At the peak of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had put her men against German machines. Luckily for the communist nation, she had a lot of men to be sacrificed.The Soviet troops brought home the tales of the German Sturmgewehr 44, or StG 44, the first successful and widely produced design to use a new shorter cartridge, which permitted controllable automatic fire from a weapon more compact than a battle rifle.The StG 44 was the world’s first ‘assault rifle’; in fact Adolf Hitler was the first person to use the term ("Sturmgewehr" translates to "storm rifle" or "assault rifle"). The Nazi supremacy in gun mechanics prompted the Soviet Union to invest its own resources and people into developing an automatic weapon.Utilizing the 7.62 x 39mm M1943 cartridge, Alexey Sudayev designed the AS-44 assault rifle.Tested in 1944, it was found to be too heavy for widespread use....