First thing that struck me when I took an assault weapon apart

Chemistry and metallurgy are more important than the mechanical complexity.

>>32879457
>what is rifling
>what is smokeless powder
>what are metallic cartridges
>et cetera

Because all the prerequisite technology and knowledge wasn't invented or acquired yet, you retard.

There is a lot more going on in a rifle than what you can see when you simply take one apart.

To create viable repeating rifles, we needed:
-Tremendous advances in steel making, and the Bessemer process had to be invented.
-Stamping/milling technology
-Ability to harden metal with consistency
-Advances in chemisty to make smokeless powder (BP fowls actions very quickly)
-Metallic cartridges with primers technology
-Gas checked jacketed projectiles
-A doctrinal need for such a firearm was not present until post WWI arguably

>>32879457
First thing that struck when I face fucked your mother. God damn this bitch is ugly.

the gun is easy.

the complex part are the infrastructure of machinery that make the gun.

not just those >>32879491 listed.

the screwcutting lathe is the first one, in 1800. without that, every tool with a screw had a custom made pitch. with that, you can start to standardise threads - to the extent that now, with the exception of 3 nations in the world, screwthreads are set by an international standard where a bolt in China will fit a machine in Kenya, or Denmark, etc.

After that, the equipment like ability to make cartridge cases, the machines to draw a penny-shaped wad of brass out into a case. that tech wasnt fully formed till the 1840's - the early Martini-Henry ammunition was brass, but rolled, not drawn.
and so on. each technological piece of infrastructure to make the rifle had to be developed to allow its creation. The basic idea of a rapid-firing rifle was nothing new.

after all, the oldest known rifled revolver is dated to about 1525 - but it took industry another 300 years to advance to the point where a mass-produced revolver was viable.

>>32879487
Rifling was around 300 years ago.

>>32879457

What are chemistry and metallurgy?

>>32879628

It wasn't common in military weapons as muzzle loading rifles are slow as fuck to reload. That is the reason why smoothbore muskets were main firearms back then.

>>32879551
the idea of mass produced, by the millions, self contained ammo had to gain wide public acceptance. that was probably the most crucial ideaological obstacle. people don't like the idea of being dependent on fctory made cartridge. shotguns with steel cups akin to brass cartridges that could be loaded at home by the dozen and are inserted into the gun via the breech did exist.

>>32879457
easy, we needed a lonely russian tractor engienier, to build an assault rifle from scratch.. until then there were only bolt actions and swiss watches then came along, and proved everyone was retarded.

I mean like nowadays why dont we have flying cars? Cause everyone is retarded thats why...

>>32879457
It's all about the ammunition, OP.

Impact-detonated explosives are tricky stuff. You need a material sensitive enough to reliably explode when struck by the hammer/firing pin, but stable enough not to go off from just being dropped or jostled around; people didn't figure out how to make percussion primers until the 19th century. Before that you just had flintlocks, making automatic weapons virtually impossible.

And then you have the cartridges themselves. While there were some self-contained brass cartridges made as far back as the 1500s, the craftsmanship involved was so expensive that they never became popular even among the rich/nobility. You need industrial mass production for metallic cartridges to be at all feasible, and even then, conservation of ammunition remained a big deal up until WWI.

also OP remember that that watch was the pinnacle of tech back then and was the prized possession of a very rich person, the average faggot could not afford a watch

and black powder is a bitch, they needed more chemistry not more mechanical gear making knowledge

it would be like showing someone the hubble space telescope in 300 years and asking why we could do that but not grow a new heart for someone with a defective heart

totally different tech

>>32879821
>easy, we needed a lonely russian tractor engienier, to build an assault rifle from scratch.. until then there were only bolt actions and swiss watches then came along, and proved everyone was retarded.

he based it on the stg 44

>>32880195
Literally the only thing in the AK that remotely relates to the stg44 is the appearance. Fuck off with your autism, Wehraboos.

>>32880195
Nice bait fuckfence.

