make current crop of firearms signifantly better, one of two things need to happen (preferably both): invention of much more efficient propellant than present cordite type propellants, and much stronger materials than current steel and composite products. Neither of these is particularly easy to come by, though I don't rule it impossible that such an advance could be around the corner.

I mean, we did use light bulbs in essentially unchanged form for 100 years while everything else advanced around them, but they finally became obsolete.

Slipspace wrote:
A lot of the technologies mentioned by the OP are in use - we have armed drones and pinpoint bombs/missiles that can surgically target relatively small areas even with friendly troops close by. The fact remains we still need to arm our troops since we still need them to actually hold ground or clear people out of buildings or engage enemies otherwise too difficult to target with long-range munitions.

As everyone else already pointed out, rifle technology is basically a solved problem at this point and most of the issues you're bringing up are more related to cost and training than technology. More accurate rifles exist, more powerful rifles exist, lighter rifles with overall better performance exist and many of these are in use by militaries around the world. Fundamentally they all do exactly the same thing and the reason for that is we haven't found a better way to do it yet. It may be that we never will. Perhaps the most efficient way for soldiers to kill their targets at fairly close ranges is and always will be firearms?

Things like guided bullets may become a part of warfare eventually, but one of the things history has taught us about weapons development is that cost and ease of use are at least as important as the quality and features of the weapon, if not more so. The AK-47 works and is extremely cheap and durable. It's by no means the best at anything it does (save possibly not breaking) but that doesn't really matter. Rifles are now quite a small part of warfare anyway so that's why most R&D is sunk into weapons that make a difference like ships, planes and missiles/bombs.

Could infantry become marginal to the point of being irrelevant? If WW3 happened, for example, that conflict would revolve around ICBM’s hurling nukes at each other. You would never have the millions strong armies of infantry like you had in WW1 and WW2? Their role seems incredibly reduced in modern warfare, a bit like how the cavalry’s role became more and more marginal as time progressed? Until eventually they were seen as a suicidal method of fighting war kept on only out of romantic tradition?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
A lot of the technologies mentioned by the OP are in use - we have armed drones and pinpoint bombs/missiles that can surgically target relatively small areas even with friendly troops close by. The fact remains we still need to arm our troops since we still need them to actually hold ground or clear people out of buildings or engage enemies otherwise too difficult to target with long-range munitions.

As everyone else already pointed out, rifle technology is basically a solved problem at this point and most of the issues you're bringing up are more related to cost and training than technology. More accurate rifles exist, more powerful rifles exist, lighter rifles with overall better performance exist and many of these are in use by militaries around the world. Fundamentally they all do exactly the same thing and the reason for that is we haven't found a better way to do it yet. It may be that we never will. Perhaps the most efficient way for soldiers to kill their targets at fairly close ranges is and always will be firearms?

Things like guided bullets may become a part of warfare eventually, but one of the things history has taught us about weapons development is that cost and ease of use are at least as important as the quality and features of the weapon, if not more so. The AK-47 works and is extremely cheap and durable. It's by no means the best at anything it does (save possibly not breaking) but that doesn't really matter. Rifles are now quite a small part of warfare anyway so that's why most R&D is sunk into weapons that make a difference like ships, planes and missiles/bombs.

Could infantry become marginal to the point of being irrelevant? If WW3 happened, for example, that conflict would revolve around ICBM’s hurling nukes at each other. You would never have the millions strong armies of infantry like you had in WW1 and WW2? Their role seems incredibly reduced in modern warfare, a bit like how the cavalry’s role became more and more marginal as time progressed? Until eventually they were seen as a suicidal method of fighting war kept on only out of romantic tradition?

Doubt it due to the nature of Conflicts atm, you require Infantry to fight against guerrila style insurgents.

In all likelihood WW3 would be fought with nuclear weapons, at which point the role of the infantryman becomes obsolete. That's another reason why rifle technology hasn't advanced, and it's been mentioned a few times so far. Militaries don't really need a better way to fling small bits of metal at each other. In fact, research has shown that even a well-trained soldier's accuracy in combat conditions is pretty low so the impact of any one individual is quite small. Most modern infantry combat doctrine revolves around suppressing fire, usually from a light support weapon, and flanking pinned enemies to take fairly close-range shots at exposed bodies. At that point long-range accuracy isn't important.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I think you’re really underselling how much the rest of our technology has moved on since 1949. We replace every piece of technology within a few years. Why not guns like the AK?

It wouldn’t necessarily take a revolution in rifle technology to render the AK obsolete.

There are a lot of really well reasoned, articulated posts answering exactly this. Why are you reiterating the original question again?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Technology has been pretty much exponential over the past 200 years. We still had cavalry fighting with swords and lances in 1914; 51 years later we were dropping nukes on people. I doubt people in 1800 assumed the musket or cavalry would become obsolete or that war could be waged beyond the horizon.

I think WW2 would have ended substantially differently had we not actually dropped the bomb until 1965

Providing more examples isn’t restating the question. When you debate something you come up with examples and no honestly I don’t feel anyone has answered the question. Not everything can be spat out and addressed in a single sentence. Why has there been technological stagnation in infantry weapons when normally they would either be displaced by better systems or rendered obsolete. The statements people have made boil down to “its good enough”, “technology just hasn’t advanced”, “R&D has went elsewhere”, “you don’t get a good return on improvements”; those are answers which create additional questions. I think those questions are worth asking. If you don’t then why are here?

Oh sorry, 31 years from cavalry to atomic bombs. That actually makes the case stronger for technology advancing really rapidly over the years.. Also, I don’t actually mention Hiroshima so yeah.

That wasn't the original question, but I will try to answer it anyway.

Simply put, if you want to improve the lethality of an infantry rifle there are three ways it could be done:

More accuracy.
Greater damage, perhaps through higher velocity or explosive content.
Higher rate of fire.

Realistically, current rifles already as as accurate as they need to be. That's a completely valid argument. We can make rifles which will shoot accurately over a mile, but it's not a practical battlefield application for the ordinary soldier.

New rifles could be designed with higher velocity, and/or explosive bullets, but there would be a trade-off in terms of size, rate of fire and recoil. See the WW2 anti-tank rifles and the modern Barrett sniper rifle. This is because of basic physics. Plus, modern protective body armour isn't strong enough to make this heavier kind of rifle necessary. If anything, armies might return to the higher power NATO 7.62mm round if body armour became more effective and widespread.

Higher rate of fire requires more ammunition and a changeable barrel, and so on. We've already got machine-guns to do this.

In short, the reason why the AK47 has not become obsolete is firstly that it's more or less as good as any other assault rifle produced since the mid-1940s. Secondly that the infantry rifle is only one element of combat, and probably not the most important.

This situation will not change until a startling new technology is developed. Let's imagine a barrel-less rifle shooting hypervelocity needle darts by electromagnetic field, with a cyclic rate of 6,000 rounds per minute. This would make all modern rifles obsolete compared on a one to one basis. Would it give you an automatic win if you had them and the enemy has AK47s? Probably not. Suppose the enemy had developed a network system of micro-drone reconnaissance which pinpointed all your troops in real time?

Here you go:-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Weapon-Choice-Culture-Military-Innovation/dp/1849046506


His thesis is also available here for those who want something less well developed for free:-
https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/matthew-ford(dfb70d9a-7eca-4570-9f67-c78bd83d28c3)/theses.html

As an aside.

What is the current ratio between small arms rounds fired and rounds that actually hit?

In conflicts.

Very low.

Governments a few decades were experimenting with firearms that fired flechettes or other multi-projectile ammunition because rifles are generally as accurate as they need to be, the problem is target exposure time.

Flechette ammo never really took off so we’re down to flinging as much lead as possible via cyclic rate, which has tradeoffs to consider. The result is lots of ammunition fired with comparatively few hits as targets generally only expose themselves for a matter of seconds.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Could infantry become marginal to the point of being irrelevant?

I don't know for sure, but my gut says you will always need dudes on foot to hold areas.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
As an aside.

What is the current ratio between small arms rounds fired and rounds that actually hit?

In conflicts.

Depends on who you ask but it's as high as 250,000 rounds fired per kill.

The US government has been interested in improving that for many decades - they've tried stuff like multiple bullets in one round, 2 rounds fired in a single trigger pull (within the space of a single felt recoil impulse), airbursting munitions, and so on - but cost\benefit always falls back to the status quo.

 Overread wrote:
And that's another aspect, most of the countries making heavy use of it are poorer nations. They don't have a huge R&D budget (if they have one at all); they don't have huge resources to pour into top end machining and equipment.They want a cheap, easy to maintain, decent killing weapon that is easy to get ammo for and supply. The AK 47 provides pretty much all those things and will still make everyone duck their heads when it fires and it will still kill people at decent ranges for combat.

Or they have some rather top-end machining but limited budgets. If the government wanted to drop the cash I'm sure Sako could produce a much-improved version of a 5.45 or 5.56 rifle for us. But the FDF runs on a tight budget and needs enough gear to outfit a large army of reservists. A civilian who likes guns can afford to drop 300€ more for a newer rifle, but an army that needs several 100K guns will have to evaluate what else they'll have to give up in order to upgrade to something new. And since rifles really aren't the main killer in battle it's not really the first priority. Our 7.62x39 rifles are good enough (and accurate enough) to make people take cover where they can be given a taste of some artillery fire. Vehicle-mounted automatic mortars, SPGs, mortars, traditional towed artillery, rockets...

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

I think you’re really underselling how much the rest of our technology has moved on since 1949. We replace every piece of technology within a few years. Why not guns like the AK?

1. Technological development is heavily lobsided.

Some tech has improved very little, and some a lot. If since 1945 firearms developed as fast as computers we would have Culture-tech death rays by now. As it so happens we have not. There are several reasons for that, first some branches of the tech tree have developmental plateaus, wheras some emerging tech like computing power grows exponentially because there is pressure to do so. Small firearms are a near static tech with few improvements because the tech goal has itself plateaued. By the late Victorian era we had already learned as much as we needed to know about design and manufacture of lethal smallarms. There is very little in terms of design resistance, with kevlar and equivalent materials being the only notable counter pressure in the last century, and Kevlasr will not stop rifle round even from a rifle from the turn of the 20th century.

Even the most advanced militiaries still stock small arms that are pre WW2. The M2 Browning .50 cal machine gun is still in service with the US army, and was actively used in Iraq, and the Browning Hi-Power was only discontinued in the last decade. So it is not just irreular forces or developing world militiaries that use older firearms.



2. Occassionally we lose skillsets.

This usually refers to technically obsolete equipment which has been replaced and is later found to be more reliable than the replacement; in some cases this can lead to situations where 'obsolete' technology is reintroduced and few to nobody can be found who can maintain it. This doesnt relate to the AK-47 but share common principles.

So the first lesson here is that if you need to go back to a technology it is not truly obsolete, ruggedness and reliability are valid factors.
Second, undercutting your tech tree is short sighted.

With that learned does the AK-47 have features not yet surpassed in terms of ruggedness and reliability. To that I would answer with a resounding yes, the AK-47 is still one of the most reliable firearms currently in service.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Why has there been technological stagnation in infantry weapons when normally they would either be displaced by better systems or rendered obsolete.

This is the core of your problem. You're assuming some kind of RTS-style tech tree where you continuously add +1 to your weapons and there's always something better to upgrade to. In reality it doesn't work that way. There is no "normal" progression of improvements. Sometimes things improve very quickly because there is the right combination of new discoveries and pressure to improve, sometimes things get to a point where they're as good as they're going to get because we fully understand the problem and have optimized a solution. Guns are in that second case, we thoroughly understand the problem of how to fling bits of metal at someone and all of its design tradeoffs. The AK-47 has a good set of design compromises and is adequate for the job, so why spend R&D money when the chances of getting a significant improvement are low?

To give an example, consider accuracy. You might be able to spend tons of money on advanced materials and manufacturing techniques to improve the tolerances of every part of the AK-47, resulting in higher accuracy. Maybe you could even find new design optimizations that make a better rifle with even better accuracy. But the reality of the situation is that the AK-47 is already accurate enough at realistic engagement ranges that the limiting factor is the skill of the user, not the mechanical qualities of the gun. And by making all of the pieces more precise you might hinder reliability, trading a valuable asset for a negligible improvement.

Because it works, it's ten a penny and it's dirt cheap. Plus it's more difficult to teach a 10 year old how to strip and maintain an m4

The makers of the AK-47 knew someday that man would need something to fight Skynet.

Rifles are just delivery systems for bullets. Without a significant change if the projectiles we fire - there will be little change to the rifle.

