{"id":7335,"date":"2011-01-22T11:06:32","date_gmt":"2011-01-22T16:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=7335"},"modified":"2018-01-15T13:55:42","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T18:55:42","slug":"russian-drama-defense-minister-disses-ak-47","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/01\/22\/russian-drama-defense-minister-disses-ak-47\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian drama: Defense Minister disses AK-47"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Russian Defense Minister just stirred up a controversy<\/a> that could only be equalled here if the Prime Minister called hockey a pansy frou-frou game:<\/p>\n

\n

Apparently, Russia\u2019s Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, opined publically that the Kalashnikov and Dragunov SVDs sniper rifles, are \u201cmorally outdated.\u201d To add insult to injury, he intimated that he\u2019s considering replacing the weapons with something else. Let\u2019s just say this didn\u2019t play well in the Russian equivalent of the Borscht Belt. In fact, \u201cfirestorm of controversy\u201d would be a pretty accurate depiction of the ensuing fireworks.<\/p>\n

Evidently, Russians are a prideful people. And they take a lot of pride in Kalishnikov\u2019s Greatest Hit of 1947. The AK-47 has withstood the test of time, doing exactly what it\u2019s designer set out for it to do — function as a rugged, all-purpose weapon that was cheap to build, easy to use, and would run even if you filled it full of mud. Accuracy was not really high on the list of objectives, but I understand from people that know far more about the AKs than I, that they are far more accurate than most people believe.<\/p>\n

[. . .]<\/p>\n

So for Mother Russia, their very own Defense Minister dissin\u2019 the AK would be like Jeff Cooper bitch-slappin\u2019 the 1911, and throwin\u2019 in a little trash talk against John Moses Browning, to boot. But the times they are a-changin,\u2019 and I\u2019m not so sure Anatolovich doesn\u2019t have a valid pointsky<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The venerable 1911 and AK-47 bear more than a passing comparison. They are both well-established, respected designs. They are both manufactured by multiple armories. And they both have several features that are seen in a modern context as design flaws at worst, and in desperate need of an update, at best.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I’ve posted on the reputation of the AK-47 before<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Russian Defense Minister just stirred up a controversy that could only be equalled here if the Prime Minister called hockey a pansy frou-frou game: Apparently, Russia\u2019s Defense Minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, opined publically that the Kalashnikov and Dragunov SVDs sniper rifles, are \u201cmorally outdated.\u201d To add insult to injury, he intimated that he\u2019s considering replacing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,5,1119,15],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-7335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-military","category-russia","category-technology","tag-guns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-1Uj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7335"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41774,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions\/41774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}