>>32880278
>Literally the only thing in the AK that remotely relates to the stg44 is the appearance. Fuck off with your autism, Wehraboos.
>>32880292
>Nice bait fuckfence.

had there been no stg44 there would have been no ak47

>>32879457
>First thing that struck me when I took an assault weapon apart was how simple it was inside
Assault Weapon is a made-up term
the word you are looking for is 'assault rifle'

>>32880195
Only in that the stg was proof of concept that you could have a rifle fire intermediate cartridges at a rapid pace. The stg itself was not revolutionary. There were other assault rifles before it, it was just the first to do it competently.

>>32880326

point mainly being that he did not develop it from scratch as the other anon said, it was a step forward in machine gun design, not the invention of the machine gun from nothing

>>32879457
>assault weapon

Please don't do this.

>>32880317
>>First thing that struck me when I took an assault weapon apart was how simple it was inside
>Assault Weapon is a made-up term
>the word you are looking for is 'assault rifle'

to be fair "assault rifle" is also a term someone made up

and OP's pic is not of an assault rifle

>>32880313
Completely
Utterly
Wrong

The development process had already begun in 1940-41 with several rotating bolt prototypes made by various Russian engineers who were all collaborating around then-experimental short cartridges, all of which looked like saigas already. The AK would have been literally no different without the StG as the proceeding prototypes existed before they had ever seen one. The idea that Kalashnikov worked alone, rather than in close cooperation with dozens of nearly identical projects, is a myth.

>>32879457
The machine gun is only possible in a post industrial revolution society that has mastered the assembly line. While a pocket watch is a marvel of bespoke craftsmanship, you still need the metallurgy to make the weapon, the chemistry to make reliable, quick burning smokeless powder, and the means to make millions of rounds of ammunition quickly, cheaply, and reliably.

An 18th century clockmaker could understand how an AK works, but how how the entire system was made would elude him.

>>32880387
>An 18th century clockmaker could understand how an AK works, but how how the entire system was made would elude him.

he would probably try to recreate it if he saw the plans and blow his fingers off due to knowing nothing about metallurgy

>>32880455
Maybe not, since he'd have to use contemporary black powder with much lower pressure.

>>32880495

maybe

but with a receiver and barrel made of essentially pot metal or thin brass there is no telling where the failure point would be

>>32880495
At best he'd end up with a three shot blowback carbine that fouls to uselessness after 15 rounds.

>>32880178
This. Owning a watch in 1700 would be like owning a private jet today.

>>32880525
Crucible steel existed. But that would be one expensive gun.

>>32879457
They didn't have metallic cartridges in 1717

>>32880549
>Go back in time to the 1500s
>Forge an utterly gucci AK47 out of crucible Damascus steel
>Painstakingly produce thousands of rounds of hand-built 7.62x39.
>Proceed to aloha snackbar your way onto the throne of a major European nation
>Profit

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>>32879470

Chemistry is the correct answer.

Also comprehension of physics, ballistics, pressures, velocity measurements, but most importantly was the ability to manufacture a rifled barrel and the modern bullet and smokeless gun powder. Propellant used for ball and musket was, extremely unstable and volatile.

People used to keep the villages gun powder stored in a large powder store houses away from fucking anything living because it could all detonate easily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder

>The basis of the term smokeless is that the combustion products are mainly gaseous, compared to around 55% solid products (mostly potassium carbonate, potassium sulfate, and potassium sulfide) for black powder.[1] Despite its name, smokeless powder is not completely free of smoke;[2]:44 while there may be little noticeable smoke from small-arms ammunition, smoke from artillery fire can be substantial. This article focuses on nitrocellulose formulations, but the term smokeless powder was also used to describe various picrate mixtures with nitrate, chlorate, or dichromate oxidizers during the late 19th century, before the advantages of nitrocellulose became evident.

Since the 14th century[4] gunpowder was not actually a physical "powder", and smokeless powder can be produced only as a pelletized or extruded granular material. Smokeless powder allowed the development of modern semi- and fully automatic firearms and lighter breeches and barrels for artillery. Burnt black powder leaves a thick, heavy fouling that is hygroscopic and causes rusting of the barrel. The fouling left by smokeless powder exhibits none of these properties (though some primer compounds can leave hygroscopic salts that have a similar effect; non-corrosive primer compounds were introduced in the 1920s[3]:21).

