No, the makeup of the Soviet military in WW2 was pretty proportional in terms of Ukrainians (and other minorities) to Russians. However, much of Ukraine was denied to the Soviet Union as a recruiting ground due to early Nazi successes, so one could argue that Ukrainians were overrepresented in comparison to the overall manpower that the USSR had at its disposal.
This seems unlikely given the population disparity between the Russians and Ukrainians (which was similar then as it is today) and the casualty figures. I can't find actual estimates of the ethnic breakdown of the army, but there are breakdowns of casualties by SSR. Obviously SSR is not a perfect analogue of ethnicity, but the numbers are far enough apart that I think it does the job here. Roughly 65% of military casualties were from Russia, 15% from Ukraine. Ukrainians were one of only two groups to be overrepresented as a proportion of casualty figures relative to their population though, the other being Belarusians.
If you call it a cruiser, there will be a huge debate in the German media about whether Germany is trying to be a superpower again. That’s why everything is a frigate.
The Kalashnikov was really good and has totally proven itself as the people’s battle weapon.
The story of the rise of the Armalite as a reponse is a weird story, but as I’ve researched it (opinions often differ) it wasn’t the AK that killed the M14, but the notion of squeezing three fire teams for M2 machine gun emplacements into a squad, rather than one.
The M14s were lost to M16s as their weight got displaced, but according to the Marines I talked to, they favored the M14 over the M16, and liked the hole they could punch through the enemy (and anything behind them for miles).
That said, later iterations of the Armalite got better.
It really did not help that the original M16s were terrible, plus cleaning kits were sparcely handed out with the myth that the rifle was self cleaning, AND they changed the ammo the gun was originally tested on to a cartridge that had worse performance.
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