Mikhail Kalashnikov: Difference between revisions

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[[Image:Mikhail Kalashnikov.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Mikhail Kalashnikov, circa 2000]]

'''Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov''' (Михаи́л Тимофе́евич Кала́шников, born [[November 10]], [[1919]]) is a famous [[Russia|Russian]] gun designer. Born in a poor peasant family he started his [[engineering]] career working at a train depot, where Kalashnikov was able to learn much about [[mechanics]]. In 1941 he was drafted into the [[Red Army]] and served as a tank commander during the first months of the [[Great Patriotic War]]. In October 1941 Kalashnikov was heavily wounded in combat and sent home from the frontlines. He started to create his first gun designs in a hospital and soon joined a depot's workshop of the [[Moscow Aviation Institute]]. While working there Kalashnikov produced a number of innovations for [[tanks]], including a mechanism that would count the number of shots fired. Within several years, he was promoted to the position of chief engineer and given far more resources to work with. In [[1947]], he designed the [[AK-47]] (an [[acronym]] for "Avtomat Kalashnikov model 1947"). In [[1949]] the [[AK-47]] [[assault rifle]] became operational in the [[Red Army]]; after this the design would become Kalashnikov's most famous invention. Hello.

Kalashnikov who started as a self-taught-inventor ascended to the prominent position of General Designer of small arms for the [[Soviet Army]]. In his design engineering department, [[Hugo Schmeisser]] and [[Dr. Gruner]] ([[MG 42]]), a pioneer in the area of the sheet metal embossing technology, worked into the [[1950s]]. In addition, a number of German laborers were enlisted or coerced to work in the USSR under the technical designer.