The fight between AK-47 and American guns

Expert Robert Beckhusen argues that the AK-47 has become the ultimate weapon not only among bad guys in Hollywood blockbusters or big-budget video games, but also for American soldiers.

“First, the AK-47 was only used in small numbers in the Vietnam War in South Vietnam… This led to the fact that the AK-47 was a prestige weapon,” said Kevin Dickery, an expert at the National Interest.

The reason why American soldiers often abandoned their M16s and fought with AK-47s stemmed from the fact that the Kalashnikov's gun was much more reliable, simpler, and had a magazine that could hold 30 rounds.

To prove the American expert’s opinion, a rematch between the AK-47 and the M-16 took place. The competition was conducted by the American veteran who fought in Vietnam, the famous American actor R. Lee Ermey and his colleagues. The purpose of this competition was to compare, which gun is better, the AK47 or the M16?

Although the results of this peaceful rematch were not announced in detail, the advantage belonged to the AK-47.

In world military history, the AK-47 and its versions, along with the AR-15 and the improved M16, have always competed for the number one position in personal weapons.

Although the AR-15 (M16) has a fast rate of fire, long range, and high accuracy, its power and reliability are completely inferior to the AK.

In the Vietnam War, the AK-47 won convincingly thanks to its simplicity and effectiveness, especially the AK-47's absolute suitability to Vietnam's close-quarters, night-fighting tactics.

The skill of shooting two bullets at once was perfected by the Vietnam People's Army during the resistance war against America.

The US military both admired the AK-47's combat capabilities and feared its power.

There have been many reasons given for why American soldiers love the AK-47, specifically, this type of gun is designed with a trigger mechanism that slows down the hammer strike to reduce the rate of fire, while the M16's trigger mechanism cannot do this.

To solve the problem of too fast rate of fire, American designers came up with a solution to weaken the spring of the recoil system. However, this improvement turned out to be a disaster, the gun often jammed because the spring did not fully recoil.

When the bullet jams, the shooter will press this small lever to push the breech back and load a new bullet. Without this part, the shooter must jerk the "cock" back or replace the magazine, which takes a lot of time. However, in actual combat, the "forward assist" part does not improve this situation much.

Once a jam occurs, pressing the "forward assist" button will only help the gun fire one more bullet and then go back to the same old thing. The "forward assist" part is a patchwork improvement because the root cause of the M16's frequent jamming lies in the gas and recoil mechanism.

Another disadvantage of the M16 is that it is very sensitive to dirt in harsh battlefield conditions. The internal parts of the gun are highly accurate and have very little clearance, so if they get dirty and are not cleaned promptly, the gun will easily jam.

The M16 jamming problem became a headache for American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

In a 1967 survey of 1,585 soldiers who were asked about the reliability of the M16, 80% of the soldiers said they had experienced a jam while using the rifle. Despite the poor survey results, the US Army still declared the M16 the best rifle for combat.

Although the M16 uses smaller ammunition, it is not compact even when compared to the AK-47 which uses larger ammunition. The AK-47 has an overall length of 870 mm, while the M16A1 is 986 mm long, and the M16A2 is 1.06 m long.

Overall, the M16 only meets the criteria of being light but not really compact. Through the process of use and upgrading, the jamming problem of the M16 has gradually been overcome, but the power and reliability of the AK-47 still makes it difficult for Americans to resist.

And this is the reason why America decided to produce this legendary Kalashnikov gun.