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A factor that the article doesn't emphasize enough is the extent to which schedule pressure contributed to the bugginess of the released rifle. The Kalashnikov

A factor that the article doesn't emphasize enough is the extent to which schedule pressure contributed to the bugginess of the released rifle. The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue. (When this article refers to "AK-47s", most of the actual weapons involved were actually AKMs.) The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles. So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs, but the rifle was so desperately needed that it was rushed to the front. A book I've recommended in another thread, which gives a great introduction to the history and impact of the Kalashnikov in particular and assault rifles in general, is C.J. Chivers's "The Gun" (https://www.amazon.com/Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734 https://www.amazon.com/Gun-C-J-Chivers/dp/0743271734), or this shorter-form article he wrote in response to recent msas shootings (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/ak-47-mass-shootings.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/world/ak-47-mass-sh...)

dingaling 8y ago
> The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947 1944 actually, there were examples in trials by 1946. 1947 was the year of adoption of a developed version but it was only ever called AK in Soviet documents. Something else the article gets wrong is use of a hyphen in M14, M16 etc. A minor point but immediately shows a lack of familiarity or research with the subject. It's like reading a 2019 article that talks about the i-Phone.
- int_19h 8y ago
  1946 was the first design that was submitted to the trials. And it was almost completely redesigned after it failed in those trials. For one example, the AK-46 prototype was short-stroke piston. Take a look: http://fb.ru/misc/i/gallery/12424/2098509.jpg http://fb.ru/misc/i/gallery/12424/2098509.jpg
- msla 8y ago
  > Something else the article gets wrong is use of a hyphen in M14, M16 etc. A minor point but immediately shows a lack of familiarity or research with the subject. It's like reading a 2019 article that talks about the i-Phone. I'm not sure how much to read into that. There are programmers who talk about JAVA and "C" and nobody seems to call them on their typographical oddities. In fact, most people seem unwilling to even see them fnord fnord fnord.
  - jdpedrie 8y ago
    The hyphenation is probably the result of an editor determined to adhere precisely to The Atlantic's style guide.
tyingq 8y ago
"The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles." They would have had M14's in the beginning of the war, with 7.62MM rounds and 20 round magazines. The M16 was lighter, since the M14 had a wooden stock, but the 5.56MM rounds were smaller, and the initial models also had 20 round magazines. So, I'm struggling with how the M16 would have been even a paper improvement over being "outgunned". I suspect it was more about being lighter and carrying around more rounds of the smaller lighter ammo.
- badlucklottery 8y ago
  >I suspect it was more about being lighter and carrying around more rounds of the smaller lighter ammo. And viable automatic fire. Yeah, technically you can have a full auto M14 but 5.56mm and 7.62x29mm are really in another league compared to 7.62x51mm when it comes to controllability.
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    Having shot a full auto M1A/M14... yea, there is a good reason the M16 came about instead.
- solidsnack9000 8y ago
  At short distances, the relative power of the M14 was no advantage and carried with it the disadvantage of heavy recoil. The natural extension of this is submachine guns which have even less powerful bullets, effective at even shorter ranges.
- azernik 8y ago
  The smaller bullet is the point. A 7.62mm bullet is overkill if you're aiming at a person less than half a kilometer away. The essence of the assault rifle concept is to throw away that excess individual bullet power in order to gain volume of fire. The magazine size alone is not a good indicator of practical rate of fire; that has more to do with recoil, which the M16 reduces by using a smaller bullet. For an understanding of the assault rifle concept, I recommend reading the history of the first assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#History): ==================================================== In the late 19th century, small-arms cartridges had become able to fire accurately at long distances. Jacketed bullets propelled by smokeless powder were lethal out to 2,000 metres (2,200 yd). This was beyond the range a shooter could engage a target with open sights, as at that range a man-sized target would be completely blocked by the front sight blade. Only units of riflemen firing by volley could hit grouped targets at those ranges. That fighting style was taken over by the widespread introduction of machine guns, which made use of these powerful cartridges to suppress the enemy at long range. Rifles remained the primary infantry weapon, but in some forces were seen as a secondary or support weapon, backing up the machine guns. This left a large gap in performance; the rifle was not effective at the ranges it could theoretically reach while being much larger and more powerful than needed for close combat. <snip> In the spring of 1918, Hauptmann (Captain) Piderit, part of the Gewehrprüfungskommission (Small Arms Proofing Committee) of the German General Staff in Berlin, submitted a paper arguing for the introduction of an intermediate round in the German Army with a suitable firearm. He pointed out that firefights rarely took place beyond 800 metres (870 yd), about half the 2 km (1.2 mi) sight line range of the 7.92×57mm round from a Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle or less for MG 08 machine gun. A smaller, shorter, and less powerful round would save materials, allow soldiers to carry more ammunition, and increase firepower. Less recoil would allow semi-automatic or even fully automatic select-fire rifles, although in his paper he called it a Maschinenpistole (submachine gun).
ransom1538 8y ago
"The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue." Lost history fact. The "AK-47" saw combat in world war 2 as the German "StG_44" [1]. The StG_44 was a large round, automatic, large capacity, no belt, replaceable clip, death machine. Once the Russians captured a StG_44 they quickly modified it, and designed the AK-47, which was an even better version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44
- ethelward 8y ago
  That's just plain wrong. If the AK shares anything with another weapon, it's actually the M1 Garand and its bolt. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/22/no-germans-didnt-design-ak-47-kalashnikov-conspiracy-theories-refute-part-1/ https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/22/no-germans-di...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ransom1538 8y ago
