Type 56

The Type 56 is the Chinese production version of the Kalashnikov rifle and, with more than ten million built, one of the most numerous firearms in the world. In 1955 the Soviet Union transferred technical documentation and production equipment for both the AK and the SKS to China, and manufacture began the following year at State Factory 66. Production later passed to Norinco and PolyTech, who continue to build the rifle largely for export. In People's Liberation Army service it replaced a mixed inventory of Mosin-Nagants, Japanese Type 38 rifles and M1903 Springfields, and was formally designated the "Type 1956 submachine gun" because early Chinese doctrine treated it as a squad automatic rather than a general-issue service rifle.

Early Type 56 rifles were direct licensed copies of the final milled-receiver AK-47, with a fixed wooden stock and a folding spike bayonet permanently attached to the barrel. From the mid-1960s production shifted to stamped receivers, mirroring the Soviet transition to the AKM. The rifle is chambered for 7.62x39mm, uses the standard Kalashnikov gas-operated rotating-bolt action, fires at about 650 rounds per minute and has a muzzle velocity of 735 m/s. Visually the Type 56 is distinguished from all Russian-pattern Kalashnikovs by its fully enclosed hooded front sight; the folding bayonet, produced in three patterns, is the other common identifier.

Chinese variants include:

• The Type 56-1, an AKS equivalent with an under-folding steel stock and the bayonet deleted

• The Type 56-2, introduced in 1980 with a side-folding stock and orange bakelite furniture, built mainly for export

• The QBZ-56C (Type 56C), a short carbine adopted in 1991 and used chiefly by the Chinese Navy

• The Type 84, an export model chambered in 5.56x45mm NATO

• The Type 56M, an RPK-style squad automatic version made only for export

• The Type 86S, a semi-automatic bullpup conversion

Foreign copies include the Iranian KL-7.62 built by DIO, the Sudanese MAZ, the Albanian ASh-78, the North Vietnamese TUL-1 light machine gun and clandestine production by the Kachin Independence Army in Myanmar.

Exported in enormous quantities throughout the Cold War, the Type 56 reached battlefields across Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. It was the Kalashnikov most often encountered by American troops in Vietnam, more common in Viet Cong and PAVN hands than Soviet-made AK-47s or AKMs. Iran fielded large numbers during the Iran-Iraq War, and Chinese, Pakistani and American-brokered deliveries armed the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet forces in the 1980s. The rifle later became the standard weapon of the Taliban and remains in service with numerous state forces and non-state groups. China itself has retired it in favour of the Type 81 and the QBZ-95 family.