If we came up with a new kind of propellent that could dramatically increase bullet velocity rifles might change then but there is a limit to what chemistry can do here. It's probably be maxed out.

Perhaps in the future we will have dudes running around with capacitors of their back with hand held railguns or laser rifles - or perhaps it will only be machines using them. That is probably the next step in rifle tech. Even then I don't think modern rifles would become obsolte. They will still have their job of being light weight battle rifles. Plus also really cheap.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Rifles are just delivery systems for bullets. Without a significant change if the projectiles we fire - there will be little change to the rifle.

If we came up with a new kind of propellent that could dramatically increase bullet velocity rifles might change then but there is a limit to what chemistry can do here. It's probably be maxed out.

Perhaps in the future we will have dudes running around with capacitors of their back with hand held railguns or laser rifles - or perhaps it will only be machines using them. That is probably the next step in rifle tech. Even then I don't think modern rifles would become obsolte. They will still have their job of being light weight battle rifles. Plus also really cheap.

Rail guns are probably the only way to do something like that. To increase the velocity of a bullet you'd need a higher velocity explosive, and then youre getting into high explosive, and that won't work for a bullet propellant as the breech would just explode.

 Ouze wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is partly because the weapons are already good enough.

Which if you think about it, isn't that kind of weird? it's almost 2020 and we're still mostly killing people with little pieces of flying metal. I was sure by now we'd have, you know, lasers and flying cars and robot butlers.

Futurists are universally bad at engineering. Little flying pieces of metal are extremely efficient at killing people at a distance. Lasers aren't. Flying cars are possible but incredibly energy inefficient (therefore expensive) and unsafe (due to the level of training required for a flying vehicle being beyond most of the population's means). As to robot butlers, everyone underestimated how hard making artificial intelligence really is, because we don't understand the basis for human intelligence.

While we live in an age of incredible technological and scientific progress, the laws of physics will always stymie the imagination of futurists, who ignore the practical benefits of technology over the idea that higher tech equals BETTER, which it does not. An infantryman's weapon needs to be simple to use, deadly, lightweight, easy to maintain and inexpensive. The AK47 ticks all those boxes.

I wouldn't want lasers to replace firearms, because when you miss with a bullet it generally smashes into a wall or something and that's it. A laser, OTOH, will almost certainly start a fire if it hits anything remotely flammable. An urban conflict using lasers will result in a city-wide inferno in short order.

It's just a combination of circumstances. The AK-47 (no longer in production, but the name stuck around) was on the leading edge of mass-produced semi-automatic/automatic assault rifles. Coincidentally it premiered the intermediate cartridge a little earlier than NATO on a massive scale. Also, the Soviet system at the time actually meant that the design and testing of the AK was a hugely successful process.

The arms procurement systems for the rifle consisted of 3-5 submitted plans. A round of testing would occur and the state would eliminate one. However, at that point the design of the failed submission would be turned over to the remaining teams to incorporate any good ideas. An idea completely incomprehensible in the West the way we do things. So by the time the Kalashnikov model was approved it had incorporated not only the thoughts of its inventors (yes, more than one person designed it despite the "Kalashnikov designed it on a notepad when he was in hospital" storyline) but ideas/processes/traits from the other weapon submissions.

In the West we were already into the major manufacturers competing for huge government contracts kind of thing. This is one of the few areas where the Soviets got it right. They ended up with a superbly designed firearm. Having owned both AR pattern and AK pattern rifles (having carried ARs on duty and personally running AKs for 10+ years in courses, training), the AK is by far the more smartly designed gun - while both perform very well.

The thing I generally tell people is that the (modern) AR is more reliable than people give it credit for, and the (modern, factory built) AK is far more accurate than people give it credit for - even moreso when chambered in 5.45x39.

I could do a mini-essay on why the AK pattern rifle is so reliable and well designed, but that's been beaten to death in books everywhere.
______________________

Short answer? As mentioned above, self-contained cartridges fired via firing pin is still the tech most commonly used. AK pattern rifles still do that. They do it cheaply, reliably, and accurately. There have been fantastic rifles that simply didn't catch on (mainly due to not landing large military/government orders). The AR and AK are just the two that caught on the most and became most prevalent. While modern plastic rifles with minor tech changes provide some nice changes to the manual of arms, none of them present something so fundamentally fantastic that they can unseat most military carbines/rifles (i.e. the benefits do not outweigh the cost of changing a firearm across thousand or millions of soldiers in arms).

I suspect the next big evolution in infantry weapons design will likely come about if we manage to perfect powered armour/exoskeletons. A lot of the restrictions militaries place on weapons and equipment are to do with weight and bulkiness. If some sort of powered armour came along allowing weight restrictions to be greatly increased you might see weapons technology take a step forward. Even then, the realities of logistics means things like exploding or guided bullets likely won't appear because it's so much easier to make and distribute regular dumb bullets.

Given the reasons why Kalashinikovs still around
.... it is relatively easy to make without the need of complex and well established manufacturum. as long as there's still ammo supply and enough materials to make more.

And the AK is known of durability. By the time M-16 was introduced. the weapon was plagued by easy jamming problems and the need of relatively complex maintenance tools and chemicals while it is said that Kalashinikovs can be cleaned easily with gasoline/diesel + soap ... providing that you or your faction have a good supply of both.

Does Kalashinikov family weapons still have rooms left for improvements so it could make the so called 'Millenial Assault Rifle' design unneccessary?

I'm gonna guess the design doesn't have strong legal protection and is simple enough that almost anyone could manufacture one.

If modern rifles are anything like any other modern product I suggest legal red tape and opaque design prevents them from being as prolific as they could be. Modern stuff in a wider context is also infamous for being less durable than classic designs. I suspect that is the case here too.

Just my uninformed guesses.

nareik wrote:
I'm gonna guess the design doesn't have strong legal protection and is simple enough that almost anyone could manufacture one.

To be fair, the countries that manufactured Ak-47 copies are countries that even today treat IP rights as something to be circumvented rather than managed

If modern rifles are anything like any other modern product I suggest legal red tape and opaque design prevents them from being as prolific as they could be. Modern stuff in a wider context is also infamous for being less durable than classic designs. I suspect that is the case here too.

Doubt it. Functionally, the M4 only differs from the M16 in the most insignificant of ways. They're practically the same gun with different attachments. The successors to the AK47 (AKM, AK74, AK100) aren't that different from the original weapon. The biggest change was the switch to smaller caliber starting with the AK-74 but it's still basically the same gun otherwise. The M2 Browning today is only slightly different from the M1919.

Even modern firearms are functionally not that distinct from their predecessors from 50 years ago because there's no practical need or benefit to replacing them. It has little to do with IP rights or design quirks. The prominence of the early model Kalashnikov's and their near identical knock offs (differing usually only in the quality of the manufacturing) is pretty much entirely down to cost. There's a bajillion of them, so they're cheap. They're mechanically simple so they're durable and reliable. Even a cheap crappy gun is as lethal as the next one to the poor sod getting shot.

One might as well ask a Medieval knight why they're still using swords, to which the answer would be "it's stabby enough."

One thing to keep in mind with regard to the original AK-47 (whose more modern equivalent is the AKM, etc.) is that most foreign produced models aren't actually knock-offs. During the Cold War, the Soviets intentionally farmed out AK-rifle machinery to any country willing to consider communism, or massive trade agreements etc.

Now some of these countries produced their own stocks, or some components, but a lot of the fundamental machinery was "legally" shipped abroad to sweeten various political deals and military alliances. Some countries did reverse engineer and modify the basic AK structures, but plenty of them are legitimate arsenal produced rifles.

The AK evolved over the years going back and forth a few times between milled receivers (original), and then to stamped receivers (better, lighter, cheaper) and then some places kept milled receivers (particularly on heavier RPK style models etc.). Several minor changes occured but the basic guts of the rifle and the operating system remained more or less intact.

The AK fell behind in modern times not from function, but from adaptability when the ex-Soviet Russians were bankrupt in the 90's - a time when a lot of general advancements were showing up for the modernization of the AR platform (stuff as simple as weapon mounted lights, more frequent combat optics, the introduction of rails, laser-designators, etc.). At this point Russia was dealing with lack of pay for soldiers, mass desertions, etc. So, as in many military areas they lost a good 10-15 years on the West before an oil/energy back resurgence started in the mid-to-late 2000's.

The guts of every modern rifle that fires a self-contained cartridge are more or less one of two or three designs. Around that internal packaged (bolt, barrel, operating system, magazine feed, recoil mechanism) is any number of fancy bodies, stocks, receivers, controls etc. But the fundamental concept of a triggered self-contained cartridge is the same.

If we skip the garbage prototypes that got US soldiers killed in Vietnam, the basic M16 that eventually surfaced:


Is, on the inside, more or less identical to modern fighting versions of the AR pattern rifle:


Likewise, the original AK-47:


Is, on the inside, more or less the same as something I'd term the MFAK (Modern Fighting Automatic Kalashnikov):


(Yes in the case of the latter I used a picture of a 5.45 rifle, but you get the idea).

The operating systems may be lightly tweaked, maybe feature new materials for coating, or lightening cuts, maybe reworked gas ports, etc...but the "core" of the gun is the same. The advances have more or less come in ergonomics, controls, optics, weapon lights, mounting hardware, muzzle brakes/compensators, suppressors, etc. The fighting gun itself has come a long way, but the basic principle is still the same. The AK happens to carry out that principle in an easier, more robust fashion with fewer parts...and that's a plus (particularly when viewed from a purchasing angle - considering a rifle for basic infantry soldiers to carry. You have to trust an 18 year old kid with learning the rifle and how to keep it running in the field).

Do bear in mind that both the Colt M1911 .45 caliber pistol and the Browning M2HB .50 caliber heavy machine gun are older than the AK-47 and still in wide use today. Indeed, the M2 remains the standard heavy machine gun of the U.S. army, even if it has been updated.

Not to mention...

Two points here;

1) These weapons are used by human beings. The main limiting factor here is already the human being here, not the rifle. There is little point in improving your rifle if you are giving it to a human who can't get the most out of it.

Back at Waterloo, the musket was a huge leap forward from what had come before it, but the musket was still very much the limiting factor. An actual rifle was moe accurate, but slower to reload, so you'd only bother giving rifles to people with a good enough aim to make use of that accuracy, and muskets were a rate-of-fire weapon. Later, they found ways to automate the loading of all weapons, and so they gave rifles to everyone, as they could all reload just as fast

2) The idea of marginal gains - when something is basic, you can get good improvements for marginal investment of time and resources. Once something is better, it requires a bigger investment to improve it.

Technology has advanced at an exponential rate, but that is not true of each individual invention. You invent something, improve it rapidly, perhaps even exponentially, but eventually that exponential curve eventually turns into an s-shape curve and the progress levels off.

It's more likely that development of remote machines (robots) or exo-suits might well lead to advances in rifle designs. If you can build a power armour exo-suit that allows far high precision in battle and absorbs far more of the recoil of a gun, then you can go past the limits that a human has in terms of a weapons performance.

Of course such technology is a long way off being battle-ready and from what I recall exo-suit development was only really being considered in terms of the support side of warfare. Ergo being able to use people and suits to lift munitions onto aircraft or such in small airfields of the kind that you might pop up in a dense warzone - working with things such as helicopters and the like (ergo vertical take off so no runway needed).

 John Prins wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This is partly because the weapons are already good enough.

Which if you think about it, isn't that kind of weird? it's almost 2020 and we're still mostly killing people with little pieces of flying metal. I was sure by now we'd have, you know, lasers and flying cars and robot butlers.

Futurists are universally bad at engineering. Little flying pieces of metal are extremely efficient at killing people at a distance. Lasers aren't. Flying cars are possible but incredibly energy inefficient (therefore expensive) and unsafe (due to the level of training required for a flying vehicle being beyond most of the population's means). As to robot butlers, everyone underestimated how hard making artificial intelligence really is, because we don't understand the basis for human intelligence.

While we live in an age of incredible technological and scientific progress, the laws of physics will always stymie the imagination of futurists, who ignore the practical benefits of technology over the idea that higher tech equals BETTER, which it does not. An infantryman's weapon needs to be simple to use, deadly, lightweight, easy to maintain and inexpensive. The AK47 ticks all those boxes.

I wouldn't want lasers to replace firearms, because when you miss with a bullet it generally smashes into a wall or something and that's it. A laser, OTOH, will almost certainly start a fire if it hits anything remotely flammable. An urban conflict using lasers will result in a city-wide inferno in short order.

