The Most Influential Weapons of History

Precision-guided munitions (anyone remember watching the bomb camera itself in gulf-war 1?)

Suicide Bombers

Jet Aircraft (whilst no able to take and hold territory they have proved time and again that they can deny it to the enemy)

A late edit: The cruise missile
 
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A lot of wars would have had a different outcome if the AK47/RPD/RPK never existed.

Vietnam
Soviet Afghanistan
Rhodesia
Iraq/Iran
Rwanda/Angola/Congo/Zaire
Nicaragua
Columbia
The Balkans
Cambodia

Would Africans have been able to get as many FALs as they did AKs? And keep them running?

Would the Soviets have been such a problem in the cold war if they hadn't been able to kit out half of the world with cheap AK47s?
 
kwerk said:
A lot of wars would have had a different outcome if the AK47/RPD/RPK never existed.

Vietnam
Soviet Afghanistan
Rhodesia
Iraq/Iran
Rwanda/Angola/Congo/Zaire
Nicaragua
Columbia
The Balkans
Cambodia

Would Africans have been able to get as many FALs as they did AKs? And keep them running?

Would the Soviets have been such a problem in the cold war if they hadn't been able to kit out half of the world with cheap AK47s?
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I find it fascinating that you appear to think that if the Kalashnikov hadn't been invented then the USSR wouldn't have been able to come up with another cheap to produce, assault weapon.:rolleyes:

Heck the MP43/Sturmgewehr 44 was the weapon that was truly revolutionary, firing an intermediate cartridge and bridging the gap 'tween submachinegun and battle rifle. Even if the AK47 hadn't been designed something along the very same lines would have. And as regards Afghanistan the locals didn't do a bad job sending the ruskies packing and the .303 SMLE was their favoured rifle there against AK47's.
 
Thesaff said:
Standardisation across how many nations?
:cool:
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You stated that the NATO 5.56mm replaced the 7.62mm as the standard, when in fact they are both NATO standard and just have different application. When a suitable intermediate cartridge is available then we may have a reason to suggest that it deserves a place in the OP's contention.

If you had just said, Ammunition Standardisation, then maybe, but you did not.
 
Random thoughts:

The Winchester Rifle

The Willys Jeep

The M4 Sherman - paved the way for victory in Europe.

The T-34 tank and the IL-2 Sturmovik - together they probably saved the Soviet Union. The IL-2 was referred to by Stalin as being 'as essential to the Red Army as air and bread'

The Nazi concept of Blitzkrieg.

The adoption of the horse as a weapon.

RADAR.

The military satellite.

The U-boat.

Sure there's lots of others....
 
Id have to say the M1 garand, iirc general george patton called it the finest battle implement ever produced, shot with one, and i gotta admit, the quality of the iron sights on it are amazing, a very accurate rifle, still in service with us units as a sniper/dm weapon. Also, the colt 1911 .45 automatic pistol, and the kalashnikov variants, for theyre simplicity and reliability.
 
Simple really it has to do with the title of this thread. Its about the most influential weapons not models of weapons.

So the mass produced Assault rifle en bloc fits but the individual models are side arguments. As I said earlier if it hadn't been the AK47/AK74's then there would still have been some other mass produced Russian Assault Rifle. But who knows what would have happened had not the concept of the intermediate round/assault rifle ever come along in the first place?
 
VFM Addict said:
Don't you just love how folks are lumping the AK47 and AK74 together are if they are one and the same and talking about calibre standardisation? :D
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Well, yes it does, but I agree that the 7.62mm AK47 was and still is a hugely influential weapon due to its durability, simplicity and low production cost.

you can argue that the Garand or the model 8 or even the aforementioned Sturm where the better weapon, but the AK47 took aspects of each and is still in production 60 odd years later.
 
most of the stuff the op listed are exact models, what ifs do not change the influence, the fact is the ak has had a massive influence and not other guns.
 
Thesaff said:
5.56 is a NATO standard, before that there were different standards across the forces, ammunition standardisation has been one of the key influences on modern warfare, you only have to look at the American civil war for the benefits of this. The 5.56 was also chosen because of its injuring capabilities, changing in some way what the weapon is designed for.
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5.56 was mainly chosen because troops can carry more of it than they could 7.62.

It is designed to cause massive trauma as you say but its limitations are being seen in Afghanistan, namely that the L85 and M4 are being outraged by the Soviet 7.62 round that the AK fires.

Isn't that one of the reasons a semi-automatic 7.62 rifle is up and running that the British are now using ? I forget the name now.
 
VFM Addict said:
I find it fascinating that you appear to think that if the Kalashnikov hadn't been invented then the USSR wouldn't have been able to come up with another cheap to produce, assault weapon.:rolleyes:

Heck the MP43/Sturmgewehr 44 was the weapon that was truly revolutionary, firing an intermediate cartridge and bridging the gap 'tween submachinegun and battle rifle. Even if the AK47 hadn't been designed something along the very same lines would have. And as regards Afghanistan the locals didn't do a bad job sending the ruskies packing and the .303 SMLE was their favoured rifle there against AK47's.
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OK I change my answer to: "compact, extremely robust, extremely cheap stamped receiver, piston driven, magazine fed, select-fire assault rifle, known as the AK-47 or what ever other name it is called in alternate dimensional time lines"

The Afghans had 100s of thousands of AKs delivered by the CIA. America had factories in Egypt making them. I doubt the Mujahadeen would have won the war without America dumping weapons, especially AKs on them.
 
Von Smallhausen said:
5.56 was mainly chosen because troops can carry more of it than they could 7.62.

It is designed to cause massive trauma as you say but its limitations are being seen in Afghanistan, namely that the L85 and M4 are being outraged by the Soviet 7.62 round that the AK fires.

Isn't that one of the reasons the MoD sourced a semi-automatic 7.62 rifle up and running that the British are now using ? I forget the name now.
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Yep, the 5.56mm (.223 round), allows more ammo per man, it was designed as a tumbling bullet, to induce more trauma on impact, its commonly known as the mouse cartridge due to it's limited stopping power, iirc the british army use a slightly heavier grain round than the us, (ss109), but this round requires different rifling in the barrel of the weapon, the us military did trial a 6.8mm round, i suppose to give a balance between ammo load and stopping power. Ive used the .223 on foxes and ive found it to be a bit iffy compared to the likes of .243 winchester, (6mm).
 
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