Well... shit. As a gun afficianado, the Kalashnikov was one of the Russian guns I admired greatly alongside the AK... damn. That kinda sucks.
The "AK" in AK-47 mean Avtomat Kalashnikova, or Automatic/asssault Kalishnikov. It's an unbelievably common design, it's been turned into sub-machine guns, heavy machine guns, sniper rifles, semi-automatic carbines, shotguns, it's been stolen by the Chinese and used to arm their enormous army, is routinely knocked off in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Africa, South America... It can fire 7.62, it can fire 12 gauge, it can even fire 5.56 NATO rounds. It is just about
the weapon of our age.
And he wasn't even an infantryman! He drove a tank!