Yes but the same sentiment was used historically to argue that it was impossible to make:

- Cheap mass produced rifles that could reload quickly
- Ships made of steel
- Submarines
- Planes
- Tanks

Plus similar arguments were also used to dismiss the importance of technology in changing how wars needed to be fought and that “time tested methods” would no longer work. People in the 16th century trying to fight as Knights against pike and shot, men in the 18th arguing for the pike over the musket, men in the 19th for the bayonet against the rifle, WW1 for massed infantry and cavalry against barbed wire and machine guns. It’s the line of thinking that war is purely about “proper soldiery” and not seeing them as industrial methods of killing; in which technology plays a huge role. There was a story I recall where a British cavalryman around 1900ish with the attached machine gun remarked to his officer that with them all in the open he could probably get them all. The man was called a fool and sent on his way because the professionals knew best and these quaint gadgets weren’t that important.

I just think it’s a dangerous thing to downplay the importance of technology in war and lose perspective on how dramatically things can change in a short space of time. In fact, I suspect the reason people in the 60s thought we’d have cities on Mars by 2000 is because they and their parents had lived through equally dramatic changes. It’s not that they were stupid.

Well, despite the gulf of time and technology separating the first hand gonnes from the AK47, they both use a chemical propellant to launch a metal projectile down a barrel which gives it impetus and a direction of flight.

There arguably is a smaller difference in logic between a hand gonne and an AK47 than there is between a hand gonne and a longbow.

So let's ask the question another way.

What is the emerging technology which will replace the modern infantry weapon?

Why would this new technology replace the AK47 and not replace the M4?

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Yes but the same sentiment was used historically to argue that it was impossible to make:

- Cheap mass produced rifles that could reload quickly
- Ships made of steel
- Submarines
- Planes
- Tanks

Plus similar arguments were also used to dismiss the importance of technology in changing how wars needed to be fought and that “time tested methods” would no longer work. People in the 16th century trying to fight as Knights against pike and shot, men in the 18th arguing for the pike over the musket, men in the 19th for the bayonet against the rifle, WW1 for massed infantry and cavalry against barbed wire and machine guns. It’s the line of thinking that war is purely about “proper soldiery” and not seeing them as industrial methods of killing; in which technology plays a huge role. There was a story I recall where a British cavalryman around 1900ish with the attached machine gun remarked to his officer that with them all in the open he could probably get them all. The man was called a fool and sent on his way because the professionals knew best and these quaint gadgets weren’t that important.

I just think it’s a dangerous thing to downplay the importance of technology in war and lose perspective on how dramatically things can change in a short space of time. In fact, I suspect the reason people in the 60s thought we’d have cities on Mars by 2000 is because they and their parents had lived through equally dramatic changes. It’s not that they were stupid.

At the same time, it is important not to slide into deterministic views where one expects technological advances in every field to keep on occurring which make an item quantifiably better in every respect.

To use an example from your list up above, nobody reinvented the pike. The bladed weapon was developed in a multitude of ways, shapes, and means, each with it's own advantages and disadvantages. There were minor advances in affixing the blade, the metal composition of the blade, maintaining the blade, and so on. But ultimately, a sword from 100 AD stabs you roughly as well as a sword from 1500 AD, and would have functioned roughly as well.

Blades were replaced by the gun, the blade didn't evolve into it. You could make the same comparison between horse carts and lorries, or physical letters and the internet.What tends to happen is that a new technology edges an old one out. But there's no new technology which has emerged which makes it easier to kill a person 1v1 as of yet than a gun. We can fiddle around the edges of the technology, but like the sword in 1800, we have its measure. Until some new way of killing people more easily at short range appears (I dunno, psychic powers or something?), the gun will remain the primary small-arm.

And that's more or less the answer to your question.

It's not that "Firearms ability to deliver bullets" technology has stagnated. It's the bullet technology that has stagnated. We are using the same basic technology in the smokeless metallic cartridge for over 100 years. We will not see a dramatic change in small arms until we see a dramatic change in the nature of ammunition, or directed energy source.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

I just think it’s a dangerous thing to downplay the importance of technology in war and lose perspective on how dramatically things can change in a short space of time. In fact, I suspect the reason people in the 60s thought we’d have cities on Mars by 2000 is because they and their parents had lived through equally dramatic changes. It’s not that they were stupid.

Counterpoint: We're still happily using the wheel, the screw, the pulley, the lever, the wedge. New technologies will appear, but some old ones will remain relevant and may never be replaced at all.

There's good reason soldiers didn't trust technological innovations. Trying new things in warfare gets you killed most of the time. It isn't like testing things out at a range under controlled conditions. Soldiers don't get 'do-overs' and will tend towards conservatism because that's how soldiers stay alive. Once a soldier was shown that things actually worked, they were generally for anything that would help keep them alive.

 John Prins wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

I just think it’s a dangerous thing to downplay the importance of technology in war and lose perspective on how dramatically things can change in a short space of time. In fact, I suspect the reason people in the 60s thought we’d have cities on Mars by 2000 is because they and their parents had lived through equally dramatic changes. It’s not that they were stupid.

Counterpoint: We're still happily using the wheel, the screw, the pulley, the lever, the wedge. New technologies will appear, but some old ones will remain relevant and may never be replaced at all.

There's good reason soldiers didn't trust technological innovations. Trying new things in warfare gets you killed most of the time. It isn't like testing things out at a range under controlled conditions. Soldiers don't get 'do-overs' and will tend towards conservatism because that's how soldiers stay alive. Once a soldier was shown that things actually worked, they were generally for anything that would help keep them alive.

It's also worth noting that the Army has looked into replacing the M4 several times. They've never actually gone and done it cause the potential replacements offer no meaningful upgrade. It's not like anyone's slacking. There's just no real advancements.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

And cities on mars by 2000 was stupid. A stupid idea I doubt many people actually thought was going to happen.

AK47s are crap honestly, they haven't been replaced because of 1 key factor. Durability.

An AK47 has 1 very redeeming quality and that is Durability. Yes you can break them, but compare them to an M16A4 or a M4A1 and you will notice that its not as susceptible to poor maintenance/care.

Compare the stats to the M16A4.

Accuracy: Point Target
AK47 - about 300-350 yards
M16A4- 500 Yards

Area Target:
AK47 - 400-500 Yards
M16A4 - 700-800 Yards

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

As far as stopping power, believe it or not, an AK47 has LESS stopping power at range then an M16A4 firing a smaller 5.56 round, this is due to velocity.

In every category imaginable, the AK47 is worse. Except for its 1 great trait, durability. There is a reason you see the AK47 in all the 3rd world countries armies, its harder to break and is significantly cheaper to produce/purchase.

So why hasn't it been replaced by a better weapon? Simply put, it has, by any country that has the money/technology and cares about their soldiers performance on the battlefield. Russia doesn't use them anymore and relies on the 74 instead. What you see though is a holdover from the cold war where the russians allowed foreign countries to mass produce their rifles, it was literally a tool of diplomacy.

I'm pretty sure there's a term for that now that it's mentioned.

AK Diplomacy? Something.

SemperMortis wrote:
As far as stopping power, believe it or not, an AK47 has LESS stopping power at range then an M16A4 firing a smaller 5.56 round, this is due to velocity.

I more or less agreed with you until this. I don't believe it, because it's not true. The 5.56 is moving faster, no argument, but it also weighs about 1/3rd of the bullet weight. In terms of energy, the 7.62x39 delivers more energy at ranges typically seen in combat and eventually tapers off to more or less match the 5.56. There are benefits that the 5.56 has - the better velocity gives it a better chance to penetrate body armor and it has a flatter trajectory at longer range - but in pure stopping power it loses, period.

Of course, stopping power isn't everything, which is why as you said even the Russians went away from 7.62x39 pretty fast.

The AK is also perfectly accurate enough for what it's used for. The average shooters marksmanship will affect accuracy much, much more than the looser tolerances will.

I would find it strange that an army would invest massively in research and development of infantry rifles instead of the tools that actally win wars like aircrafts, surveillance systems, cyberwarfare specialists/softwares, artillery and ballistic missiles. Infantry is becoming more and more obsolete as a combat unit. Nowdays, infantry is mostly used to mop-up resistence after extensive bombings and as garrison in recently captured territory. Your infantryman is less fighting a war then he is doing high risk police work, looking out for partisan actions and securing logistical lines. We don't need better rifle because we don't really need better infantry. The very best infantryman in the world is completely irrelevent if he or she doesn't have good air and artillery support.

SemperMortis wrote:
AK47s are crap honestly, they haven't been replaced because of 1 key factor. Durability.

An AK47 has 1 very redeeming quality and that is Durability. Yes you can break them, but compare them to an M16A4 or a M4A1 and you will notice that its not as susceptible to poor maintenance/care.

Compare the stats to the M16A4.

Accuracy: Point Target
AK47 - about 300-350 yards
M16A4- 500 Yards

Area Target:
AK47 - 400-500 Yards
M16A4 - 700-800 Yards

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

As far as stopping power, believe it or not, an AK47 has LESS stopping power at range then an M16A4 firing a smaller 5.56 round, this is due to velocity.

In every category imaginable, the AK47 is worse. Except for its 1 great trait, durability. There is a reason you see the AK47 in all the 3rd world countries armies, its harder to break and is significantly cheaper to produce/purchase.

So why hasn't it been replaced by a better weapon? Simply put, it has, by any country that has the money/technology and cares about their soldiers performance on the battlefield. Russia doesn't use them anymore and relies on the 74 instead. What you see though is a holdover from the cold war where the russians allowed foreign countries to mass produce their rifles, it was literally a tool of diplomacy.

And here we have (I'm guessing) an American service member who's been fed a ton of bad info by fellow soldiers or the military? Misinformation doesn't add anything to this thread.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


To list a few drawbacks. It needs heavy ammunition to function. It’s inaccurate. It’s loud and gives away your position if you fire it. The weapon can cause collateral damage. It requires training to use. The weapon doesn’t really help you locate your opponent who might be taking lot shots at you in the valley.

-heavy ammunition is relative. My experiences in Iraq tell me that, unless you're a standard uniform wearing military, you aren't going to be carrying enough ammunition to make that much of a difference. . . Most of the time we captured someone, they had at most 3 magazines, usually it was 2: one in the gun, one on them.

-Its only as accurate as its user, and type/mode of fire. . . People are literally just as inaccurate with M-16/M-4s and it is hailed as being much more accurate.

-Congrats, you just described firearms to a T. Ive never heard of a sound suppressor that could eliminate this, and I've been on a few ranges where a person was using a suppressor.

-All weapons can cause collateral damage, I don't see how this is a point?

-The M-4/M-16 requires training, and arguably more training than the AK, so what's your point? There's the oft cited "field test" of an AK, where they found a nice mud puddle, buried an AK in it, waited a bit, pulled out the AK, wiped off a couple things, and shot it straight away. There's no way in hell you could do the same with an M-4/M-16, a major part of M-16 training is cleaning and maintenance because its a "precision machine" (lol), whereas if you're some 3rd world warlord, you can pop an AK into some kid's hand say, "point that end at the enemy, pull this bit here, squeeze that, and just make sure you come back for more ammo when ya need it"


Ultimately though, the military that spawned the AK-47 HAS moved on from the 47. . . According to google, the standard infantry rifle of the russian military is the AK-12 and/or AK-15.

-"standard" infantry rifle helps you locate an opponent, you have eyes and ears for that. . . . Most any other tech for the purpose of "locate an opponent who might be taking a lot of shots at you in the valley" are not going to be based on/around infantry rifles.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


To list a few drawbacks. It needs heavy ammunition to function. It’s inaccurate. It’s loud and gives away your position if you fire it. The weapon can cause collateral damage. It requires training to use. The weapon doesn’t really help you locate your opponent who might be taking lot shots at you in the valley.

-heavy ammunition is relative. My experiences in Iraq tell me that, unless you're a standard uniform wearing military, you aren't going to be carrying enough ammunition to make that much of a difference. . . Most of the time we captured someone, they had at most 3 magazines, usually it was 2: one in the gun, one on them.

-Its only as accurate as its user, and type/mode of fire. . . People are literally just as inaccurate with M-16/M-4s and it is hailed as being much more accurate.

-Congrats, you just described firearms to a T. Ive never heard of a sound suppressor that could eliminate this, and I've been on a few ranges where a person was using a suppressor.

-All weapons can cause collateral damage, I don't see how this is a point?

