AK-47
From Turtledove
The AK-47 (Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947) is a gas-operated assault rifle designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, and produced by Russian manufacturer Izhevsk Mechanical Works and used in many Eastern bloc nations during the Cold War. It was adopted and standardized in 1947. Compared with the auto-loading rifles used in World War II, the AK-47 was generally more compact, with a shorter range, a smaller 7.62 × 39 mm cartridge, and was capable of selective fire. It was one of the first true assault rifles and remains the most widely used and known. The AK-47 and its numerous variants and descendants have been produced in greater numbers than any other assault rifle and are in production to this day.
[edit] AK-47 in The Guns of the South
Time-traveling Afrikanerweerstandsbeweging members supplied Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Joseph Johnston's Army of Tennessee with large numbers of AK-47s. The rifles allowed the South to overcome the North's superior human and industrial resources and take Washington, D.C., ensuring a Confederate victory in the Second American Revolution.
General Lee was suspicious of AWB from the beginning. He wrote Colonel Josiah Gorgas, head of the Richmond arsenal, asking him to investigate the possibility of manufacturing AK-47s. He also wrote Colonel George W. Rains, head of the gunpowder mill in Augusta, Georgia requesting him to analyze the cartridges used by the AK-47.
In the spring of 1865, Lee met with Rains in Georgia. Although Rains managed to determine that two major components of the smokeless powder were nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin, he had been unable to duplicate the mix. However, his subordinate Captain Robert Finney, superintendent of the Augusta arsenal, had managed to refill spent cartridges with black powder and lead bullets. These worked satisfactorily with supplied AK-47s but with much fouling of the barrels and inner workings.
In June 1866, Lee meet with Gorgas in Richmond who presented Lee with two Confederate made AK-47s. These were hand made rather than mass produced but worked about as well as Rivington supplied guns. Also, they worked with Augusta supplied black powder cartridges. Gorgas hoped to set up mass production in about a year.
In 1867, the vanquished United States reverse-engineered the AK-47s for mass-production. They used them in a subsequent war with Britain and an invasion of Canada.
