Greatest miliary firearms designer . . . ?

M

Montana Pete

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I got the idea to post this because I chanced across a small newspaper article earlier this week. Gen. Mikhail Kalashnikov is still alive, and judging from photos, is in pretty good shape. He just received another award from the Russian government in a ceremony. At one point many years ago the NRA brought Gen. Kalashnikov to the US to present him with an award. It's likely that his design, the AK-47, is the most manufactured military rifle in history.

Other legendary designers of military weapons would include Paul Mauser of Germany, and John Browning of the US. Another deserving of honorable mention would be Hugo Schmeisser, the designer of the MP-38 and MP-40 submachine guns used by the Germans in WW II. They were sometimes termed "machine pistols" and "Schmeisser" was an unofficial name for them. They are often shown in war movies because they look very cool.

We all enjoy our guns, but we may too often forget the brilliant engineeers who designed them. Without guys like this, our gun racks would be pretty empty. Hats off to them, one and all!
 
I wonder if one added up the total production of all the different firearms that were directly attributable to John Moses Browning, would it be greater than the production of the AK-47 and derivatives.

I think JMB had 128 firearms patents.

Greg J.
 
In every way...

that comes to mind for evaluating the contributions made by designers of successful military small arms, I think Mr. Browning is unquestionably the greatest. His contributions ranged from handguns through light and heavy machineguns to light artillery - some of his weapons designs are nearly a century old and still in manufacture and issue, despite later developments and 'improvements'. That's a hard record to approach, much less match.
mhb - Mike
 
I think we'd need several catagories of designer.

There are the great ground breakers, who devise whole new operating systems and classes of guns, people such as Hiram Maxim, Peter Paul Mauser, James Paris Lee, Ferdinand Ritter Von Mannlicher.

Then there are those who perfect operating systems, or introduce new generations of a gun, these include, Browning (obviously), Aimo Lahti, for his second gen SMG, his cannon and MG designs, Luger for his pistol and rifle work, Shepherd and Turpin for the third gen SMG, Garand, Kalashnikov and Stoner.

I think there needs to be a catagory in there for the home based prodigy, Browning may fit in there, but he was the son of a gun smith with a family of older brothers working as smiths too, I'm thinking of people who were totally self funded and who took great personal risk, like the Reverand Forsyth (percussion caps), Phil Luty for his improvised SMG
 
Strange...all we hear about is the AK-47. Most have never heard of the AK-74, which was introduced by the Soviets in Afghanistan, known as the .220 Russian...on the same case as well...necked down.
 
The 5.45x39 case is smaller in diameter than the .220 Russian/7.62x39/PPC case. The .220 was developed by the Russians for the running deer/boar/whatever match that is or was shot under ISU rules.

The Russians apparently wanted something that was close to the 5.56x45, and the .220 was larger than needed.

Trying to decide who's the greatest military arms designer is sort of like a dog chasing his tail. Everyone's work pretty much builds on previous work with some true genius thrown in for good measure. Browning, Mauser, Garand, Kalashnikov, Stoner, and others could all be put forward.

For number and breadth of designs I'd have to vote for Browning though.
 
as for military arms designers, Browning stands head and shoulders above the rest.

John M. Browning was self funded, his father died nearly flat broke, he also trained his brothers as gunsmiths, as he was the only one that worked with his father in the gunsmithing business.
 
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SGJennings said:
I thought the 220 Russian was the direct ancestor of the 5.45x39 used in the AK-74.
Click to expand...

Mr. Jennings,

It is. As I said, it is the same cartridge case, just necked down from .308 to .224.
Not sure what you mean by "ancestor", but we all know the parent cartridge was prior to the .220. I have a magazine (in front of me which I dug up) that dates to '81, in which there is a lengthy article on my neighbor, Boots Obermeyer.
Soldier of fortune sent some people over there to try to bring back an AK 74.
No such luck. They did however...bring back some .220 Russian ammunition by which Obermeyer , (after which he ground the special rifleing cutters needed to duplicate the unusual Russian rifling form) manufactured the test barrel, was able to have reamers and headspace gauges made to the required specs, by JGS . He produced a platform on a 788 action by which to test their ammunition, thereby giving our government the information needed . I spoke to boots at length on this matter. 60 days from start to finish and it was done.

Testing of this cartridge was at that time, quite complete as stated in the my copy of "The American Rifleman", July 1981 ...page 36.
If you can find this particular magazine, it is great reading.
 
Pete..