-The M-4/M-16 requires training, and arguably more training than the AK, so what's your point? There's the oft cited "field test" of an AK, where they found a nice mud puddle, buried an AK in it, waited a bit, pulled out the AK, wiped off a couple things, and shot it straight away. There's no way in hell you could do the same with an M-4/M-16, a major part of M-16 training is cleaning and maintenance because its a "precision machine" (lol), whereas if you're some 3rd world warlord, you can pop an AK into some kid's hand say, "point that end at the enemy, pull this bit here, squeeze that, and just make sure you come back for more ammo when ya need it"


Ultimately though, the military that spawned the AK-47 HAS moved on from the 47. . . According to google, the standard infantry rifle of the russian military is the AK-12 and/or AK-15.

-"standard" infantry rifle helps you locate an opponent, you have eyes and ears for that. . . . Most any other tech for the purpose of "locate an opponent who might be taking a lot of shots at you in the valley" are not going to be based on/around infantry rifles.

I did name the AK but I was more referring to firearms in the general having stagnated rather than a comparison between the M16 and AK. Which I imagine has been done to death. It’s really more a question about weapons development and comparing it to previous leaps in technology. Also the list is brainstorming hypothetical ways you could improve the gun.

Well, it has come up a few times by posters further up, but they suggest that infantry are an increasingly niche/support troops rather than the main offensive unit as they were in earlier centuries. Aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, tanks etc etc. I think you could make a comparison to the decline of cavalry and it becoming increasingly niche and marginal as time progressed. We don’t replace the guns for the same reason the cavalry didn’t update their swords over the centuries. That’s another way of saying the AK is near obsolete.

Some weapons cause more collateral damage than others. Poison gas for example. If some weapons are more dangerous then by the same token current weapons could be made less dangerous. Brainstorming, if you had a sonic weapon that incapacitated people or some form of AI in the gun which reduced the risk of hitting a civilian.

Well Iam basing the ideas on history. A musket was easier to train people with than a longbow, so an arguably better weapon system got left by the wayside. So that’s the principle. If you made any weapon system so intuitive to use that anyone could pick one up and use it that translates directly into an advantage.

What I'm finding interesting about this thread is the amount of bias you can see in a lot of responses. Not hateful bias, but a ton of "AK's are inaccurate cavemen tools" kind of stuff (as witnessed above). It's amusing how much this stigma exists in the US. I've found it's based on a couple of things.

1) The person has been drip-fed enough Cold War style propaganda to believe that an AK platform rifle is inaccurate etc. (see also: films throughout history down-playing the qualities of opposing military equipment)

2) The person has served overseas where they encountered AK platform rifles, often handled by non-combatants, guerrilla fighters with no marksmanship skills, or their idea of an AK rifle is similar to this:



3) They're in the U.S> and their experiences with an AK rifle are limited to things like Romanian WASR kit-builds that someone bought for $179. This is probably the biggest issue since the Cold War propaganda has taught us that an AK is an evil weapon used by terrorists and thus is intrinsically bad. This then colours how much we think one should be worth so people buy a WASR re-build from a pawn shop and think it's indicative of a proper arsenal-built AK platform rifle...then when it's unreliable, poorly built, and has a slap-your-fingers-to-death trigger they believe that's an actual AK.

The reality is that the overwhelming majority of AK pattern rifles in the US are just that - monkey-built parts kits which are cut-up rifles taken out of service by foreign countries and sold in bulk to the US market. Wholesalers then find companies willing to rebuild them on new receivers and sell them to US buyers for dirt cheap. The WASR for example is a cheap single-stack (yep!) AK model issued to national guard units...it's then butchered back into some form of AK rifle when it arrived in the US (often by companies like Century who are notorious for terrible guns). These guns have gak parts, worn out barrels, and are then assembled by really questionable people. One major flaw of the AK is that you actualy need machining and gunsmithing skills on some level to build it properly. You can't lego-swap parts like you can with something like an AR.

Couple cheaply re-built guns with sub-par companies like Tapco making garbage magazines and you end up with a "Russian piece of gak" which reinforces the classical Cold War era biases.

By contrast, take a modern arsenal-built (I mean factory, not Arsenal the company though they import good stuff) modern AK. New, out of the box. You have an exceptionally competent fighting rifle. Accurate and reliable. (Exception: 5.56 AKs are the least reliable because there was never a standard design for them, so I don't actively recommend them to people). Is an AK accurate? Yes. A 7.62 gun is accurate to 3-4 MOA easily, where a 5.45 gun is accurate to 2-3 MOA easily - all with basic ammunition, nothing fancy, and no special triggers. An average civilian "good" AR should get you to 2 MOA reliably. A government issued military spec M4 must be at least 4 MOA in order to be shipped out for comparison (though they should exceed that).

An AK in 7.62x39 is actually barely heavier than a normal 5.56 AR. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be playing around with milled receiver guns (which are not current service issue) like the Bulgarian Arsenal ones or the silly Centurion rifles. A 5.45 AK is actually heavier than a 7.62 one with the magazines removed. Why? because the Soviets were actually smart and used the same barrel blanks for each calibre. Thus the 5.45 ended up having a heavier barrel than the 7.62 model by default.

I'm not an expert, but I've run AKs for 10+ years and used to run a blog for serious shooters looking to get into AK's (including Law Enforcement use). I've only got a couple of work guns that I've had for a while (one Saiga, one Arsenal brand). Accurate, and reliable. When I say reliable, my primary rifle has gone 14,000+ rounds with exactly 2 malfunctions. One was after a gunsmith trip so it went back immediately and the other was ammo related. I'm not against ARs I just find I'm more comfortable running a chopped 5.45 AK. I carried M4's and M4A1's on duty for a couple of years. I don't mind them one bit, so it's not a bias thing (only beef with the AR was the way it started out). I'd gladly run a quality Bravo Company rifle any day, and on duty without hesitation.

I've found in general most people know feth-all about the AK pattern rifles outside of what they've seen on TV or in a pawn shop. I used to shoot the gak with Jim Fuller from Rifle Dynamics - if you ever want a crazy (admittedly now very expensive) high-dollar super AK, he's a great dude to go with. He did both of my guns originally when I wanted some mods done. That guys is some kind of AK guru/genius/whisperer. If you're looking for an amazing read (despite the silly title) look up a copy of Iannamico's AK-47: The Grim Reaper. It's an illustrated book of almost every AK pattern rifle in existence. Every country, every variant etc. It's a treasure trove of cool info.

I'm curious about this 'decline of calvary' concept being mentioned. WTF?

We (US Army) is actually getting ready to increase cavalry organizations at the Division echelon, and currently BCTs all field a full squadron of Cav troopers.

Oh you mean HORSE cavalry. You see, the reconnaissance and security missions have not gone away even though technology has made conducting these missions via horseback a bit difficult.

But I've done these missions dismounted, from a hummer, from a M3 Bradley, and used all kinds of 'stuff' t help me from pretty high tech thermal/LLTV optics, UAS, different electronic warfare support/SIGINT assets and so on.

Infantry and guys with AKs or other rifles ain't going away anytime soon. Not every conflict is a Nuke chucking total war scenario.

No we're (again US Army) looking at making the grunt more effective/more lethal. The next rifle we'll field is gonna be a caliber higher than 5.56 but not a 7.62, and will include optics and electronic fire control making first round hits more likely.

The problem is, each BCT set is going to be expensive. Not every army, insurgent group, county is going to be able to afford to field the tech. Heck, we (again, US Army) won't be able to equip each BCT with them initially. So AKs and similar rifles will exist well into the next century, and a solid, well trained trooper armed with one, will still be able to hold ground, clear complex terrain, and basically shoot bad guys and end them.

I'll just drop this here.
The finale word on AK47 accuracy.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QMBMdeN9dyg

I don't see how an M16 surpassing an AK-47 in terms of effective range (600m~ vs 300m-500m) is significant. Doesn't most modern combat take place at shorter distances?

Depends entirely on the environment. WW2 and Vietnam etc. the generally accepted "average distance" was somewhere in the 300M zone. However in Iraq the average distance was often 150M or less....but then in Afghanistan shooting from mountain-to-mountain you started seeing some 600-800M distance engagements. This is one of the reasons why the SCAR-17 and other .308 rifles were in vogue with special forces in Afghanistan. Neither the 5.45, 5.56, or 7.62x39 were ideal at those kinds of ranges.

Your average infantryman though is not actually engaging at those distances, more often dumping cover fire, firing at clusters of trees and calling in air support. (without a suitably decent optic you won't even see a target with the naked eye at 500+ meters...particularly one hiding from you)

As a civilian, outside of hunting there is almost zero genuine consideration for 500+ yard shooting with a small caliber rifle. This won't stop people arguing it on the internet. I've seen my share of 7.62 AKs hitting targets at 600-700 yards. Does that mean it's a practical tool for it? No. Same goes for 5.56 and 5.45. Seen plenty of videos of guys sitting at ranges, proned out with a nice bipod and huge scope, plinking steel at max distance. It's a neat idea, but how practical or useful is that? Hell I can hit steel routinely with my 9mm handgun at 100 yards. Is that really what I should concentrate on? Probably not.

But, if it's a stat you can use to try to make an argument, it always comes up. Same goes for guys who insist on .308 rifles over anything smaller. "Can you kill a bear at 800 yards!? Didn't think so!" etc.

Depends on where that combat takes place. The M14 made a comeback when the US needed to extend the operational envelope with better barrier defeating ammo.

 Elbows wrote:
Depends entirely on the environment. WW2 and Vietnam etc. the generally accepted "average distance" was somewhere in the 300M zone. However in Iraq the average distance was often 150M or less....but then in Afghanistan shooting from mountain-to-mountain you started seeing some 600-800M distance engagements. This is one of the reasons why the SCAR-17 and other .308 rifles were in vogue with special forces in Afghanistan. Neither the 5.45, 5.56, or 7.62x39 were ideal at those kinds of ranges.

Your average infantryman though is not actually engaging at those distances, more often dumping cover fire, firing at clusters of trees and calling in air support. (without a suitably decent optic you won't even see a target with the naked eye at 500+ meters...particularly one hiding from you)

As a civilian, outside of hunting there is almost zero genuine consideration for 500+ yard shooting with a small caliber rifle. This won't stop people arguing it on the internet. I've seen my share of 7.62 AKs hitting targets at 600-700 yards. Does that mean it's a practical tool for it? No. Same goes for 5.56 and 5.45. Seen plenty of videos of guys sitting at ranges, proned out with a nice bipod and huge scope, plinking steel at max distance. It's a neat idea, but how practical or useful is that? Hell I can hit steel routinely with my 9mm handgun at 100 yards. Is that really what I should concentrate on? Probably not.

But, if it's a stat you can use to try to make an argument, it always comes up. Same goes for guys who insist on .308 rifles over anything smaller. "Can you kill a bear at 800 yards!? Didn't think so!" etc.

That's kind of my point. I mean yeah, you can throw an ACOG on an M16A2 and ping away just fine at 600m, but if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. There are some environments where it makes sense, but my impression is that most combat over the last 40-50 years has been relatively close thus rendering the range argument sort of moot. The M16/M4 vs the AK-47 seems like a silly discussion. Is one really inherently better than the other?

As far as firearms technology not improving...haven't sniper rifles/anti material rifles improved tremendously over the last 50 years? I know ammo has as far as ballistics are concerned.

Yep, overall firearms tech has advanced, but unlike commercial stuff - military hardware rarely advances because of cost. There are plenty of modern cartridges which are probably better than anything used by modern militaries. I haven't followed them lately but I know 6.5 and 6.8 were really popular for a while.

Some fancy rounds (.338 Lapua etc.) can make it into military service because it's a small project that is going to a smaller portion of the military and many special forces branches have their own purchasing commands so they can circumvent massive amounts of paperwork and nonsense that the main forces abide by.

Consider also that NATO tries to keep standardized rounds between countries and it becomes even more impossible to shift dozens of countries away from an existing round (which they probably have huge stocks of). You do see the police market in the US more prone to adopt silly things because they're such small departments and agencies, often providing a couple dozen SWAT officers with new toys vs. an entire army. There was a period where a ton of police agencies/departments were excited by the P90 and the 5.7 round....it was subsequently abandoned by most after in-the-field failure to perform. Sometimes salesmen are really good...lol.

So yeah, the advancement of some tech is there, but primary firearms/calibers for major military forces is just...a massive fething mountain to climb

The Germans had an oversized Mauser bolt action rifle used to shoot down balloons in WWI, the round was used to develop the .50BMG round. The modern Barrett and such are just updated versions. Lol, what's old is new again.