>This makes an autoloading firearm with many moving parts feasible (which would otherwise jam or seize under heavy black powder fouling).

>>32879457
There's a difference between a watch that some mountainjew spends 500 hours meticulously crafting as a work of art and a rifle that is deigned to withstand repeated use and can be mass produced.

>>32879457
Making something complicated isn't hard.
Making something simple is.

>>32879491
>-A doctrinal need for such a firearm was not present until post WWI arguably
Are you saying that countries would have turned down more dakka?

>>32879457
i guarantee you the same thing will be said about many things that we use today several hundred years from now.

>>32880762

I wouldn't go so far to say that it's not hard to make something complicated, but I do agree that there is greater ingenuity in creating a device that accomplishes the same results in a simpler manner.

>>32882562
It's not like they're sitting at the Civilization tech progress map going "Oh hey if we get clockwork engineering, springs, and gunpowder we unlock a new unit." They have to consciously pour R&D resources into project guns until they finally get something good. If their current systems are doing their jobs there's no reason to fix what ain't broke, especially when you've got much bigger problems like SHIT. SHIT IN THE STREETS. WHY IS THERE NO SYSTEM TO DEAL WITH THIS LITERAL SHIT YET? ECH.

>>32879711
Google
Books
School

>>32879457
>Why weren't they invented like 300 years ago?
Well, that's a long, long story but I'll put down the basic points. Essentially, there's a certain number of technological developments that needed to happen before the modern black rifle could come to fruition.

>Smokeless powder; Prior to the late 1800's, only black powder was available which fouled up the guns considerably and made reliable semi-auto impossible, let alone full auto.
>Metallic cartridges; In order for a self-loading rifle to function, you need a cartridge case to hold the powder, bullet and primer together, so it can be cycled through the gun. Prior to the industrial revolution, making these cartridges en masse would have been waaaay to expensive to be practical, and the techniques for making them didn't exist yet anyway.
>The Industrial Revolution; Without the capability to manufacture gun parts, and more importantly, ammunition in large quantities, self-loading automatic rifles would have been just too expensive and slow to produce.
>A subset of the last point, but Machine Tools. Without machine tools, it was impossible to do a lot of the metalworking operations necessary to make a modern rifle. Watches and soforth can be made of soft, easy to work metal, but guns need to be made of very tough steel to be safe.
>Advancements in steelmaking; This is pretty straightforward, you need a certain quality and consistency of steel to produce safe and reliable guns.
>Mechanized supply lines; The reason even repeating guns didn't take off initially, let alone self-loaders, was that all the ammunition for the soldiers had to be hauled either by them, or on pack animals, which severely limited both supply, and speed of resupply, making automatic rifles wholly impractical until trucks started to replace mules.

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>>32882742

>Invent the assault rifle 100 years early
>die of dysentery from wallowing in poop

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>>32879457
>Why weren't they invented like 300 years ago?
News flash: they were.

>>32882837
That's a repeating rifle. And even then, those were made in such small numbers because they were too expensive, time-consuming to produce, delicate and unreliable to be suitable for mass issue. Also they would burn through ammunition faster than it could be resupplied in the field.

>>32879746
>people don't like the idea of being dependent on factory made cartridge
>Implying it was any worse than factory made gunpowder
And gunpowder production was often state monopoly.

>>32879457
>First thing that struck me when I took an assault weapon apart was how simple it was inside
Wow, how'd you get your hands on a fictional category of weaponry?

>>32882851
>they were too expensive, time-consuming to produce, delicate and unreliable to be suitable for mass issue.
Like watches?

>>32879457

the tree the stock is made from hadn't grown enough yet.

>>32882924
The mechanical stresses on a watch, and the quality of materials needed is vastly different from a gun. A watch doesn't need to be manipulated roughly by soldiers or withstand the pressure of a gunpowder explosion.

>>32882938

lol

>>32882742
>>32882814
So, India. You've described India.

>>32883058
And look how the INSAS turned out

>>32879457
Because self contained cartridges weren't invented yet.

I like this thread. Smart motherfuckers in here

>>32880387
No, you're confusing this with mass production. You can craft any reasonable gun by hand, it'll just take a lot of man-hours and you won't get any interchangeable parts.