    Haha. The StG-44 looks very similar to the AK47. What a coincidence!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47 Did you read the article you posted? My favorite line from the article you posted: "This isn’t to say that the sturmgewehr StG-44 didn’t make an impression on the Soviets: It’s difficult to imagine an enemy small arm that had as much impact on Soviet small arms design as the StG-44, but put into context the weapon represents more the proving out of a pre-existing idea than the introduction of something completely new." Hilarious.
    - simonh 8y ago
      They look similar, but the operating principle is significantly different. The STG-44 did have a huge impact on the Soviets, they learned a lot from it but operationally but not technically. Mikhail Kalashnikov took the concept, but the AK is not a modification of the STG-44 mechanically. That's a common misconception.
mannykannot 8y ago
If the article is correct, the schedule pressure was entirely manufactured: In the AR-15, the US had a reliable, production-ready assault rifle, that those in the infantry who had tested it were enthusiastic about, but the ordnance board delayed and eventually stopped its adoption with dogma-driven design changes that led to the M-16 also being unreliable as well as late.
- easyfrag 8y ago
  "Deadlines are always arbitrary. Deadlines are a tool used by managers to control costs. That is their only purpose. Often, managers try to justify deadlines by citing other dependent deadlines, but those deadlines are always just as arbitrary." - Alan Cooper
  - watwut 8y ago
    That is actually true. And very very applicable to software development.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    Chris Voss' book "Never Split the Difference" goes into this. He posits that bad deals come from people being strict about artificial deadlines... and it's better to have no deal than a rushed deal. Try it next time someone tells you there's a hard deadline... just tell them you'll deliver when it's done.
    - EForEndeavour 8y ago
      > just tell them you'll deliver when it's done Not trying to be facetious here: I'd love to have this level of freedom from deadlines, but the grim reality is that it'll remain fantasy for most people at most stages in their careers. Me: "I'll deliver when it's done." High school teacher: "Suit yourself. You'll lose 10% of your final grade for every day it's late." Government: "We've assessed a late fine because you missed our entirely arbitrarily set tax filing deadline." Grad school supervisor: "You submitted the final copy of your dissertation four days after the administrative deadline, so you're stuck paying another semester's tuition." Boss: "You're fired."
stcredzero 8y ago
So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs Large organization needs to roll out a new model on an accelerated timescale. Cost cutting and time saving decisions are made, which have disastrous synergistic effects in the field. Sounds very familiar. EDIT: In order to understand the design genius of the AR-15/M-16 rifle, hold 50 rounds of 9mm pistol ammunition in your hand, then 50 rounds of 5.56 ammo. It varies by the particular kinds of ammunition, but on average, they weigh around the same. Yet the rifle is many times more powerful. How is this so? 1) More propellant weighs a lot less than more lead. 2) Energy goes up by the square of velocity.
- azernik 8y ago
  Everything you said, but also 3) a longer barrel means you get more of the energy of the propellant into the bullet instead of into the surrounding air.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    3) is in the service of 2) more velocity. Lately, I've been thinking, why have a pistol as a backup sidearm at all? Why not something like a Kel-Tec Sub2000, just slightly smaller, perhaps with a 10" barrel, but also shoulder-able?
    - azernik 8y ago
      Usually at that weight range militaries prefer to issue submachine guns or Personal Defence Weapons.
      - stcredzero 8y ago
        I said something like a Sub2000, not exactly a Sub2000. I bet a 10" short barrel rifle of the same general layout could be made to weigh well under 3 pounds.
philwelch 8y ago
This is an oversimplification. The AK-47 and AKM both fired a full-size 7.62mm rifle cartridge. The US battle rifle going into Vietnam was the M-14, a full-auto iteration on the venerable M1 Garand rifle that also fired a full-size 7.62mm rifle cartridge. The key innovation was to instead use an intermediate-sized 5.56mm cartridge, which the Soviets didn't do until the AK-74 in 1974, a full decade after the M16 went into service. The US had been circling around the "assault rifle" concept for some time prior to encountering the Kalashnikov in the field. In 1945, just as WWII ended, the M2 Carbine went into service. Like modern assault rifles, the M2 Carbine had select-fire capability and fired an intermediate-size cartridge. In this case, it fired the .30 Carbine cartridge popularized by its predecessor the M1 Carbine. (In this respect it was similar to the German StG 44, which was chambered in a "short" 7.92 mm cartridge instead of the 7.92 Mauser cartridge used by the Karabiner 98k.) In Korea, the .30 Carbine cartridge noticeably underperformed, which motivated a migration back to full-size rifle cartridges--in this case, the 7.62 NATO, a more compact ballistic near-equivalent to the .30-06. (The Chinese and Koreans, like most countries in WWII, tended to stick to either submachine guns or bolt-action rifles which were still outgunned by the Garand.) Select-fire capability was reintroduced with the M-14 in 1959, which was also intended to replace the venerable WWI-era Browning Automatic Rifle. Curiously, a predecessor of the M16 was the AR-10, which also fired the 7.62 NATO cartridge and competed in the 1956 trials where the M-14 design was ultimately selected. Despite the high performance and accuracy of the AR-10, the design was not yet reliable and mature, leading the military to make the conservative choice of adopting the M-14 instead. When the military decided to transition to an intermediate-size cartridge later on, the AR-10 was adapted into the AR-15, which is the basis design today for the M16 rifle, M4 carbine, and (with significant modifications!) the M27 IAR.
- azernik 8y ago
  The pre-74 AKs fired a full-caliber, but half-length, intermediate cartridge, the 7.62x39mm. This was easier to manufacture on existing pistol round tooling than a SCHV round. The 7.62mm NATO cartridge you're thinking of is 7.62x51mm, and fires a 25% heavier bullet at 18% higher velocity, for 66% more total kinetic energy than the early AK round. And the Soviet full-power round that the 7.62x39 replaced, the 7.62x54mmR, is even larger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×39mm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×39mm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×51mm_NATO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×51mm_NATO

