I am an AK fan from way back. It has six moving parts, can be made in garage, and if you bury it in the mud, dig it up a year later and feed it the dirtiest ammo Russia ever made, it will still fire.
I have heard from military friends that the first thing you do when you hit Afghanistan or Iraq is get yourself an AK so that WHEN your AR jams, you have a gun.
And let the
discussion begin. LOL!
:monkey
People always try to use this cliche statement.
"My buddy is a Navy SEAL and he said that he used to throw down his AR, step on it, and poop in the breech, because it was an awful gun. Then he would pick up an AK and kill 2394872698 people with it".
Tell your "military friends" that they should stop stuffing pound cake from their MRE's into their AR's chamber and working the action. Tell them they should also, I don't know, maintain it every once in a while.
Let's take a look at the AR's superiority in combat.
One word for you people.
"Fallujah".
When you find yourself in urban environments, even the penetrating power of the 7.62x39mm is not going to be enough in most circumstances. Sure it throws up a nasty wall of lead, but anybody who has ever fired one, especially under duress, will infinitely appreciate the lethal accuracy and managability of the AR platform.
Marines and SF operatives were being investigated for too many purported "headshots" after operations in Fallujah. As it turns out, randomly spraying walls with a firearm as floppy and overgassed as the AK, isn't the best way to wage urban warfare. During standoffs of 100m-300m, the AR showed itself infinitely more capable than an AK could ever hope or pray to be, as Marines (yes multiple) would often hit the same unlucky target in the head as it presented itself over/through a wall, or window.
That is efficient warfare.
Yes people, the AR has more precision crafted parts.
Yes people, the AR craps where it eats. (Which is also why it is deadly silent in suppressed form)
Yes if you dump a bucket of epoxy and cement into the breach it will stop firing.
But if you spend just 5 minutes a day, which regardless of what you have been told about warfare , IS possible, then you will be just fine, and your M16A2 will continue firing into the darkness of night without missing a beat.
Can you tell I am grateful to this weapon for saving my life multiple times? If not, well now you know.
As battalion trainer on multiple weapon platforms, and battery trainer on a couple more still, I will tell you that I have seen multitudes of soldiers maintaining their firearms so poorly, that it wouldn't matter what make/model of firearm it was, it would be siezed.
I have had soldiers literally bring me their M16A2's with the bolt siezed because they were literally using it to lean on, barrel down, in the sand. I have watched soldiers pick up an M16 with nothing in the well but sand from them flopping the rifle on its side while they sat down.
Real world dictates weapon maintenance regardless of whether its an AR or an AK.
It's just that when the AR is on operational par, the AK does not stand a chance.
The AK is a mass producable rifle meant to be handed out to poorly trained conscripts spraying a wall of lead. If you conduct war this way, that's fine. Remember soviet battle tactics. Deploy flesh to save armor.
cest la vie