>>32879491
>A doctrinal need for such a firearm was not present until post WWI arguably
Doctrine follows technology, not the other way round.

>>32879457

>assault weapon

>>32883218
You missed that one huge thread when Mad Max came out, it talked about what source/components/tools you needed in order to sustain ammunition production after society collapses.

>>32879457

Smokeless powder in a self contained cartridge m8

>>32882851
>And even then, those were made in such small numbers because they were too expensive, time-consuming to produce, delicate and unreliable to be suitable for mass issue.

And there's your answer for why there weren't assault rifles in 1710

All of these make sense but it doesn't explain why simple revolvers were never made. It's like the concept of an automatically rotating cylinder never came up to anyone for some odd reason along with paper cartridges.

>>32879457
No one even knew how to make an automatic gun until like 1900. Forgot the america who figurd it out. Usa #1

>>32883462
For the exact reason why revolvers weren't made until they were. With loose powder, you need an almost enclosed back end and a nipple to put a percussion cap on, which means you need to be able to make percussion caps. Without those, you'd have to use a matchlock or flintlock system, which would be far too fiddly and unreliable to use alongside a rotating cylinder.

>>32883462
Revolvers have been around since the 1500s, but the reason why revolvers became popular in the 1800s was really the introduction of percussion cap mechanisms

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>>32883462
Oh but they were. They were just insanely expensive.

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>>32882837
>>32879457
They were, the problem is that the machining and the ammunition wasn't suitable for what they were doing.

For instance, a watch is relatively simple to keep working. Keep shit out of its mechanism. Wind it. Before cased ammunition and smokeless powder you were essentially operating a machine that constantly had irritants introduced to it while the craftsmanship required to make it was absurdly expensive.

It wasn't that the technology wasn't thought of, it was that it wasn't practical; you need to have these weapons in significant numbers. Not to mention that if you didn't give an average soldier an expensive as balls repeater rifle, there is a good chance they'd simply desert and sell it.

>>32883301
I've thought about that myself, it would be an enormous challenge.

>>32883609
>did give

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>>32879457
>how simple it was inside

>>32880619
i'd play that

why the fuck did the Girandoni air rifle stop being used

>>32884134
Too expensive to make, and not as powerful as black powder weapons.

>>32883609
>Not to mention that if you didn't give an average soldier an expensive as balls repeater rifle, there is a good chance they'd simply desert and sell it.
You can set up special solider to operate rifle and special mechanic to keep it working. You know Navy operated complex brittle stuff back then like aforementioned watches or sextants. And wooden ships that were falling apart every minute and required constant fixing. It is all about cost. But here is the thing. You can't replace watches with dozen dumb peasants. If you want to know time you need watch. But not the case of the gun. Dozen rural retards with muskets is fire power equivalent of repeating gun. Then come cost effectiveness factor and battlefield availability. Dozen retards win. Only when repeating guns costs approached to opportunity costs of soldiers they become viable instead of just drafting more soldiers.

>>32879457
They are mechanically simple yet still the US can't produce one for even 200% the cost of those made by Russia.

>>32880619
>>32884093
during the bronze age, I forget when or where, a king literally sold half his kingdom for a Knife made of Iron

because it was so rare at that time to understand how to forge iron, and it took alot more to dull it than usual

>>32884790
Bullshit. Average cost of an AK to governments is $500~ bucks. Cost of a new M4 to bulk purchasers is ~$800. Still more expensive, but not 200+% more.

>>32884847
Depends on the AR.
Some are cheaper than that.

>>32884878
Yeah but that's what US Govt and LE agencies pay for the M4 version they use.

>>32884847
That was Colts old price years ago before fn slapped their shit down so hard by offering their M4's for like $630 a pop. In fact Fn slapped colt so hard they sued because they felt the government had to give them some of the chicken. I know that Fn sells M16's for somewhere around $450-500

Why is knowledge of the manufacturing process of smokeless powder restricted? Same for metallurgy processes that create gun metal. Neither process is publically available.

>>32885257
>Why is knowledge of the manufacturing process of smokeless powder restricted
It's not
>Same for metallurgy processes that create gun metal
....
Are you trying to meme?

