Comments on Re: Some Meditations by Charles Mudede
For anyone else who didn't know what a Molotov Cocktail was
The AK-47's like the McDonald's of global insurgency. You should check Kalashnikov's definitive history:
The Gun That Changed the World
Larry Kahaner's book, AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War, is worth reading as well.
fuck guns. and fuck gun enthusiasts.
Josh,
As said Gun Nut, your comment is very poignant. The AK really did allow a leveling of the battle field akin to the way the of the Molotov cocktail. That aside, those photos Charles posted are H-O-T.
Not a bad comparison, but the analogy is also sort of flawed because you can't exactly build an AK-47 yourself.
Now if the good ol' US of A had handed out M-16's all over the world like Christmas candy the way the China and the USSR did with AK-47s (and to a lesser extent - the SKS carbine) you might well be saying the same thing about the M-16. But instead of giving the guns away, we mostly gave people money to buy our guns. The Soviets and Chinese eliminated the middleman.
Look. The M-16 is a pretty crappy weapon. It breaks a lot, requires constant maintenance, and has a lot of finely tuned parts. Plus the bullets tumble and can't hit shiite.
The AK-47 just works.
Personally, I prefer the FN brand. They're a lot more accurate, they kill the target, and they don't tumble much. It's a good sniper weapon, and it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Maybe you had to be smoking whatever it was that you guys were smoking in order to get the poignancy of the comment. By my reckoning, the Molotov (1936, 1939-40ish before the "Molotov" name was attached and it was used in a 'level-the-playing-field' sort of way) and the AK (standardized by 1947) were basically contemporaries.
Josh's comment: "So, the AK-47 is the Molotov cocktail of the second half of the 20th Century."
He seems to imply that the AK picks up where the Molotov leaves off or at least continues the tradition of the Molotov; but the Molotov had neither left off nor established much of a tradition by the advent of the AK. Comparing them, in terms of their battle functions, their use by revolutionaries, their social significance or whatever seems to be more a case of apples vs. oranges than one of poignancy.
Not really contra Josh's post, but topical nonetheless...
The 1956 Hungarian uprising, in which Khrushchev sent his AK-wielding Red Army to Budapest, was likely the high-water mark for the Molotov. Something in the neighborhood of 300 Soviet tanks were destroyed by the Hungarian bomb-throwers there. The AKs carried the day, though. As many as 50,000 Hungarians were killed vs. only about 7,000 Soviets.
In terms of the analogy, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good/pithy. Though you were all thoughtful, I think Josh meant was that the availability of the AK to the masses, reliability and power, allowed irregular troops to fight better trained and equipped forces....much like the Molotov cocktail. I am Josh's fiercest critic on the Slog but even I know a great line when I see it.
I think StrangerDanger is pretty on the mark there with regard to the broader analogy, but gun nuts are all about exhaustive detail, nitpicking and hypothetical technobabble about the relative merits of/speculative comparisons between this and that weapon.
(on that note, Will - the FN FAL is a full-sized rifle firiing the larger 7.62/.30 caliber cartridge, so my personal dream gun in that weight class would probably be the M-14 or the M1A. They've also worked most of the serious bugs out of the M-16, though it's definitely way more expensive and somewhat less idiot-proof that the AK.)
Pass the Ammo and Bison hit it as well, though to add onto Bison's post I'd add that Vietnam was a great (converse?) example of a case where the AK helped an indigenous guerilla force level the tactical playing field and evict the world's mightiest army.
And Will - we'd best be careful here - this kind of talk can get you excommunicated from the 43rd District Democrats in a heartbeat!
Fun post, Josh - though I expect a lot of outraged anti-gun posts to follow...
The only thing I'll say in defense of the M-16 is that it's a helluva lot lighter than an AK-47, which matters on a long road march. The ammo's a lot lighter, too.
Other than that, the AK kicks ass.
An interesting point regarding the AK vs M-16 is that though possessing some obvious issues, the Soviets basically M-16ed the AK-47 with the release of the AK-74. It had a smaller cartridge than even the 16's and a much more compact internal design parts-wise. (This relevant in that all the room inside the 47 allowed its amazing reliability...I think) The History Channel did a great documentary on the AK and its founder trashed the 74. Man, I am a GEEK.
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