Kaokazuka
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Native name | ⴽⴰⵧⴽⴰⵣⵓⴽⴰ |
|---|---|
| State-owned enterprise | |
| Industry | Arms industry |
| Founded | 1943 |
| Founder | Kankanaki Managite |
| Headquarters | Kaokazuka City, Azgwag , |
Area served | Charnea |
Key people | Talak Mmat (Chairman) Immad Ghun (President and CEO) |
| Products | Weapons, munitions |
| Owner | Government of Charnea |
Kaokazuka (Tamashek: ⴽⴰⵧⴽⴰⵣⵓⴽⴰ) is a weapons manufacturing company in Charnea. It produces a wide array of small arms and a large quantity of munitions primarily for the Imperial Charnean Army. Many weapons systems produced by Kaokazuka are foreign designs which have been licenced by the company, although the company is also infamous in international circles for copying designs without authorization and manufacturing them without any modification in an attempt to replace the foreign product in the domestic market. Kaokazuka also posses its own in house design division and is the only Charnean arms manufacturer to produce native arms designs, most notably the Type 66 Kaokazuka Assault Rifle which was accepted as the ICA standard service rifle and is the flagship product of the company. Kaokazuka not only manufactures munitions capable of being used by its own products, but also many calibers and types of munition usable only be foreign made weapons in use by the Charnean military.
History
Kaokazuka, established in 1943 as "Kankanaki's Ammunition Factory" in Agnannet, was originally one of many munitions plants built in Charnea under the SCSA Regime. It was at the time a private company selling ammunition to various local and state militias, owned and operated by its eccentric founder Kankanaki "K3" Managite. In 1958, shortly after Kankanaki's death, the company relocated to a plot of land in rural Azgwag where a much larger munitions factory was built. The company, which at this time was renamed Kaokazuka, would retain its original factory in Agnannet and would later repurpose the building to house the design division and prototype manufacturing center many decades later. In 1960, the company was purchased by the confederate government of Charnea and became a state owned company, expanding its operations to such an extent that workers at the Kaokazuka factory in Azgwag founded Kaokazuka City as a company town adjacent to the factory. This municipality would eventually come to encompass the expanded Kaokazuka manufacturing facilities at that location.
The company was part of an initiative in the 1960s to legitimize the gunsmithing practices in Charnea, in which hand-made copies of popular foreign weapons were entering civilian use. To this end, Kaokazuka began manufacturing unlicensed copies of popular firearms most notably AK pattern assault rifles, flooding the local markets and outcompeting unsafe hand-made versions. In 1963, Kaokazuka opened its design division, which was originally engaged in reverse engineering legitimate foreign rifles for the purposes of making high quality copies using proper equipment. At that time, development began on what would later become the Type 66 KAR, entering production three years later after the prototypes were approved and tested by the Charnean military. The Type 66 is today the most popular product of the company. Many failed prototypes put together by the design division would later enter the civilian market and be mimicked by the very craft gunsmiths Kaokazuka was purchased to push out of business. The relationship between state owned Kaokazuka and the private gun manufacturers in Charnea is today described as "symbiotic", with each inspiring the other through competition, and at times collaboration.