AK47 is a typical assault rifle, while the Type 56 assault rifle copied from AK47 in China should actually be an assault rifle, but why is it named "submachine gun" in China? In 1950s, because of the dividend of the Korean War, China's diplomatic achievements and, of course, the generosity of the Soviet Union, the world's largest industrial intellectual property transfer took place between China and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union assisted China in transferring industrial intellectual property rights 150 large projects, and any large project may involve hundreds of thousands of patents. To tell the truth, the first batch of industries in New China was established under this premise.
In fact, AK47 is only one of the sub-projects. China has obtained a complete set of drawings, tooling data, design calculation, dimension chain calculation, test standard specification data, etc. There is no cost for AK47, as well as the standard documents of process requirements, and even a large number of production equipment and tools, as well as the hands of Soviet experts who guide us!
Under the guidance of complete sets of equipment, design drawings and Soviet experts, the domestic model of AK47 was finalized in 1956, so it was named Model 56 in China!
In earlier years, China's understanding of firearms was not perfect, but the definition of submachine gun in China was "a single soldier who is operated by a single soldier, usually equipped with a reducer, and fires pistol bullets or medium rifle bullets", while Type 56 can shoot continuously in terms of performance, and its shape and size are similar to those of 5 1 Type and Type 54 submachine guns to be replaced, and its structural characteristics are also similar, so Type 56 firearms are directly named as Type 56 assault rifles after being finalized.
Type 54 submachine gun installed by our army in the early years
Of course, there is another important reason, that is, the soldiers and frontline soldiers in our country do not understand the definition of submachine guns. The submachine gun is a fully automatic weapon, which is held by both hands and fires hand bullets. The recoil is small and the melee firepower is fierce, which is very different from the Type 56. Bullets are also medium-power bullets, not pistol bullets, and they are not submachine guns at all. It should be called an assault rifle or an automatic rifle!
It was precisely because our country didn't understand the specific difference between these two kinds of firearms at that time that Type 56 was developing all the time, and the name submachine gun was always used for Type 56-2. Of course, this is also a habit, so it is rarely changed. On the basis of shortening the barrel of 56-2, the 56C was changed into a short automatic rifle for some reason. Since the last one hasn't changed, everyone won't. Wouldn't it be better? This rifle is mainly used by armored forces, logistics forces and special forces!
Photo: 56C short automatic rifle, the name has been changed to automatic rifle, and submachine guns are no longer used.
However, the performance of the Type 56 assault rifle in the Vietnamese battlefield is not very good, and the accuracy is not high enough, and the firearms are not stable enough, and they often jam, which completely does not conform to the traditional reputation of abnormal operation resistance of AK47, which also shows that China's firearms technology is still not good. So an 8 1 assault rifle was urgently designed to replace type 56 assault rifle. 8 1 Assault rifles are fixed at 198 1, and troops are equipped at 1983. In this era, both the military and the grassroots have a clear understanding of assault rifles, so assault rifles will not be named "submachine guns".
There is a process to change to type 56. Until the early 1990s, the Type 56 assault rifle was still in service in the army!