Assault rifle AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies

The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, died today aged 94 in Udmurtia.

The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons. Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain, BBC reports.

Mikhail Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November.

He was born on 10 November 1919 in western Siberia, in a family with 18 children, BBC reports.