Although firearms and gunpowder were invented long ago, automatic weapons were not developed until the 19th century. The principle of action is to use the power of powder gases for reloading and firing a new shot. The first such weapon was an easel machine gun invented by Harim Maxim. The advantages of its use were quickly appreciated by the top leadership of many states. In Russia, the first Maxim machine gun was released in 1905 at the Tula arms factory. He had a major drawback, which was its great weight (about 60 kg). In 1908, this problem was partially solved by Sokolov, who designed a wheeled machine for the product.
At the same time, in 1905, the designer gunsmith Fedorov began work on the conversion of a store rifle produced in 1891 into automatic weapons. However, this turned out to be impractical, and in 1906 a draft of a fundamentally new weapon model was created - an automatic rifle with a caliber of 7.62 mm. The first automatic weapon in Russia passed harsh combat tests in 1910-1912. And it came out of them with honor. 150 items were ordered for infantry weapons. By 1913, Fedorov had developed a new automatic rifle and a fundamentally new cartridge caliber of 6.5 mm. 20 rifles were ordered, but World War I interrupted their further production. In 1916, Fedorov invented a new automatic weapon - an automatic machine, the principle of action, which became fundamental in the production of weapons for the infantry troops of the army in almost all states. In other countries, such as Germany, the USA and France, developments were also underway to equip the army, including assault rifles, and a submachine gun designed on their basis. But the homeland of this type of weapon is Russia.
Modern automatic weapons of Russia today are represented quite diverse. First of all, this is the world famous Kalashnikov assault rifle. It is represented by the models AK-105, AK-102, AK-107-108. AK-105 is based on the AK-74M. The AK-102 completely repeats the previous one, but it was designed for 5.56 mm NATO ammunition. AK-107 and AK-108 are the latest models of this machine. Their main difference from the previous ones is balanced automation. Made under the use of standard caliber cartridges for AK and NATO.
Automatic small arms for swimmers, namely the APS machine, has no analogues in the world. Special cartridges with elongated bullets are applied to it, which are able to penetrate the wetsuit protection with foam rubber insulation and 5 mm plexiglass. You can shoot from a machine gun under water or on land in short and long bursts, as well as single shots.
Two more machines deserve to take pride of place in the line of the best and effective weapons. This is the "Thunderstorm", which, in fact, is a combination of the AK-74 and a grenade launcher, and the "Shaft" (with a folding butt, a silent bullet take-off, which is close to a sniper rifle by modification).
Small-sized automatic weapons are presented by the Whirlwind automatic machine. He successfully creates competition for AK of various modifications and foreign analogues. It has a folding butt, the damage range is 200 m. It is capable of penetrating a bulletproof vest with 2 1.4 mm thick titanium plates and a 30-layer Kevlar, as well as a 6 mm thick steel sheet.