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Comment by jere | Hacker News Reader

>The gun is nothing special. Its controls are unsophisticated; it is not even particularly accurate. But this simplicity is a reason for its success. Compared with other assault rifles, the AK-47 has generous clearance between its moving parts. That is bad for accuracy, but it means that the mechanism is unlikely to jam, no matter how clogged it gets with Sudanese sand or Nicaraguan mud. Designed to be operated by Soviet soldiers wearing thick winter gloves, it is simple enough for untrained recruits (including children) to use.

Worse is better.

>Correctness The design must be correct in all observable aspects. It is slightly better to be simple than correct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

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>the AK-47 has generous clearance between its moving parts. That is bad for accuracy, but it means that the mechanism is unlikely to jam

Not only is it less likely to jam, but it probably also allows much looser tolerances for the parts, making them much easier to machine/make.

I'll see your Wikipedia link and raise you one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_dimensions_of_quality

When you're getting shot at and your life depends on being able to shoot back, reliability trumps all other metrics.

I submit that availability trumps even that. In many cases, you would not have a gun if it wasn't as simple and cheap to make as the AK-47.

This was a component affecting the Nazi invasion of Russia - german machines build to tight tolerances didn't handle the extreme drops in winter temperature as well as the looser tolerances of the Russian machines.

A friend of mine once played with a Russian motorbike from that era, and said if you tipped it side to side you could hear the pistons clunking about.

> That is bad for accuracy,

one of the main version around is AK-74, same mechanics, only 5.45mm caliber instead of 7.62mm of AK-47. While not a sharpshooter's, it is a very accurate gun.

Most of the bad rep AK gets for precision comes from Mao's knock-offs. Chinese copies account for at least 80% of AK family guns on the worldwide market (e.g. nearly all Mujaheddin used Chinese copies shipped through Pakistan).

The idea that USSR couldn't produce a weapon with high tolerances in 1950s is laughable. It could teach precision machining to perhaps rest of the world, save the USA and Germany.

That reminds me of a quick lock-picking trick that worked better with highly accurate parts with little clearance, than with cheap parts with lots of clearance.

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