dingaling 8y ago

> The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947 1944 actually, there were examples in trials by 1946. 1947 was the year of adoption of a developed version but it was only ever called AK in Soviet documents. Something else the article gets wrong is use of a hyphen in M14, M16 etc. A minor point but immediately shows a lack of familiarity or research with the subject. It's like reading a 2019 article that talks about the i-Phone.

int_19h 8y ago
1946 was the first design that was submitted to the trials. And it was almost completely redesigned after it failed in those trials. For one example, the AK-46 prototype was short-stroke piston. Take a look: http://fb.ru/misc/i/gallery/12424/2098509.jpg http://fb.ru/misc/i/gallery/12424/2098509.jpg
msla 8y ago
> Something else the article gets wrong is use of a hyphen in M14, M16 etc. A minor point but immediately shows a lack of familiarity or research with the subject. It's like reading a 2019 article that talks about the i-Phone. I'm not sure how much to read into that. There are programmers who talk about JAVA and "C" and nobody seems to call them on their typographical oddities. In fact, most people seem unwilling to even see them fnord fnord fnord.
- jdpedrie 8y ago
  The hyphenation is probably the result of an editor determined to adhere precisely to The Atlantic's style guide.

tyingq 8y ago

"The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles." They would have had M14's in the beginning of the war, with 7.62MM rounds and 20 round magazines. The M16 was lighter, since the M14 had a wooden stock, but the 5.56MM rounds were smaller, and the initial models also had 20 round magazines. So, I'm struggling with how the M16 would have been even a paper improvement over being "outgunned". I suspect it was more about being lighter and carrying around more rounds of the smaller lighter ammo.

