Iranian DIO KL-7´62 rifle family

Hello everyone again, and here I bring you a new work by Foreign Kalashnikovs, which will show you some Iranian assault rifles that, as with the Yugoslav Zastava M77 rifles and the Iraqi Tabuk sniper rifles, are also considered a rarity of the Kalashnikov rifles worldwide, since, from their first creation until today, they were exclusive weapons for the special forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as is the case with North Korea and the rifles of Type 98 assault weapons, which are exclusive weapons for North Korean special forces. These weapons have never been seen used abroad and less by foreign fighters. Well, today I will show you the Iranian DIO KL-7´62 assault rifles that, unlike the foreign versions and copies of the Kalashnikov rifles that you have been seeing in my gallery, very little is known about these weapons manufactured by the Iranian company Defense Industries Organization, also known by its acronym DIO. The DIO KL-7´62 assault rifle is, due to the design, morphology and materials of all its parts, a hybrid between a Chinese Norinco Type 56 rifle (for the barrel, the gas tube, the front sight, handguard, magazine and receiver) and a former East German MPiKM rifle (for the stock, pistol grip and handguard made of hard plastic rather than wood and for the scratched receiver cover, which is identical to the cover of the Soviet AKM rifle). These Iranian assault rifles are believed to have been manufactured in the late 1980s to early 1990s, shortly after the end of the Iraq-Iran War, and the story about their origin apparently developed as follows way: Iranian troops, after successfully repelling the invasion perpetrated by Iraqi forces that began in 1980 with the aim of conquering Iran, decided to invade Iraq with the aim of overthrowing the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and destroying the military might of Iraq, as well as inspiring sectarian division in that eastern country. The Iran-Iraq Conflict was fought as a violent and bloody war of attrition or "trench warfare" that was very similar to World War I in Europe, in which both countries did not stop wasting infinite amounts of explosives, ammunition and countless human lives just to advance a few kilometers into enemy territory. For this reason, the Iranian forces, when they fought on Iraqi territory, were forced to replace their German HK G3 rifles (the standard weapons of most Iranian armed forces since the time of the Iranian monarchy) with Iraqi Kalashnikov rifles and to loot the Iraqi troops' warehouses and reserves of weapons and ammunition, due to the frequent shortage of weapons and ammunition they suffered when they needed to be resupplied. There are even numerous reports and accounts of numerous Iranian fighters (especially civilians without military training) sent to the front without weapons, to be used in spillover tactics. In other cases, the Iranian government sent numerous youths and children en masse and unarmed to the conflict to advance on the minefields, in order to detonate the explosives and clear the roads for the passage of tanks and other armed troops. from Iran. After the end of the war in 1988, many Iranian soldiers took with them to their homeland numerous rifles AK-47, AKM, AK-63, (Hungarian versions of the Soviet AKM) Pistol Pistol Mitralieră models 1963 and 1965 (Romanian versions of the AKM Soviet) and a few Zastava M70s (Yugoslav versions of the Soviet AKM, manufactured, used and known locally as Tabuk) that they stole from Iraqi troops. When the Iranian government began to manufacture Norinco Type 56 rifles locally and under license, (that during the 1980s, these weapons were imported from China) the Iranian arms manufacturer Defense Industries Organization decided to design and manufacture its own version of the rifles. Soviet Kalashnikovs and their Chinese variant. Thus arose the Iranian KL-7'62 assault rifles, weapons similar to the Chinese Norinco Type 56 rifle, (the Chinese version of the Soviet AK-47 rifle) but with butts, pistols and handguards made of hard plastic and not wood. , in order to lighten the weight of the weapons, as well as increase the resistance to heat when the KL-7´62 rifles fire long bursts of bullets in automatic mode. There are three versions of the DIO KL-7'62 which are the KLS model, the original version with a fixed stock, the KLT model, a variant with a folding stock identical to that of the AK-47S rifle, and the KLF model, whose folding stock is identical. to that of the former East German MPiKMS rifle and is retracted to the right side of the weapon. And currently, in the Iranian special forces, the KL-7'62 assault rifles are being replaced by the DIO S-5'56 assault rifles, which are local exact copies of the US M16 rifle. I hope you like my new work and, as I always say, another cordial greeting. Until next time!