SemperMortis wrote:
AK47s are crap honestly, they haven't been replaced because of 1 key factor. Durability.

An AK47 has 1 very redeeming quality and that is Durability. Yes you can break them, but compare them to an M16A4 or a M4A1 and you will notice that its not as susceptible to poor maintenance/care.

Compare the stats to the M16A4.

Accuracy: Point Target
AK47 - about 300-350 yards
M16A4- 500 Yards

Area Target:
AK47 - 400-500 Yards
M16A4 - 700-800 Yards

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

As far as stopping power, believe it or not, an AK47 has LESS stopping power at range then an M16A4 firing a smaller 5.56 round, this is due to velocity.

In every category imaginable, the AK47 is worse. Except for its 1 great trait, durability. There is a reason you see the AK47 in all the 3rd world countries armies, its harder to break and is significantly cheaper to produce/purchase.

So why hasn't it been replaced by a better weapon? Simply put, it has, by any country that has the money/technology and cares about their soldiers performance on the battlefield. Russia doesn't use them anymore and relies on the 74 instead. What you see though is a holdover from the cold war where the russians allowed foreign countries to mass produce their rifles, it was literally a tool of diplomacy.

The average developing world guerilla fighter or conscript doesn't need long range accuracy. Guerillas snipers preferred WW2 era rifles, particularly the Lee Enfield for that purpose, as reliable as the AK and accurate to quite a ways for the fighter who has a mind to aim single shots over medium distances. Meanwhile accurate at 50 metres means accurate for general use. Besides its not like the main users of the M16A4 weren't firm believers in 'spray and pray' anyway.

 Chute82 wrote:
The makers of the AK-47 knew someday that man would need something to fight Skynet.

I am still waiting for my phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range.

With that power output? It's a middle-range flourescent lightbulb.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
With that power output? It's a middle-range flourescent lightbulb.

Hey if its good enough for AHNOLD its good enough for me!

Also, to the topic, who is not saying the AK 47 is not obsolete. Outside of third world militaries who use them because they are dirt cheap to buy, I am not aware of any military that uses them as their standard infantry weapon. Guerillas still use them for the same reason - they are dirt cheap and available.

Now back to off topic. Since clearly sharks with friggin lazers are the best option, but are of course water borne, could we develop a cart for the infantry where they could move around ad deploy sharks with friggin lazers on dry land?

 Frazzled wrote:


Also, to the topic, who is not saying the AK 47 is not obsolete. Outside of third world militaries who use them because they are dirt cheap to buy, I am not aware of any military that uses them as their standard infantry weapon. Guerillas still use them for the same reason - they are dirt cheap and available.

Just because they aren't the best option doesn't mean they are obsolete. People still drive Ford trucks...

Now back to off topic. Since clearly sharks with friggin lazers are the best option, but are of course water borne, could we develop a cart for the infantry where they could move around ad deploy sharks with friggin lazers on dry land?

I would imagine a Sharknado generator would be the springboard for that tech.

 Inquisitor Lord Bane wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:


Also, to the topic, who is not saying the AK 47 is not obsolete. Outside of third world militaries who use them because they are dirt cheap to buy, I am not aware of any military that uses them as their standard infantry weapon. Guerillas still use them for the same reason - they are dirt cheap and available.

Just because they aren't the best option doesn't mean they are obsolete. People still drive Ford trucks...

Now back to off topic. Since clearly sharks with friggin lazers are the best option, but are of course water borne, could we develop a cart for the infantry where they could move around ad deploy sharks with friggin lazers on dry land?

I would imagine a Sharknado generator would be the springboard for that tech.

Going with 1 and 2 as my multiquoting is never good.
1. (obsolete). My point is that the AK-47 is not currently used by major or regional powers any more.
EDIT: I have to somewhat take this back. Pakistan appears to use the Type 56 still. While this supports my argument of why it is used, Pakistan is still a major country. Wiki says the Indian Army still uses the AKM as well, but I thought they had moved to their own internally produced piece of c&%p. I could be wrong.
2. Sharknado generator eh? NIIIIICE!

For my part, if we're talking "obsolete", a classic AK47 is about in the same place as a 1985 Honda Civic. It's "obsolete" in the sense that there are newer products with more features, but not in the sense that it is no longer fit for purpose.

It's not your first choice if top performance is desired or if one wanta nice features, but ultimately it does exactly what 99% of users *need* it to, with a minimum of maintenance and training requirement, and can be to some extent abused. You wont win a Fast and Furious race, you wont win any beauty contests, you aren't gonna be the greenest or most fuel efficient, but in the end it commutes just as well as anything else.

Looking at my own collection of rifles, if I had to grab something to fight with, my SAM7 (a Bulgarian made milled receiver semiauto 7.62x39 AK) would not be my first choice, but likewise I wouldn't feel undergunned if that's what I was given.

Ultimately, I'd take an AK47 with a functioning and properly zeroed red dot over *any* iron sighted rifle. I'd consider an optic much more important than any other factor as an individual shooter.

 Ouze wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:
As far as stopping power, believe it or not, an AK47 has LESS stopping power at range then an M16A4 firing a smaller 5.56 round, this is due to velocity.

I more or less agreed with you until this. I don't believe it, because it's not true. The 5.56 is moving faster, no argument, but it also weighs about 1/3rd of the bullet weight. In terms of energy, the 7.62x39 delivers more energy at ranges typically seen in combat and eventually tapers off to more or less match the 5.56. There are benefits that the 5.56 has - the better velocity gives it a better chance to penetrate body armor and it has a flatter trajectory at longer range - but in pure stopping power it loses, period.

Of course, stopping power isn't everything, which is why as you said even the Russians went away from 7.62x39 pretty fast.

The AK is also perfectly accurate enough for what it's used for. The average shooters marksmanship will affect accuracy much, much more than the looser tolerances will.

5.56 has only a little less muzzle energy than 7.62 at short range - at 100 metres it becomes a big difference as a the larger projectile loses speed much less quickly. However most engagements don't take place at 100 metres plus so...it is a non factor. The m-16 wins in every other category except maintenance - for professional armies though - it's also a non factor. Keeping weight down on your soldier is the most important factor in warfare these days.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So the Ak47 is 70 years old. That’s about as much time separating Waterloo and Rorkes Drift. That’s muskets to the Martini Henry rifle. How come despite our technology moving so much faster than it did during the 19th century has the AK not been rendered obsolete by more modern equivalents? Not just a “better rifle” like the M4, but to the musket/rifle comparison where it might be cheap and available but it’s just borderline useless against modern weapons.

Pretty sure it has, at least in the Russian Army. They've been using the AK-74 since 1974, and its only been last year that they started to phase it out in favor of the AK-15
The AK47 is used in third world countries because those places tend to have outdated weaponry, and as its famously reliable, it tends to outlive most other weapons from that time period.

SemperMortis wrote:

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

Original AK-47 (milled receiver) weights about 3.8kg. AKM (stamped receiver) weighs about 3.1kg. M16A2/A4 weigh about 3.4kg. So differences are hardly huge. AK is about 13cm shorter than M16.

One thing which AK has going for it is the magazine. AK magazines are sturdy and durable, and magazine release is idiot-proof. By contrast, 5.56mm STANAG magazine is flimsy and magazine release is finicky and prone to freezing etc.

Backfire wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

Original AK-47 (milled receiver) weights about 3.8kg. AKM (stamped receiver) weighs about 3.1kg. M16A2/A4 weigh about 3.4kg. So differences are hardly huge. AK is about 13cm shorter than M16.

One thing which AK has going for it is the magazine. AK magazines are sturdy and durable, and magazine release is idiot-proof. By contrast, 5.56mm STANAG magazine is flimsy and magazine release is finicky and prone to freezing etc.

Is that with ammunition or without? Because 7.62 rounds are heavier than 5.56. One of the reasons why they adopted that caliber even though its weaker, I believe.

5.56 weighs less but that’s so you can carry more ammo. I’d expect overall combat load to be similar.

Backfire wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

Original AK-47 (milled receiver) weights about 3.8kg. AKM (stamped receiver) weighs about 3.1kg. M16A2/A4 weigh about 3.4kg. So differences are hardly huge. AK is about 13cm shorter than M16.

One thing which AK has going for it is the magazine. AK magazines are sturdy and durable, and magazine release is idiot-proof. By contrast, 5.56mm STANAG magazine is flimsy and magazine release is finicky and prone to freezing etc.

Without going too overboard into it, the cartridge/magazine are one of the primary components which leads to the reliability of the AK itself. If you design from a cartridge...then the magazine...then the rifle you end up with a better end product. The 7.62x39 and the 5.45x39 are cartridges which are more tapered than 5.56. This slight increase in taper aids in extraction (picture a triangle/cone being pulled out of a slot, vs. a cylinder being pulled out of a slot, etc.) It's exceptionally minimal difference, but present. The taper of the bullet is also why you have the standard "banana" shaped magazine, so the non-tilt follower (standard in AK magazines) can smoothly guide the bullets into the chamber without disturbing how they sit.

The rock-n-lock magazine design also means that the rounds don't "straighten" out when entering the receiver like an AR does. They keep in line with the follower and their own tapered design when being fed. Couple that with a spring which is about twice the length of an AR magazine spring (one reason why even the 5.45 AK magazine looks long - the follower inside is maybe 1.5-1.75 inches tall and houses a massive spring), a super robust design (outside of cheap commercial copy-cat magazines), and a strong and solid magazine locking tab...you're ahead of the game when it comes to reliability. One advantage of the rock-n-lock is that you know 100% when a magazine is seated.

When you really study the design you'll begin to appreciate how incredibly well designed the rifle is.

Having fired all three models (I own an AK74 using the slimmer 5.45x39mm round) I can agree with above posters on the range and accuracy of the M-16 version so far surpasses the AK variants there is no comparison. I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards. When shopping, I opted to buy the AK74 variant that uses the round closer to the M-16/NATO round. And I was happy I did, as the 74 version does have greater accuracy, simply due to the ballistics of the round, but only marginally.

The 47 was just so hugely massed produced for so many years in so many countries, it will be in use for a long time.

Real Men Shoot Rolling Block Remingtons.

 Elbows wrote:

Backfire wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

The AK47 is significantly heavier than the M16A4 and the ammunition is even heavier. The AK47 is harder to handle as well due to increased recoil which is why it is in fact very inaccurate except at short range.

Original AK-47 (milled receiver) weights about 3.8kg. AKM (stamped receiver) weighs about 3.1kg. M16A2/A4 weigh about 3.4kg. So differences are hardly huge. AK is about 13cm shorter than M16.

One thing which AK has going for it is the magazine. AK magazines are sturdy and durable, and magazine release is idiot-proof. By contrast, 5.56mm STANAG magazine is flimsy and magazine release is finicky and prone to freezing etc.

Without going too overboard into it, the cartridge/magazine are one of the primary components which leads to the reliability of the AK itself. If you design from a cartridge...then the magazine...then the rifle you end up with a better end product. The 7.62x39 and the 5.45x39 are cartridges which are more tapered than 5.56. This slight increase in taper aids in extraction (picture a triangle/cone being pulled out of a slot, vs. a cylinder being pulled out of a slot, etc.) It's exceptionally minimal difference, but present. The taper of the bullet is also why you have the standard "banana" shaped magazine, so the non-tilt follower (standard in AK magazines) can smoothly guide the bullets into the chamber without disturbing how they sit.

The rock-n-lock magazine design also means that the rounds don't "straighten" out when entering the receiver like an AR does. They keep in line with the follower and their own tapered design when being fed. Couple that with a spring which is about twice the length of an AR magazine spring (one reason why even the 5.45 AK magazine looks long - the follower inside is maybe 1.5-1.75 inches tall and houses a massive spring), a super robust design (outside of cheap commercial copy-cat magazines), and a strong and solid magazine locking tab...you're ahead of the game when it comes to reliability. One advantage of the rock-n-lock is that you know 100% when a magazine is seated.

When you really study the design you'll begin to appreciate how incredibly well designed the rifle is.

In my own experience collecting weapons, increasingly I find that there's a lot more that went into just about every rifle design than I had conceived possible. With what I understand about the AK, AR, FAL, roller locking guns, etc now after owning and shooting them, I'm absolutely blown away by the ingenuity that went into these devices and their idiosyncrasies.

Backfire wrote:


One thing which AK has going for it is the magazine. AK magazines are sturdy and durable, and magazine release is idiot-proof. By contrast, 5.56mm STANAG magazine is flimsy and magazine release is finicky and prone to freezing etc.