badlucklottery 8y ago
>I suspect it was more about being lighter and carrying around more rounds of the smaller lighter ammo. And viable automatic fire. Yeah, technically you can have a full auto M14 but 5.56mm and 7.62x29mm are really in another league compared to 7.62x51mm when it comes to controllability.
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  Having shot a full auto M1A/M14... yea, there is a good reason the M16 came about instead.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
At short distances, the relative power of the M14 was no advantage and carried with it the disadvantage of heavy recoil. The natural extension of this is submachine guns which have even less powerful bullets, effective at even shorter ranges.
azernik 8y ago
The smaller bullet is the point. A 7.62mm bullet is overkill if you're aiming at a person less than half a kilometer away. The essence of the assault rifle concept is to throw away that excess individual bullet power in order to gain volume of fire. The magazine size alone is not a good indicator of practical rate of fire; that has more to do with recoil, which the M16 reduces by using a smaller bullet. For an understanding of the assault rifle concept, I recommend reading the history of the first assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr 44 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44#History): ==================================================== In the late 19th century, small-arms cartridges had become able to fire accurately at long distances. Jacketed bullets propelled by smokeless powder were lethal out to 2,000 metres (2,200 yd). This was beyond the range a shooter could engage a target with open sights, as at that range a man-sized target would be completely blocked by the front sight blade. Only units of riflemen firing by volley could hit grouped targets at those ranges. That fighting style was taken over by the widespread introduction of machine guns, which made use of these powerful cartridges to suppress the enemy at long range. Rifles remained the primary infantry weapon, but in some forces were seen as a secondary or support weapon, backing up the machine guns. This left a large gap in performance; the rifle was not effective at the ranges it could theoretically reach while being much larger and more powerful than needed for close combat. <snip> In the spring of 1918, Hauptmann (Captain) Piderit, part of the Gewehrprüfungskommission (Small Arms Proofing Committee) of the German General Staff in Berlin, submitted a paper arguing for the introduction of an intermediate round in the German Army with a suitable firearm. He pointed out that firefights rarely took place beyond 800 metres (870 yd), about half the 2 km (1.2 mi) sight line range of the 7.92×57mm round from a Mauser Gewehr 98 rifle or less for MG 08 machine gun. A smaller, shorter, and less powerful round would save materials, allow soldiers to carry more ammunition, and increase firepower. Less recoil would allow semi-automatic or even fully automatic select-fire rifles, although in his paper he called it a Maschinenpistole (submachine gun).

ransom1538 8y ago

"The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue." Lost history fact. The "AK-47" saw combat in world war 2 as the German "StG_44" [1]. The StG_44 was a large round, automatic, large capacity, no belt, replaceable clip, death machine. Once the Russians captured a StG_44 they quickly modified it, and designed the AK-47, which was an even better version. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44

ethelward 8y ago
That's just plain wrong. If the AK shares anything with another weapon, it's actually the M1 Garand and its bolt. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/22/no-germans-didnt-design-ak-47-kalashnikov-conspiracy-theories-refute-part-1/ https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/22/no-germans-di...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ransom1538 8y ago
  Haha. The StG-44 looks very similar to the AK47. What a coincidence!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StG_44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47 Did you read the article you posted? My favorite line from the article you posted: "This isn’t to say that the sturmgewehr StG-44 didn’t make an impression on the Soviets: It’s difficult to imagine an enemy small arm that had as much impact on Soviet small arms design as the StG-44, but put into context the weapon represents more the proving out of a pre-existing idea than the introduction of something completely new." Hilarious.
  - simonh 8y ago
    They look similar, but the operating principle is significantly different. The STG-44 did have a huge impact on the Soviets, they learned a lot from it but operationally but not technically. Mikhail Kalashnikov took the concept, but the AK is not a modification of the STG-44 mechanically. That's a common misconception.

mannykannot 8y ago

If the article is correct, the schedule pressure was entirely manufactured: In the AR-15, the US had a reliable, production-ready assault rifle, that those in the infantry who had tested it were enthusiastic about, but the ordnance board delayed and eventually stopped its adoption with dogma-driven design changes that led to the M-16 also being unreliable as well as late.