Montana Pete said:
I got the idea to post this because I chanced across a small newspaper article earlier this week. Gen. Mikhail Kalashnikov is still alive, and judging from photos, is in pretty good shape. He just received another award from the Russian government in a ceremony. At one point many years ago the NRA brought Gen. Kalashnikov to the US to present him with an award. It's likely that his design, the AK-47, is the most manufactured military rifle in history.

Other legendary designers of military weapons would include Paul Mauser of Germany, and John Browning of the US. Another deserving of honorable mention would be Hugo Schmeisser, the designer of the MP-38 and MP-40 submachine guns used by the Germans in WW II. They were sometimes termed "machine pistols" and "Schmeisser" was an unofficial name for them. They are often shown in war movies because they look very cool.

We all enjoy our guns, but we may too often forget the brilliant engineeers who designed them. Without guys like this, our gun racks would be pretty empty. Hats off to them, one and all!
Click to expand...

its pretty well documented that Hugo Schmeisser did not design the MP 38/40. He did design the MP18. ERMA was responsible for the 38/40. Tks
 
I guess I would give my vote...

Montana Pete said:
I got the idea to post this because I chanced across a small newspaper article earlier this week. Gen. Mikhail Kalashnikov is still alive, and judging from photos, is in pretty good shape. He just received another award from the Russian government in a ceremony. At one point many years ago the NRA brought Gen. Kalashnikov to the US to present him with an award. It's likely that his design, the AK-47, is the most manufactured military rifle in history.

Other legendary designers of military weapons would include Paul Mauser of Germany, and John Browning of the US. Another deserving of honorable mention would be Hugo Schmeisser, the designer of the MP-38 and MP-40 submachine guns used by the Germans in WW II. They were sometimes termed "machine pistols" and "Schmeisser" was an unofficial name for them. They are often shown in war movies because they look very cool.

We all enjoy our guns, but we may too often forget the brilliant engineeers who designed them. Without guys like this, our gun racks would be pretty empty. Hats off to them, one and all!
Click to expand...

to John Garand, a native Canadian. That one semi auto rifle gave American troops SUCH an advantage over the bolt action equiped Nazis and Japs that it often determined the outcomes of encounters. It was the right design at the right time. Paton was right!
 
Greg wrote, its pretty well documented that Hugo Schmeisser did not design the MP 38/40. He did design the MP18. ERMA was responsible for the 38/40. Tks
Click to expand...

I did some more reading, and Greg is right. The machine pistol that Hugo Schmeisser designed was an earlier precursor of the 38/40, the MP 18. I did see where Schmeisser headed the development team producing the STG 42, later succeeded by the STG 44. This was one of the earliest assault rifles. Almost half a million of these were supplied to German troops.

What's my point? My facts were a bit wrong, but Schmeisser does deserve recognition as one of the best gun designers of the Third Reich. And I do believe I am correct that the entire family of machine pistols used by the Third Reich sometimes went by the nickname, "Schmeissers."

If you want to see quite a few of them shown in Hollywood movies, check out the Indiana Jones series of films. Furthermore, much adventure fiction brings in the Schmeisser family of machine pistols. One of my favorite boy's books, the Rick Brant novel entitled "The Caves of Fear," involves a scene in a hotel room where a hidden assailant cuts loose with a full magazine from a Schmeisser machine pistol, raising holy cain with the targeted half of the room. Swiss cheese. The heroes, of course, hit the deck and the killer shot high. But these machine pistols are the very stuff of adventure films and fiction.

The following is direct quote from a Wikipedia article:

By the end of the war, some 425,977 StG 44 variants of all types were produced. The assault rifle proved a valuable weapon, especially on the Eastern front, where it was first deployed. A properly trained soldier with an StG44 had an improved tactical repertoire, in that he could effectively engage targets at longer ranges than with an MP 40, but be much more useful than the Kar 98k in close combat, as well as provide covering fire like a light machine gun. It was also found to be exceptionally reliable in the extreme cold of the Russian winter. (Wikipedia article)
 
For those who haven been to

the firearms museum in Cody, Wy, it's well worth the trip there to see it. I have visited Cody a number of times and have toured the Museum three times. I always find something of interest that I hadn't noticed before. Mr. Browning is very prominent there.

My question is, why did Browning practically give away his designs? I can see doing it for the first one but - - - - -
 
The Arasaka rifle, Nambu machine gun should fit in here somewhere.
 
according to brownings biography, he sold his designs to the U.S. government for next to nothing because it was his patriotic duty. his quote was something along the lines of " if i was 20 years younger , i'd be over there in the trenches (france WWI)", so he felt it was his duty to provide the best weapons he could for the U.S. soilders.
 
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