AK47 assault rifle inventor Kalashnikov dies at 94

The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian officials say.

The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world’s most familiar and widely used weapons.

Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.

Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower.

The  AK47 and later the AKM were the weapon of choice for many.  When the M16 was first introduced during the Vietnam war it proved to be so unreliable and hard to maintain US soldiers tried to get their hands on AK47s.  The AK47’s secret was indeed it’s simplicity.  It was easy to manufacture, easy to maintain and it nearly always worked.  Many of today’s AKs are manufactured in the primitive tribal areas of Pakistan.