Whether you like it or not, a generational change is inevitable. That is the end of the earthly journey of the Great Weapon Master (only this way - every word with a capital letter) Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov. The whole world remembers him as the creator of the machine and rightfully gives praise. I want to tell him a "separate" THANKS for the machine gun of his name - a PC of all modifications.
Mikhail Timofeevich, you have created another MIRACLE. How many specialists found fault, and, probably rightly, our 7.62 mm "screw cartridge" for its archaism, evaluating it as "unsuitable for use in automatic weapons", and you proved to everyone that the Russian man can handle everything. I especially appreciated the creation of your hands after two incidents from my army life. Both of them took place in the early 90s in Primorye, where I had to serve at that moment.
Our battalion was already finishing its month-long stay at the training ground, or, as we said, "in the camps." This whole month was full of very intensive combat training. The crisis phenomena in the army environment were not yet so obvious, so every single day we drove, shot, practiced practical questions on tactics, engineering training of the ZOMP … It was interesting and somehow fun … On one of the firing sessions I noticed that the machine gun of the left car clearly shoots at a slower rate than the other two. Well, as they say, I didn't have to be very surprised, these machine guns fired day and night, and I thought that there was already a lot of soot in it, so at the next task statement I ordered the tank commander to move the regulator on the gas pipe to position -3 while loading ammunition. Time was very expensive, it was very hot spring days, and the field with a target environment, no, no, it caught fire and had to spend a lot of time on putting it out, so we tried to have time to shoot as many crews as possible. The machine gun began to shoot "more fun", but still lagged behind the "neighbors" in terms of rate of fire, therefore, as soon as the next "fight with fire" began, I gave the command to remove it and service it. Miracles began literally two minutes later. From the tower it was perfectly visible how the PKT was taken out, and, having laid it out on a piece of tarpaulin at the stern of the tank, they began to disassemble it, and then … it was quickly assembled, and the commander of the tank with the PKT trotted to the "tower". It is clear that something is "wrong." It turned out that the machine gun had a broken gas piston !!! It was broken off into two unequal parts, and the place of the breakage was very much “riveted”, which indicated that even in this state the piston was doing its “duty” as best it could … The machine gun, of course, was replaced, and the “invalid” bolt action a frame with an extractor and a gas piston was placed on the table under the tower as an "example" … You can, of course, say for a long time that your weapon is very reliable, but when you see with your own eyes that it, even if it is faulty, will give you a chance, - it costs a lot …
The second event followed the first. It was associated with other weapons. The fact is that while, as they said then, "on the wave of openness, glasnost and perestroika," we began to conduct joint exercises with the Americans, and for this purpose a whole "gray ship" with a subdivision of "mariners" came to us. The command of the Coastal Forces of the Pacific Fleet showed great wisdom and knowledge of the matter, having gathered officers from all of their units for this event so that we could see the actions of the "sworn friends" with our own eyes. Of course, there was a lot of interesting and different things from us, but what was especially striking was that during the "solution of fire missions", their machine guns CLINDED, so much so that in the end the machine gunners, "spitting" on all the conventions, stood up to their full height and with blows of their heels on the reloading handles tried to revive their "machingans" …
Mikhail Timofeevich, it was exactly your day and your holiday, when at first the very arrogant "mariners" lost their snobbery more and more, and then, like "boys", rejoiced when they were allowed to shoot from your PC at the shooting range, and they took a long time did not believe that this machine gun shoots and shoots, if only there were cartridges …
Once again, a personal thanks to the GREAT WEAPONS MASTER, for the creation of his GENIUS and HANDS. In the old days, each master put a brand on his weapon. I remember how the familiar archaeologists were very amazed when on an excellent sword, which they unearthed in the burial and considered "Western European work", they managed to see the mark in Cyrillic - "People did it". I would not mind seeing a similar stigma on each of your weapons: "Made by Mikhailo Kalashnikov." This is better than any quality mark!
