alternatehistory.com

Is it possible for "Assault rifles" as we know then to have been invented in the 19th century? After all, they had rifles, they had gatling guns, is really to much a stretch for someone to say "what if we put the fire-power of a gatling gun in the hands of a single rifleman?" In OTL the AK-47 is said to be so simple that it can be copied with 16th century gun-smithing technology, So is it possible to invent something like an AK-47 in the 19th century? If so, who would be the country first to make them? How would the presence of assault rifles in the 19th century change the history of warfare?
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