AK mags are indestructible, but to be fair, newer STANAG mags like pmags are about as resilient as you could ask for. Took half a century to develop good polymer mags, but they got there. The aluminum mags were originally intended to be disposable, the problems resulted when everyone decided they wanted to reuse them

The disposable magazine idea has largely seemed to die out at this point.

The AK mags and locking system will survive insane amounts of abuse and environmental challenge, the STANAG pattern (particularly in the AR15 itself) lends to much faster and cleaner operation under stress, and you can see how each nation's priorities and methods shaped each weapon in the little things like that.

 MDSW wrote:
Having fired all three models (I own an AK74 using the slimmer 5.45x39mm round) I can agree with above posters on the range and accuracy of the M-16 version so far surpasses the AK variants there is no comparison. I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards. When shopping, I opted to buy the AK74 variant that uses the round closer to the M-16/NATO round. And I was happy I did, as the 74 version does have greater accuracy, simply due to the ballistics of the round, but only marginally.

The 47 was just so hugely massed produced for so many years in so many countries, it will be in use for a long time.

Correct me if im wrong but i recall most rounds fired during battle was mostly used for suppression rather than actual accurate shoot to kill. (something about bullets fired vs how many kill confirmed or whatever in ww2 iirc or perhaps more recent conflict) is actual accuracy considered valuable vs more men and less accurate guns covering a larger area. im not military and this be opinion.

 Desubot wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
Having fired all three models (I own an AK74 using the slimmer 5.45x39mm round) I can agree with above posters on the range and accuracy of the M-16 version so far surpasses the AK variants there is no comparison. I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards. When shopping, I opted to buy the AK74 variant that uses the round closer to the M-16/NATO round. And I was happy I did, as the 74 version does have greater accuracy, simply due to the ballistics of the round, but only marginally.

The 47 was just so hugely massed produced for so many years in so many countries, it will be in use for a long time.

Correct me if im wrong but i recall most rounds fired during battle was mostly used for suppression rather than actual accurate shoot to kill. (something about bullets fired vs how many kill confirmed or whatever in ww2 iirc or perhaps more recent conflict) is actual accuracy considered valuable vs more men and less accurate guns covering a larger area. im not military and this be opinion.

The first time these weapons clashed the general strategy was to fire more shots than your enemy. It is no mistake that the m-16 has a higher ROF than the AK-47 - while being lighter. Come on though - when you are designing a weapon you want it to be accurate even if it doesn't need to be. Because it gives your soldier confidence.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Desubot wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
Having fired all three models (I own an AK74 using the slimmer 5.45x39mm round) I can agree with above posters on the range and accuracy of the M-16 version so far surpasses the AK variants there is no comparison. I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards. When shopping, I opted to buy the AK74 variant that uses the round closer to the M-16/NATO round. And I was happy I did, as the 74 version does have greater accuracy, simply due to the ballistics of the round, but only marginally.

The 47 was just so hugely massed produced for so many years in so many countries, it will be in use for a long time.

Correct me if im wrong but i recall most rounds fired during battle was mostly used for suppression rather than actual accurate shoot to kill. (something about bullets fired vs how many kill confirmed or whatever in ww2 iirc or perhaps more recent conflict) is actual accuracy considered valuable vs more men and less accurate guns covering a larger area. im not military and this be opinion.

The first time these weapons clashed the general strategy was to fire more shots than your enemy. It is no mistake that the m-16 has a higher ROF than the AK-47 - while being lighter. Come on though - when you are designing a weapon you want it to be accurate even if it doesn't need to be. Because it gives your soldier confidence.

Fair enough though out side of the good old US of A with its massive oil money, the m16 and whatever advantages you can buy is fine but the people that use the AK-47 i figure has less of a military budget, less trained, or operate in areas where a more complicated system would function poorly.

i guess thats my though on it. logistically economically and manufacturing comes into mind. what fairly modern military uses the AK47 as its main rifle?

The AK was intended to be used by masses of conscripts. Sling enough lead downrange and you will eventually hit something, especially if there's 100 other people pointing their guns in the same direction. Accuracy through volume.

Regardless, it has perfectly manageable accuracy within the confines of modern combat (if the fighter actually tries to aim), as covered multiple times in this thread.

Because they get upgraded over time. The original m16s were trash, the current service rifles that the US use though (m16a4?) are pretty reliable and effective

Its the optics that have really increased the lethality. Our earlier poster is right. Guys running AKs in local matches do very well if they have optics like the M-4 clone dudes.

Any Service rifle that can't be used up too and including 300m with ironsights only is a waste of the Material it is made out off!

The AK-47 is obsolete, as a front line rifle for a super power. As an upgraded, cheap, reliably, and readily available weapon, it's perfect for militias and warlords.

Certain designs just click, and then they are made in such huge numbers that the unit cost gets cheap enough that using anything else requires a significant cost. If you are a local warlord, why spend twice as much, or more, on something that's not all that much better than the AK-47?

 Desubot wrote:

 MDSW wrote:
Having fired all three models (I own an AK74 using the slimmer 5.45x39mm round) I can agree with above posters on the range and accuracy of the M-16 version so far surpasses the AK variants there is no comparison. I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards. When shopping, I opted to buy the AK74 variant that uses the round closer to the M-16/NATO round. And I was happy I did, as the 74 version does have greater accuracy, simply due to the ballistics of the round, but only marginally.

The 47 was just so hugely massed produced for so many years in so many countries, it will be in use for a long time.

Correct me if im wrong but i recall most rounds fired during battle was mostly used for suppression rather than actual accurate shoot to kill. (something about bullets fired vs how many kill confirmed or whatever in ww2 iirc or perhaps more recent conflict) is actual accuracy considered valuable vs more men and less accurate guns covering a larger area. im not military and this be opinion.

Absolutely right and suppression/covering fire was the highest percentage and mostly on an enemy you do not even have clear sights on. However, since I have never fired in live combat nor at an actual person, all I can say is there is tremendous satisfaction and confidence you have in your weapon when you can hit a target consistently the size of a basketball at 300 yards with only iron sights. Can't do that with many, if any, AK configurations, even with a scope. They are just too loose of a weapon, but there are some really well made ones out there may may get close. The lack of accuracy then becomes the large projectile that tends to tumble and drop much earlier than other round types.

Now, I will 100% admit that if you're doing a competitive shooting, or something similar, I think the AR is the better platform. The market is tremendous to make an AR into a long-distance tack driver or a serious race gun (to the tune of buying $3500-4000 rifles for just that purpose!). If I got into competiton shooting I wouldn't choose to run my AK, or an AK for that matter.

I can run drills along with my AR-toting buddies all day at the range, but at the razor's edge of performance (i.e. race guns) the AK is not anywhere near as lego-build as the AR. A lot of superb stuff has come out for the AK in the past 10 years but it's still a service rifle at its core.

Carbon fibre handguards, glass-breaking speedy triggers, special recoil buffers, extended mag-wells, etc. The AK can't match any of that (really) in the curent US market. Running a mil-spec type rifle, I'd say you can easily compete. This is where the AR shines, particularly as a commercial endeavor. It's plug-and-play nature is massive. The AK can't touch that.

But, as a fighting gun? 100% good to go, if you start with the right gun (see earlier posts)

This is my go-to rifle. Started life as an SLR-105 Bulgarian rifle (Arsenal import). Factory new. Now it's been...11 years and 14,000 rounds (on this rifle at least, more on others). That unfortunately includes numerous spans of 2-3 years where I was unable to shoot due to location/geography issues. It has a handful of "must have" add-ons to make it a competent and reliable fighting gun.





Here it is alongside the back-up rifle (recently painted and...almost never used unfortunately)

Those have monster bolts on them.

Yep, Tromix charging-handle add-on. A must for manipulating the bolt faster/easier.

Cool.

I dont think anyone has mentioned the fact that you can do the old call of duty magazine flick and reload with the AK too. cant do that with a new assault rifle.

I'm still amused at the amount of "it's an obsolete piece of trash" being spouted in this thread. Curious what rifles you guys were shooting that couldn't hit 300 yards easy and repeatable. It's worth pointing out that Spetsnaz units and some FSB, etc. units have kept the 7.62x39 in service because it's a better round close-up than the 5.45x39 (better barrier penetration, and generally puts people down better). Their units are generally mixed.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
So the Ak47 is 70 years old. That’s about as much time separating Waterloo and Rorkes Drift. That’s muskets to the Martini Henry rifle. How come despite our technology moving so much faster than it did during the 19th century has the AK not been rendered obsolete by more modern equivalents? Not just a “better rifle” like the M4, but to the musket/rifle comparison where it might be cheap and available but it’s just borderline useless against modern weapons.

Because the current role of the infantry rifle is the same: Apply firepower to things generally within a few hundred meters, which the AK can do if you bother to give it someone who knows how to aim. If your doctrine happens to be "Throw bullets at them to keep them in place until support removes them from the face of the earth" then it can absolutely serve. You can mount all the nice shiny lasers and red dots and flashlights and suppressors to them if you want, the stamped variants are easy to manufacture once tooling is in place, and if you don't like how the 7.62 starts nosediving after 250m you can always issue rifles in 5.45 or 5.56 instead.

What more do you want from an infantry rifle? Fighting across a room it's fine. Fighting from one treeline to another it's fine. Putting a round through that guy in the window down the road there it's fine. It's not so great shooting at something a half mile away on the other side of that valley, but an off the rack John Q M4 isn't (and if we are honest, most rifle shots aren't) either...at this point the best rifle in the world is a radio to someone with a plane that flies around with a lot of boom.

Take Iraq/Afghanistan: If our guys were the ones with the AKs, and the opposition had M16/M4s, we'd have still slammed them. Rifles are a small part of the machine, and a mature technology.

 Elbows wrote:
I'm still amused at the amount of "it's an obsolete piece of trash" being spouted in this thread. Curious what rifles you guys were shooting that couldn't hit 300 yards easy and repeatable. It's worth pointing out that Spetsnaz units and some FSB, etc. units have kept the 7.62x39 in service because it's a better round close-up than the 5.45x39 (better barrier penetration, and generally puts people down better). Their units are generally mixed.

With this i've heard that there's a proposal to reintroduce .30 rounds to military service (and in the US. the M14 got an upgrade to M21... Is this one designed to be quick firing sniper rifle for a generic fireteam? (and does it has full auto or burst mode as well?))

The NATO 7.62mm round never really left service.

In most western armies it's used for medium machine-guns, and also for sniper rifles, partly for the longer range and heavier impact.

If you read Black Horse Down, it mentions how the some of the guys with 5.56mm rifles envied the few sniper guy with 7.62mm rifles which had a much better knock-down effect on enemy troops.

(Of course that was in the early 1990s.)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The NATO 7.62mm round never really left service.

In most western armies it's used for medium machine-guns, and also for sniper rifles, partly for the longer range and heavier impact.

If you read Black Horse Down, it mentions how the some of the guys with 5.56mm rifles envied the few sniper guy with 7.62mm rifles which had a much better knock-down effect on enemy troops.

(Of course that was in the early 1990s.)

Black Hawk Down.

7.62x51 NATO is a great round. My personal favorite rifle is the AR-10. I'm not a very good shot but if I stay calm and focus on the fundamentals, I can sometimes put rounds in the same hole with it at 100 yards and can usually cloverleaf.

You can hunt any game in North America with it. It definitely has way, way more knockdown power; I have one of those AR500 steel target gongs - it sways a little when I hit it with 5.56 but .308 sometimes knocks it over.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
What are the drawbacks of the AK that a modern rifle doesn't have? Is avoiding those drawbacks worth the difference in price?

None really aside from being slightly heavier. And nothing stop you from replacing the original wood stocks of an AK-47 with some polymer, which is pretty much exactly what the AK-15 is.

Modern small arms technology has really seen no meaningful advancement since WW2. A modern M4 is no more advanced than an AK-47, and in some crucial areas is actually a step backwards. Being lighter is of little use when the soldier keeps having to carry more and more gear on his back, and being accurate out to 800 meters is of zero use when 99.99% of all combat happens within 100 meters AND you've given up a lot of stopping power. Plus AKs are perfectly capable of hitting a man sized target at 800 meters, its just the difference between hitting an 8 inch group vs a 1 inch group. And the target is going to suffer more damage if he gets hit with a 123gr projectile vs a 70gr projectile, the latter of which is unlikely to penetrate ballistic vests at that long range.

This is why the US military is actually switching over to 6.5mm. 5.56 is simply too weak.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MDSW wrote:
I was able to easily score and receive 'Sharpshooter' on the M-!6 in the military at 300 yards. However, when I was at the range with a friend's AK47, I could barely keep a consistent pattern at 100 yards.

