Battle of Khe Sanh

Weapons used

• M16 Rifle

  US Marine Corp

• SKS

  The SKS is Sergei Simonov's semi-automatic carbine for the Soviet 7.62x39mm intermediate cartridge, adopted in 1949 and made obsolete in Soviet service within a few years by the AK-47. A gas-operated, tilting-bolt rifle with a fixed ten-round magazine loaded by stripper clip and a folding bayonet, it was simple, accurate and easy to train on, and its second life was vast: China built millions as the Type 56, Yugoslavia, Romania, East Germany, Albania and North Korea produced their own, and it armed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army throughout the Vietnam War.

• AK-47

  The AK-47 is the most produced firearm in human history: Mikhail Kalashnikov's gas-operated assault rifle in 7.62x39mm, built around loose tolerances, a long-stroke piston, and an almost contemptuous indifference to mud, sand, ice, and neglect. Adopted by the Soviet Army in the late 1940s and manufactured with its descendants in the tens of millions, it armed the Warsaw Pact, both sides of dozens of insurgencies, and became a literal flag emblem — the weapon as twentieth-century geopolitics.

• M14 Rifle

  US Marine Corp