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If this article was interesting to you, I strongly recommend "The Gun", by C.J. Chivers. It's a history of the "AK family of rifles", and the AK-47 in particul
by Ancapistani 4y ago
If this article was interesting to you, I strongly recommend "The Gun", by C.J. Chivers.
It's a history of the "AK family of rifles", and the AK-47 in particular. It starts well before that, with the impact of automatic weapons on warfare in general, but quickly comes back to the development of the AK. It covers a lot of interesting details around the social, political, and technical environment that led to the creation of the AK and its development since.
From a US-centric political perspective, the author seems pretty obviously "anti-gun". That said, it's one of those rare books where the author's political perspective is pretty much irrelevant. It's extremely well-researched and well-written. It's honestly an enjoyable read if you're at all interested in history, politics, warfare, or industrial design.
- giantrobot 4y agoSeconded for the same reasons you state.
- wrp 4y agoMany years ago, I read a breakdown of the systems thinking behind the development of the AK-47. It showed how the design features of the gun related to the goal of optimizing number of enemy killed for expenditure of all forms of resources. Does this book cover that in detail or point to studies that do?
- djsavvy 4y agoWhere could I find this breakdown you mention?
- wrp 4y agoIt was so long ago, I don't even remember whether it was in a book or article. That's why I asked, hoping to find it again. I just remember being impressed with the complex considerations behind what initially appeared to be simplistic design choices.
- ahazred8ta 4y agoIn 2010 there were a lot of articles about "The gun: the AK-47 and the evolution of war" by Christopher John Chivers which described its design process and what the supply chain resource tradeoffs were. That's likely to be it.
- gerikson 4y agoI read "The Gun" a while ago and I got the feeling Chivers was pro-2A. https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/The-Gun.html https://gerikson.com/blog/books/read/The-Gun.html