Thats most certainly a problem with you and not the rifle. You take anybody and put them on an unfamiliar weapon and they won't do as well as they do on one they are trained on. A zeroed AK should easily hit a 300 meters target 100% of the time.

The inaccuracy of the AK myth is only true at extreme ranges, and usually involves soldiers dealing with some captured AKs that were made in a shoddy factory and weren't made to proper standards, ranges which do not have any bearing on actual combat. And even at those ranges, it will still hit the target.

This guy goes overs this a bit with this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVe7siEHXtc


For the small decrease in long range accuracy(so not a real downside), you gain much more stopping power and a more reliable firearm. A firearm that can tolerate a little abuse, a little dirt, is less prone to breaking, etc... M-16 and M4 family weapons have a definitive shelf life on many of their parts, they will wear out in the foreseeable future. AK parts are so robust that if properly maintained they will function indefinitely, with the only part that might wear out is the barrel rifling.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
The AK-47 is obsolete, as a front line rifle for a super power.

Nope. Russia just came out with the AK-15. Which is literally just an AK-47(or AKM if we're being proper) with polymer furniture and integral rails. Which is functionally no different from the original rifles.

Frankly, the US military would be better off if we switched to an AK platform rifle. The weapons would be cheaper than an M4 pattern rifle with similar gear and optics(the current standard issue rifle for the US military is very close to $2k), enough that the savings could be put into giving all of our troops level IV body armor as standard issue and would still leave money left over. Not to mention any money saved due to easier maintenance, fewer rifles suffering environmental damage, and being able to scavenge spare parts and ammo from pretty much any opponent we were fighting.

Given the modern state of US industry, the developed market of the AR15, and the traditionally more steel-consuming AK production, I don't think it would be cheaper to make than an AR in the US in this day and age.

AK's involve more labor and raw materials in construction than an AR15, and need to be made in huge quantities in big centralized operations to be cost effective. The AR needs more advanced materials requirements and developed industry in order to produce, but we're living in an age of $399 AR15's. A forged AR15 receiver can be had for as little as $40. WASR's are going for about $800 now. IIRC Colt was only getting over $1k for each M4 from Uncle Sam when they had the sole-source contract for them, the estimated price the US Army is paying from FN currently is ~$650. Russia is expecting to accept ~50k AK12's and AK15's over the next three years (at an unannounced cost), meanwhile the US civilian market has consumed how many millions of AR's in the last decade?

Likewise, the aftermarket for theAR15 is mind-bogglingly expansive. The AK's aftermarket, while big, is not quite as developed in the same way, and the AR15's lego-piece-like modularity fuels that aftermarket in a way no other platform has matched.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Frankly, the US military would be better off if we switched to an AK platform rifle. The weapons would be cheaper than an M4 pattern rifle with similar gear and optics(the current standard issue rifle for the US military is very close to $2k), enough that the savings could be put into giving all of our troops level IV body armor as standard issue and would still leave money left over. Not to mention any money saved due to easier maintenance, fewer rifles suffering environmental damage, and being able to scavenge spare parts and ammo from pretty much any opponent we were fighting.

But they already have piles of those M4s and older versions, plus spare parts, training, ammo. It's the same situation as for why others keep the AK - a switch now would be too expensive for too little gain.

 Grey Templar wrote:
This is why the US military is actually switching over to 6.5mm. 5.56 is simply too weak.

Switching over to 6.5 or 6.8 or whatever means changing out the barrel and bolt, which are pretty trivial. That's a considerably different undertaking than switching platforms to an AK style.

 Ouze wrote:
7.62x51 NATO is a great round. My personal favorite rifle is the AR-10. I'm not a very good shot but if I stay calm and focus on the fundamentals, I can sometimes put rounds in the same hole with it at 100 yards and can usually cloverleaf.

You can hunt any game in North America with it. It definitely has way, way more knockdown power; I have one of those AR500 steel target gongs - it sways a little when I hit it with 5.56 but .308 sometimes knocks it over.

Yeah - .308 AR-10 is a beast. Also my favorite rifle. At least because I don't have an M-14. Is there really any debate - M-14 or AK?

 Ouze wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
This is why the US military is actually switching over to 6.5mm. 5.56 is simply too weak.

Switching over to 6.5 or 6.8 or whatever means changing out the barrel and bolt, which are pretty trivial. That's a considerably different undertaking than switching platforms to an AK style.

Perhaps initially, and that initial hurdle is probably too much for anybody to accept. It would be cheaper over the long run though.

It is a shame that we got stuck with an inferior combat platform.

I hadn't heard of the 6.5mm calibre. It sounds interesting, though I notice it's a modern version of a 0.276 inch round proposed in the 1920s.

This really supports the argument that small arms development has come as far as possible without a major improvement in technology. The USA will have gone around the circle twice from 7.62mm to 0.276in to 0.30-06in, to 7.62mm, to 5.56mm, to 0.276in.

IF the US wants to change is standard battle rifle they already have a ton of options.

FN, SIG, HK, and a lot of other arms manufactures are ready to cash in. The Scar is probably the leader in this race. It's a lot easier to buy new guns than rebuild old ones.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I hadn't heard of the 6.5mm calibre. It sounds interesting, though I notice it's a modern version of a 0.276 inch round proposed in the 1920s.

This really supports the argument that small arms development has come as far as possible without a major improvement in technology. The USA will have gone around the circle twice from 7.62mm to 0.276in to 0.30-06in, to 7.62mm, to 5.56mm, to 0.276in.

It has though. Yes the round is similar, but everything else has evolved.

This is a substantially more accurate and faster acquiring weapon.

has different materials, shorter barrel, adjustable furniture, modular rails allowing attachments of optics, lasers, lights, and your cell phone.
The sights available are red dot optic / magnified as standard, with the addition of night scopes on the same rail or even the same scope.

This is the original.

That red dot seems to be blocking the scopes field of view.

 Grey Templar wrote:
That red dot seems to be blocking the scopes field of view.

See the dot through the scope i believe. .

Needs more gribbles for maximum tacticool advantage.

 Xenomancers wrote:
IF the US wants to change is standard battle rifle they already have a ton of options.

FN, SIG, HK, and a lot of other arms manufactures are ready to cash in. The Scar is probably the leader in this race. It's a lot easier to buy new guns than rebuild old ones.

In the case of something like an AK, its true that its often easier to buy new than to rebuild, but not so an AR.

Replacing a barrel on an AK for instance needs a machinists shop and requires drilling out a pressed pin and then repressing a new barrel and pin into the trunnion and headspace checking. On an AR you just need a vice and a torque wrench, and thats about the most intensive thing you can do on an AR (aside from trying to pin and press a gas block).

Current prices on the SCAR are absolutely insane (3-5x what an equivalent AR/M4 goes for, and hang out at ~$3k on the commercial market while LE6920's are sub1k and the .mil pays about $650 for an M4 and Ruger AR carbines can be had for $400) while SOCOM dropped the 556 version after realizing it doesnt do anything an AR does not, and FN is already making gobs of M4's for the US military now that Colt lost its sole-source contract.

There's a lot of alternative options out there, but none that really have any killer feature that makes it worth moving away from the AR, in fact, even companies like Sig and HK are primarily pushing AR pattern or AR derviative designs these days, and there are AR's made for just about every conceivable cartridge. With the AR's aftermarket and modularity, its hard for other platforms to compete when you can slap parts on an AR to make it just about anything one wants.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
IF the US wants to change is standard battle rifle they already have a ton of options.

FN, SIG, HK, and a lot of other arms manufactures are ready to cash in. The Scar is probably the leader in this race. It's a lot easier to buy new guns than rebuild old ones.

In the case of something like an AK, its true that its often easier to buy new than to rebuild, but not so an AR.

Replacing a barrel on an AK for instance needs a machinists shop and requires drilling out a pressed pin and then repressing a new barrel and pin into the trunnion and headspace checking. On an AR you just need a vice and a torque wrench, and thats about the most intensive thing you can do on an AR (aside from trying to pin and press a gas block).

Current prices on the SCAR are absolutely insane (3-5x what an equivalent AR/M4 goes for, and hang out at ~$3k on the commercial market while LE6920's are sub1k and the .mil pays about $650 for an M4 and Ruger AR carbines can be had for $400) while SOCOM dropped the 556 version after realizing it doesnt do anything an AR does not, and FN is already making gobs of M4's for the US military now that Colt lost its sole-source contract.

There's a lot of alternative options out there, but none that really have any killer feature that makes it worth moving away from the AR, in fact, even companies like Sig and HK are primarily pushing AR pattern or AR derviative designs these days, and there are AR's made for just about every conceivable cartridge. With the AR's aftermarket and modularity, its hard for other platforms to compete when you can slap parts on an AR to make it just about anything one wants.

I agree that there really isn't much incentive to do it. The 5.56 is fine. Previous post from Grey Templar made it seem that 5.56 is so inferior it needs replacing. While true you could rig M4's with 6.5mm barrels and all other necessary riggings for somewhat less but I think a better solution would be to start with a new profile which had all the best features. Even if we bought 2 million new scars at 3k each (much more than we would bye and for a lot more than wed pay) That is only 6 billion dollars. That is nothing for the USA military budget over probably the 10 or more years it would be paid off and delivered. Then we'd have a proper stopping power round on the most advanced and accurate and rugged modern battle rifle platform IMO. Then again I don't think it will happen because the 5.56 is fine. It would be much more price effective to produce a better projectile for the weapon. I've seen some pretty amazing videos showing how destructive 5.56 can be with some special loads.

5.56 is fine, if you aren’t facing anyone with body armor. But body armor is becoming more prolific and 5.56 just doesn’t cut it.

Most rifle rounds won't combat modern body-armour (which, admittedly still doesn't cover too much of a soldier). Unlike tanks vs. anti-tank tech...body armour is more or less capable of stopping all major rifle rounds in common service.

However, heads, necks, thighs and other extremities are still plenty viable for taking a soldier out of the fight.

I didn't feel like reading the whole thread, but I will agree with some of the other people ITT and say that the AK-47 is simply a very well-designed weapon. I think it will only become truly obsolete if and when we start equipping soldiers with energy weapons or something like that. Energy weapons are still years away from being practical though, at least on the handheld scale.

M4/AR types have evolved. For example, the HK and SIG offerings use a gas piston rod instead of direct impingement like Mr. Stoner designed. That is one of the reasons many special missions forces use HKs.

I don't know as much about this topic as a lot of you but it'll probably last until another huge revolution in gun making comes along like the rifled barrels in the civil war, automatic, semi-auto weapons.

I think magnetic technology is pretty cool. If we can figure out how to do that well enough we may see a huge replacement with our weapons.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
I don't know as much about this topic as a lot of you but it'll probably last until another huge revolution in gun making comes along like the rifled barrels in the civil war, automatic, semi-auto weapons.

I think magnetic technology is pretty cool. If we can figure out how to do that well enough we may see a huge replacement with our weapons.

While super cool i cant see it happening until something close to the men of iron or literal amazon drone uprising happens.

While not perfect the simple rifle is still fairly well rounded in the case of logistics. you could go with those really cool million boollet per second caseless guns but you are also carrying basically multiple very heavy blocks of metal and gun powder which isnt good for a soldiers back. (but i think caseless guns might be a very cool tech to keep an eye on.) less moving parts is generally better for long term use of equipment imho.

The AK is in itself is simplicity.

 Vaktathi wrote:
With the AR's aftermarket and modularity, its hard for other platforms to compete when you can slap parts on an AR to make it just about anything one wants.

Except be as rugged as an AK.

Which I'll grant you is only one part of a weapon system's functionality.

Indeed, as others have pointed out, AK have been updated a lot of times, there are lots of patterns now. A bit like the M16 M4 etc... It's just they look alike, so we tend to mix them, especially the media (they are god awful at that, for so called reporters) and the general public.
Why do so many armies in the world change weapons so often then ? Idk for others countries, but the French Famas is about 40 years old now and the factory simply doesn't exist anymore, so no more Famas, no way to get new ones, thus the HK 416 (btw, what do you think about this rifle ?).
The AK I found was very difficult to aim, I wasn't comfortable with it while with a FAMAS I could hit my target at about 220 yards.

I think with any firearm discussion like this you also need to look at the weapon itself on a global scale. Look at a rifle from the perspective of a purchasing organization for a major government/military or a large law enforcement agency.