>>32880375
Anon can you expand on this, I'm actually interested. Like, a source?

>>32885300
>It's not
Actually it is. We know that it's made of wood or cotton pulp, sulfuric acid and nitric acid, but the exact refinement process is restricted.

>>32885257
>Why is knowledge of the manufacturing process of smokeless powder restricted? Same for metallurgy processes that create gun metal. Neither process is publically available.

just because you're too fucking thick to understand chemistry or metallurgy to produce the compound or alloy respectively does not mean they are "restricted"

>>32885683
it really isn't
cordite, for one is extensively documented
poudre' B is literally soaking guncotton in acetone, drying it into a sheet, and shredding the film that forms into uniform sized flakes of nitrocellulose

>>32879457
Because they were going for a diplomatic victory instead, faggot.

>>32885683
Ya no it's not. I can't help that you have zero comprehension.

>>32886057
Well I can't help that I studied law instead of chemistry.

>>32880344
Everything is something someone made up, stay woke my nigga.

>>32880278
so, just like the HMG "StG"

>>32886582
t. reenactment autismo

>>32879457
Because containing and directing many explosions versus not falling apart in your pocket.

>>32880687

Wrong, all of it.

Comes down to manufacturing techniques.

Sheet metal stamping of complex shapes was simply not available or well understood until after the war.

>>32885655

Try this (Google Translate):

http://remigiuszwilk.pl/ak/index.html#wstep

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>>32879487
more importantly

>what is a foundry
>what are machine tools
>what are hydraulics for stamping
>what is milling
>what is heat treating

300 years ago
>what is coal?
>what is oil?
>what is natural gas?
>what is electric power
practically none of those things were used outside of a few laboratories. they certainly weren't used in factories or homes. wood was the primary fuel source, and water wheels were for powering textile mills and grain mills.

you certainly couldn't mass produce rifles without that infrastructure

>>32887424
This. You cannot possibly overstate the value of infrastructure in technological development. It's what defined the modern world. Europe ended up dominating the world, because they had better natural infrastructure than anyone else.

>>32879457
The biggest issue in gun development is metallurgy and the chemical composition of the powder in the cartridge. 300 years ago, the closest thing you would have to a gun is a rough iron tube filled with black power and rocks or iron shot and it had practically no accuracy. The main reason why some guns seem so easy to put together is for quick field maintenance.

>>32888353
>rough iron tube filled with black power and rocks or iron shot and it had practically no accuracy
every singe one of these is wrong

>>32880344
lol'd

>>32888353
I did not know it was the 1600s.

>>32883462
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPC7KiYDshw

They existed, but nobody really bought them and really used them.

>>32880619
Imagine being able to go back to Tudor England with any modern rifle and an Abrams. Or even just 10 guys with rifles and an mg. you could rule by force

>>32889018
Until you ran out of ammunition.

>>32889018
no force with only 10 guys or one vehicle is a political force
just like how a wizard who could personally kill anyone he looked at would not be that much of a formidable political force

you would at best be a really annoying and nearly unstoppable criminal

>>32889106
Or you could offer your services to the King as an elite guard, and use that position to spread your influence and obtain political power through diplomacy backed by implicit threat of force. Knowledge of modern strategy would make you even more invaluable than your weapons.

>>32889155
>Knowledge of modern strategy would make you even more invaluable than your weapons.

it's like you think people were idiots just because the date was different
you and all your friends get poisoned as soon as you let your guard down

what year exactly do you think ''strategy'' evolved idiot
strategy evolved as capabilities changed, not the other way round

>>32889159
>it's like you think people were idiots just because the date was different
Not idiots, just with less overall knowledge than people have now. Knowledge is power anon

>as soon as you let your guard down
So you don't let it down, dumbfuck. And you make yourself valuable enough to the people in power through loyalty that nobody would dare for fear of repercussions anyway.

>strategy evolved as capabilities changed, not the other way round
[laughs in WWI cavalry]

>>32889235
>don't let your guard down
you are extremely delusional

>knowledge is power
no, power is power

>ww1 cavalry
you don't know anything about the history of tactics/strategy