easyfrag 8y ago
"Deadlines are always arbitrary. Deadlines are a tool used by managers to control costs. That is their only purpose. Often, managers try to justify deadlines by citing other dependent deadlines, but those deadlines are always just as arbitrary." - Alan Cooper
- watwut 8y ago
  That is actually true. And very very applicable to software development.
- WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
  Chris Voss' book "Never Split the Difference" goes into this. He posits that bad deals come from people being strict about artificial deadlines... and it's better to have no deal than a rushed deal. Try it next time someone tells you there's a hard deadline... just tell them you'll deliver when it's done.
  - EForEndeavour 8y ago
    > just tell them you'll deliver when it's done Not trying to be facetious here: I'd love to have this level of freedom from deadlines, but the grim reality is that it'll remain fantasy for most people at most stages in their careers. Me: "I'll deliver when it's done." High school teacher: "Suit yourself. You'll lose 10% of your final grade for every day it's late." Government: "We've assessed a late fine because you missed our entirely arbitrarily set tax filing deadline." Grad school supervisor: "You submitted the final copy of your dissertation four days after the administrative deadline, so you're stuck paying another semester's tuition." Boss: "You're fired."

stcredzero 8y ago

So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs Large organization needs to roll out a new model on an accelerated timescale. Cost cutting and time saving decisions are made, which have disastrous synergistic effects in the field. Sounds very familiar. EDIT: In order to understand the design genius of the AR-15/M-16 rifle, hold 50 rounds of 9mm pistol ammunition in your hand, then 50 rounds of 5.56 ammo. It varies by the particular kinds of ammunition, but on average, they weigh around the same. Yet the rifle is many times more powerful. How is this so? 1) More propellant weighs a lot less than more lead. 2) Energy goes up by the square of velocity.

azernik 8y ago
Everything you said, but also 3) a longer barrel means you get more of the energy of the propellant into the bullet instead of into the surrounding air.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  3) is in the service of 2) more velocity. Lately, I've been thinking, why have a pistol as a backup sidearm at all? Why not something like a Kel-Tec Sub2000, just slightly smaller, perhaps with a 10" barrel, but also shoulder-able?
  - azernik 8y ago
    Usually at that weight range militaries prefer to issue submachine guns or Personal Defence Weapons.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      I said something like a Sub2000, not exactly a Sub2000. I bet a 10" short barrel rifle of the same general layout could be made to weigh well under 3 pounds.

philwelch 8y ago

This is an oversimplification. The AK-47 and AKM both fired a full-size 7.62mm rifle cartridge. The US battle rifle going into Vietnam was the M-14, a full-auto iteration on the venerable M1 Garand rifle that also fired a full-size 7.62mm rifle cartridge. The key innovation was to instead use an intermediate-sized 5.56mm cartridge, which the Soviets didn't do until the AK-74 in 1974, a full decade after the M16 went into service. The US had been circling around the "assault rifle" concept for some time prior to encountering the Kalashnikov in the field. In 1945, just as WWII ended, the M2 Carbine went into service. Like modern assault rifles, the M2 Carbine had select-fire capability and fired an intermediate-size cartridge. In this case, it fired the .30 Carbine cartridge popularized by its predecessor the M1 Carbine. (In this respect it was similar to the German StG 44, which was chambered in a "short" 7.92 mm cartridge instead of the 7.92 Mauser cartridge used by the Karabiner 98k.) In Korea, the .30 Carbine cartridge noticeably underperformed, which motivated a migration back to full-size rifle cartridges--in this case, the 7.62 NATO, a more compact ballistic near-equivalent to the .30-06. (The Chinese and Koreans, like most countries in WWII, tended to stick to either submachine guns or bolt-action rifles which were still outgunned by the Garand.) Select-fire capability was reintroduced with the M-14 in 1959, which was also intended to replace the venerable WWI-era Browning Automatic Rifle. Curiously, a predecessor of the M16 was the AR-10, which also fired the 7.62 NATO cartridge and competed in the 1956 trials where the M-14 design was ultimately selected. Despite the high performance and accuracy of the AR-10, the design was not yet reliable and mature, leading the military to make the conservative choice of adopting the M-14 instead. When the military decided to transition to an intermediate-size cartridge later on, the AR-10 was adapted into the AR-15, which is the basis design today for the M16 rifle, M4 carbine, and (with significant modifications!) the M27 IAR.

azernik 8y ago
The pre-74 AKs fired a full-caliber, but half-length, intermediate cartridge, the 7.62x39mm. This was easier to manufacture on existing pistol round tooling than a SCHV round. The 7.62mm NATO cartridge you're thinking of is 7.62x51mm, and fires a 25% heavier bullet at 18% higher velocity, for 66% more total kinetic energy than the early AK round. And the Soviet full-power round that the 7.62x39 replaced, the 7.62x54mmR, is even larger. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×39mm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×39mm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×51mm_NATO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×51mm_NATO