I think the AR is rightly the king of the civilian market, particularly in the US. It's just a wonderland of quality rifles, wonderful components, and a lot of these are being created/tested/proven by "BTDT" types whom you can trust most of the time.

But, if I was arming a military, I would see very little difference between the AR platform and the AK. Both factory produced, mass-issued service rifles. The basic infantryman might be equipped with one rugged combat optic per rifle. In this instance there's almost zero difference between this:



And this:



There would be zero noticeable difference in the performance of an army based on the differences of the rifle. They're still popping a little 55-62 grain projectile down range around 2900-3100 FPS, poking a similar sized hold. Special forces would handle both rifles equally well and produce similar results, etc.

You have to go down to a much more narrow focus to start arguing points for either one.

 Elbows wrote:


There would be zero noticeable difference in the performance of an army based on the differences of the rifle. They're still popping a little 55-62 grain projectile down range around 2900-3100 FPS, poking a similar sized hold. Special forces would handle both rifles equally well and produce similar results, etc.

umm... No.

The lightest AK rounds I have even heard of were 70 gr training rounds that had a plastic core. An actual combat round is usually around 123gr, while 5.56 is usually around 70gr.

You are mostly correct that the overall big picture between the two would be minor, but I know I personally would feel much safer if I knew I had a much heavier projectile and was less prone to malfunctions.

ummm...Yes?





Though I believe the standard military round was...52-55 grain? My memory is fuzzy. I'm comparing a modern AK-74/AK-105 and the equivalent M4/M4A1.

You guys have got to start making the distinction between 7.62x39 and 5.45x39.

Good point, I take for granted that someone can distinguish an AK-104 from an AK-105. Also that when discussing a modern service AK, we're talking the 5.45x39 rifle (though, as mentioned before, Spetsnaz and other special units maintain a stock of 7.62x39 guns by choice).

Given the Russians are going back to 7.62 assuming 5.45 is a mistake.

They're not changing the standard service rifle to 7.62x39, it'll be 5.45 for another couple of decades at least (they have a surplus of rifles and ammo).

 Elbows wrote:
They're not changing the standard service rifle to 7.62x39, it'll be 5.45 for another couple of decades at least (they have a surplus of rifles and ammo).

The AK-15 was recently announced. Evidence strongly indicates it will become Russia's next service rifle. Though as you say, it will take a while. One of the reasons given for the change was also quite explicitly because Russia has a massive stockpile of ammunition for it, and just like 5.56 the 5.45 cartridge is rather weedy.

Yeah, the AK-15 (if it ever happens, it's been canceled/changed/swapped/re-designed a dozen times in the past 4-5 years) is not the general service rifle. It'll only be intended for police and special forces use etc. The basic infantry rifle will remain 5.45 for a looong time.

The replacement to the current AK-100 series was originally going to be a completely new rifle...basically an ambi-AK with a bunch of modern tricks. Then it was downgraded to an upgrade-package to normal AK-74Ms, etc. Then it became a kind of mix of the two (a heavily modified/upgraded normal AK). They can't make up their mind. Like all of their recent military investments, they're back-pedaling after the income from oil/energy decreased compared to their boom 10 years back.

But yes, there will be a 7.62x39 rifle in existence (there is a modern one as well, just not a standard military issue, AK-103 is the normal length model, I think?). Of course the FSB/MVD/etc. all have their own budgets and procurements. Bog-standard Russia military soldier though still has an AK in 5.45 - many of them originals, some even still rocking wood furniture.

I would be very curious to know how many 7.62x39 guns are exported though to foreign countries. There are plenty of countries (outside of Russia) who still do run 7.62x39 guns.

 godardc wrote:
the HK 416 (btw, what do you think about this rifle ?)

From what I've seen - sadly, only from videos - they did a lot of work to make the basic AR more rugged and abuse-resistant. As good as the AK is supposed to be? Good question; I've not handled either to make the comparison.

 Vulcan wrote:

 godardc wrote:
the HK 416 (btw, what do you think about this rifle ?)

From what I've seen - sadly, only from videos - they did a lot of work to make the basic AR more rugged and abuse-resistant. As good as the AK is supposed to be? Good question; I've not handled either to make the comparison.

I have the civilian version of the 416. I love it. Recoil feels a bit different than a DI gun, not harder, just different. I don't abuse it, but don't baby it either. Never had a problem with it. I'll be taking it and my HK-91 out this Saturday.

 CptJake wrote:

 Vulcan wrote:

 godardc wrote:
the HK 416 (btw, what do you think about this rifle ?)

From what I've seen - sadly, only from videos - they did a lot of work to make the basic AR more rugged and abuse-resistant. As good as the AK is supposed to be? Good question; I've not handled either to make the comparison.

I have the civilian version of the 416. I love it. Recoil feels a bit different than a DI gun, not harder, just different. I don't abuse it, but don't baby it either. Never had a problem with it. I'll be taking it and my HK-91 out this Saturday.

How does it compare to other AR's for accuracy and ease of shooting?

I had a number of high-dollar piston ARs (mine were LWRC). Nice rifles. The piston idea is neat but I'm not entirely sure it's necessary unless you're doing a lot of suppressed shooting (where it really shines). Accuracy and ease of shooting were identical to an AR outside of a minor difference in recoil.

The recoil was a little stronger, and different feeling (it was a quicker cycle and you didn't get the "sproing" from a normal DI AR). The rifle was obviously a little heavier than a normal DI gun. Proper AR-15s right now are so incredibly good, that outside of a couple of unique circumstances, I don't think a piston gun should be priced at a premium (as they frequently are).

Different type of gun, definitely. Early piston ARs had a lot of teething problems (had my first ones back in '09). I'm sure they've made some headway by now.

 Vulcan wrote:

How does it compare to other AR's for accuracy and ease of shooting?

The rifle is more accurate than I am. As for ease of shooting, it is the same as any other AR really. Maintenance is a bit easier since piston guns don't get as dirty as DI. It is heavier, but you quickly adapt to the weight in my opinion. I have an Aimpoint PRO with a Vortex 3x flip out magnifier on mine, and Magpul MBUS Pro sights for back up. The recoil has more of a 'thunk' to it than my DI rifle, but again, it is just different to me, not really more.

That really goes for all guns though, assuming they were made by someone reasonably competent. A gun will always be more accurate than its user.

I think one thing missed from the conversation so far is it isn't just the AK-47 that's kept going this long. The M-16 was first developed in 1964, and it took until then not because of any tech developments between the end of WW2 and the 60s, but because that's how long it took the US military to resolve its internal debate about the best caliber for a select fire rifle. A debate that the Soviets ended up agreeing with when they adapted the AK47 to also fire a reduced round.

Plenty of other nations before and since then developed and deployed other assault rifles. Its sort of been claimed a few times in this thread that there's no point to developing new rifles but that isn't true - there's been plenty of efforts and at different time these have won contracts by various militaries, but the results have been rifles that aren't really any different in performance to already existing rifles. They might be a little better suited to the specific needs of that specific military, but on the whole they haven't raised their infantry to a level beyond others in a way that a new, transformative weapon would.

As plenty have noted the technologies used in rifles just haven't changed that much in a long time. The last time we saw massive changes in rifles was over WW2, and even then it wasn't because of new tech development but because of a changing understanding of the combat environment. At the start of the war it was assumed fighting would be largely static with infantry forces first engaging from 500m or more, and so modern armies wanted rifles that were very accurate at longer ranges. There were actually significant pre-war efforts to upgrade standard rifles, but these efforts focused on developing semi-auto rifles that still fired a large round (only the US got such a weapon in to general deployment). What changed weapon design was when modern warfare was observed, war was mobile and battle lines fluid, with many meeting engagements with first contact at 200m or less. And with more organic support weapons like machine guns and mortars, and more mobile heavier support weapons at ranges beyond 200 or 300m rifles were mostly used for supporting fire, while the bigger weapons did work at those longer ranges. Soldiers just didn't gain much from having a weapon that was more accurate than their enemy's at 500m. What was needed was a weapon that was good enough to suppress the enemy at those longer ranges, but capable of much greater firepower at closer ranges.

So weapons developed during the war that fired a reduced round with select fire, the Stg 44 and M3 Carbine (only the former was conceived as a general issue weapon, though). Shortly after the war the AK-47 was developed, and while its a common misconception that it was copied from the Stg 44 (mechanically they're quite different), it is important to note that there's really nothing going in the AK-47 that wouldn't have been achievable during or even before the war. It just wasn't done because weapon designers weren't aware of how warfare had changed.

There's also something of a misconception in the thread that nothing has changed since then. Warfare has changed again, the assumption that contact ranges tended to be under 300m, and outside of that heavier support would be called in stopped being true in Afghanistan. The nature of hunting insurgents or having convoys ambushed meant support wasn't always available, and the terrain meant contact was often at much longer ranges. The assumptions that led to modern assault rifles weren't quite as absolute, and this was especially true for the latest iteration of the M-16, the M4 carbine, which had traded range for reduced size and weight. But like everything in war, adaptation happened, and a range of rifles with greater power at longer ranges were deployed by all militaries serving in the NATO force. Mostly just adaptations of existing rifles, they were given to designated marksman so infantry units maintained the ability to engage at longer ranges. This isn't advancing technology, but just adapting weaponry to the changes of the battlefield.

Really, WW1 is the last time we saw people conceiving of rifles and not yet having the technology to fully realise the concept. In that war you saw nations realising that infantry units needed automatic rifles for walking fire and to generally boost the firepower of infantry on the offiensive. While the concept was well understood at the outbreak of the war, it was an extreme test of existing developers to produce a weapon capable of reliably performing in the role. A reliable version of the Chauchat wasn't available until very late in the war, which was also the same time the US was able to deploy the BAR. There was a similar story for sub-machine guns - the first weapons were conceived of years before the war, with the Austrians deploying one in 1912 or 1913. But it wasn't until 1918 that the Germans deployed the first machine pistol that didn't completely suck, and it was just after the war the Americans deployed the Thompson as an SMG that was good enough to actually hang around and be used for some time after.

Sorry for the ramble at the end there, the point I was trying to make was around WW1 you could actually look at the improvements in manufacturing and design and see how that will improve existing designs and make new design concepts feasible. But that isn't true now, and hasn't been true for more than 70 years. Now changes in design are more about adapting to changing battlefields, tweaking the trade offs between range, ROF and weapon weight to suit a specific environment.


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 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I just think it’s a dangerous thing to downplay the importance of technology in war and lose perspective on how dramatically things can change in a short space of time.

It isn't about downplaying technology, its about recognising that sometimes there isn't a newfangled doo-dad just around the corner. Sometimes there is a weapon that happens to be the best option for a role and that doesn't change for a long period of time. The was a period of around 200 years that the flintlock rifle was the dominant weapon of war, and over that period it changed and improved only a little. And when it was replaced it was by caplock rifles, made possible by chemical developments, that were more reliable but didn't really change the potency of the soldier all that much. Then you wait another few generations before you get metallurgy and machining improvements to make breech loading viable, and you get the next real change.

At this point we don't even know what the next real change will be, but of all the stuff that's been tried (bull pup, electrically fired ammunition etc) it either doesn't add anything or brings enough drawbacks to be unable to replace existing weapons.

BTW, the FDF just launched their new upgrade program for our venerable RK 62. Optics, improved ergonomics and so on. So the old 7.62x39 soldiers on, and as far as service rifles go it's one of the most accurate ones still.

Is the RK62 the old Valmet or whatever? How has it been?

 Elbows wrote:
Is the RK62 the old Valmet or whatever? How has it been?

Aye, RK62 is the old Valmet/Sako assault rifle. There's a newer model, the RK95, which can take optics and also launch rifle grenades, but apparently it's too expensive to just replace all existing stock with that. One assumes front-line units will get the new ones and second-line units the modernized Valmets.

As for how they've been that depends on how worn-out they are. The base rifle is surprisingly accurate (the Israelis copied the sights, among other things, for their Galil) and still quite tough. Bored conscripts camping in the forest sometimes hit it into a tree, aiming to have the charging handle sink in. You win if it sticks and hangs there. And yet they usually never manage to cause any damage to the rifle. The thing is pretty much what Brits call "squaddie proof" - grunts can't break it even if they are being stupid. I was never a very good shot but the RKs I used during my service certainly shot straight when zeroed in for me. All shots would at least be somewhere on the target at both 150 and 300 meters (we don't usually train to shoot at longer ranges).

RK62 is very accurate (about on par with FAL, doesn't really lose much to .223 rifles). However the sights are not really that practical, very tight aperture diopter. So red dot is a big advance.