Following operations in the Chaco, increased spending on military procurement was authorized in order to ensure that nobody took away the territory that had already once been lost. As a result, given experiences on the Chaco, and reports from abroad, the decision has been made to replace the service weapon of the Bolivian Army, presently a fairly bog standard Czech Mauser, with a more advanced selective-fire design. After a number of approaches to Czech and Belgian armaments producers, Bolivia settled on Swiss firm Waffenfabrik Bern as their desired partner [the recent acquisition by Bolivian officers of a large number of Rolexes has nothing to do with this]. Waffenfabrik Bern has already been working on a new battle rifle dubbed the AK44 for some time, drawing its original heritage from the Soviet SVT-40, but lacking a customer for it these designs have lingered in what might be called "development hell".

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Bolivia then showed up out of nowhere and offered to purchase 40,000 selective-fire rifles if WB could produce them. WB, of course, agreed. The simple matter of rechambering designs for Bolivia's conventional 7.92x57mm Mauser wasn't terribly difficult, and there were a number of prototypes already built that would serve aptly. The result is a selective-fire design based largely on the SVT-40, but with a few aspects from the Gewehr 43 or Tokarev system like a short stroke gas piston and tilting bolt. Swiss experts will get detailed information on the operational performance of the AK47 which is likely to result in a handful of tweaks and improvements to both practices and manufacture once the rifles arrive in Bolivia.

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The AK47, to be officially known [but never actually referred to] in Bolivia as the Enrique Hertzog (Hero of Bolivia, First Class) Rifle, is a battle rifle with selective fire capability, a 10 or 20 round detachable box magazine, chambered in 7.92x57mm Mauser, costing approximately $100 to produce [plus watch and chocolate budget]. It also carries a mounting rail upon which a German-style ZF4 optic can be mounted, giving it potential sharpshooter capabilities. The first several thousand will be delivered in 1948 with the remainder arriving in 1949.