who created the ak47

The AK-47 was created by Soviet/Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov in the late 1940s.

Who created the AK-47?

• The AK-47 (short for Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947) was developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, a Red Army tank sergeant turned weapons designer.

• Design work began during and just after World War II, and the rifle was officially adopted by the Soviet Army in 1949.

When and why it was developed

• Kalashnikov started designing small arms after being wounded in 1941; he wanted a more reliable automatic weapon for Soviet soldiers after seeing German firearms on the Eastern Front.

• The AK-47 was built to be simple, durable, and easy to use in harsh conditions, which helped it spread worldwide and become one of the most widely used rifles in history.

A note on “who” created it

• Officially, credit goes to Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose name the rifle bears and who was celebrated in the USSR as its inventor.

• Historians also point out that he worked within a Soviet design team and that the rifle drew on earlier ideas (including German and American designs), but Kalashnikov remains recognized as the primary designer.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.