My Son The Gun Designer, He Could Have Been A Doctor

As the Gaza War seems to be winding down with Hamâs in ruinsÑto no one’s sorrow but Iran’sÑI thought we could take a look at the rifle that the average Israeli soldier has carried over the years.

In the Israeli War of Independence, Israeli fighters were armed quite haphazardly. Czech knock-offs of German weapons predominated in small arms: the bolt-action Kar98k rifle (and MG34 general-purpose machine gun) predominating. However, the cheap, handy, easy-to-fabricate British Sten gun was very widely used as well and is probably the iconic weapon of that war.

By 1967, Israel had largely adopted French weapons, and its soldiers carried the world-standard battle rifle of the 1950s to 1970s, the Belgian FN-FAL, an extremely lethal weapon in the hands of a skilled soldier. Firing a full-sized rifle round, the FAL gave the average Israeli soldier a distinct advantage in range, accuracy, and firepower over its Arab enemies who almost uniformly carried Kalashnikovs (AKMs).

The FAL’s fine tolerances, however, proved sensitive to dust and sand, something Israeli battlefields had in quantity. Consequently, the incredible durability and dependability of their enemies’ AKMs impressed the IDF profoundly. When the Israelis built up their indigenous weapons industry, they decided to combine the best of the FAL with the best of the AKM. The result was the Galil battle and assault rifles (among other variants), the former firing a full-sized rifle bullet, the latter the M16’s intermediate-caliber round. The Galil was an impressive design, building off of Finland’s terrific improvement of the Kalashnikov, the m/62. Western Kalashnikov variants like the Galil and the various iterations produced by the Finns over the years are often excellent weapons: they can combine the Kalashnikov’s incredibly robust action with better manufacturing standards and accuracy (befitting the more professionally-trained armies who use them).

Unlike its little contemporary, the Uzi submachine gun, the Galil didn’t become ubiquitous in Israeli service, despite all its excellent qualities (including the built-in bottle opener). The French, having imposed an arms boycott on Israel in 1967, caused the Israelis to rethink their dependence on French weapons, and American ordinance filled the vacuum. Along with the big-ticket items, U.S. industry could export thousands of surplus M16s very cheaply, so many made their way into Israeli service. (Often subsidized through the Foreign Military Sales program.) Galils were slowly, but not entirely, phased out of the IDF, becoming largely an export item to militaries in places as varied as Estonia, Burma, Tonga, Djibouti, Mongolia, Chile, Botswana, and Nepal.

The M16’s short-barreled progeny, the CAR-15 and the M4, appeared in quantity in the IDF beginning in the ’70s, and became increasingly common as Israel’s primary security challenge changed from army-to-army war to confronting armed Palestinian groups. The shorter-barreled weapons were handier and easier to use in urban warfare: A rifle frequently can’t be carried ready at the shoulder when going through a door, around a tight corner, or through a twisty maze of alleys. Left vulnerable, a soldier can be shot before being able to bring his weapons to bear.

Alas, as the U.S. military has learned to its cost in Iraq and Afghanistan, M4-style cut-down M16s are problematic weapons. The M16 fires a particularly small bullet whose lethality comes from its speed. Fired from a shorter barrel (14½" compared to 20"), the M4’s bullet has less time to accelerate and does not achieve as high a velocityÑand therefore loses lethality.

The Israelis appear to have learned this lesson earlier than the U.S. They have developed a new assault rifle, the Tavor TAR-21, which has a bit of a sci-fi aesthetic. The Tavor is a “bullpup” rifle, with its magazine and action behind the trigger and grip.

This configuration neatly solves two problems. The lethality issue is managed by firing the bullet down an 18+" barrel, resulting in a much-improved muzzle velocity.

By placing the action and breech of the barrel behind the grip, moreover, the weapon’s overall length is shortened considerably, creating a small, handy weapon with a more natural center of balance and point of aim. The British, it should be remarked, took the exact same lesson from the urban-warfare school of Northern Ireland during the Troubles, adopting the SA80 bullpup rifle (now known as the L85A2 after Heckler & Koch’s upgrade to correct the disastrous design and manufacturing flaws in the original).

The Tavor seems to be an excellent, next-generation rifle. It handily won a competitive trial against the M16/M4 within the IDF, leading to the decision that the Tavor is the IDF’s rifle of the future, despite their costing about three times as much. Budget constraints (and perhaps the availability of FMS funds) have kept the Tavor from being issued to all Israeli soldiers, but its issue to elite units was very successful, with only minor problems noted in its initial issue of 1999–2002.

The Tavor has also found success in the international market, with the special forces of Azerbaijan, Colombia, Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Peru, and Turkey currently carrying them. The Royal Thai Army intends to replace its entire stock of M16s with Tavors. A number of national police forces have adopted it for special units, including Guatemala’s and Portugal’s. RPC Fort, a Ukrainian state-owned company has even negotiated a license to manufacture Tavors (and other Israeli weapons) domestically.

The Tavor joins a good number of bullpup rifles catching on worldwide: most prominently the Belgian FN F2000, Singaporean SAR-21, Chinese QBZ-95, and the Croatian VHS, which presumably replaces Betamax rifles.* The first practical designs came out of Britain and the Soviet Union, in the late 1940s, but practically, the bullpup’s success dates to the Steyr AUG (Austria) and FAMAS (France) achieved excellent results and wide adoption beginning in the 1980s.

Interestingly, Israel’s sworn enemy, Iran, has also developed a bullpup rifle, the KH-2002 by modifying a Chinese knock-off of the M16. The "KH" stands for Khaybar, a Jewish oasis city in Arabia conquered by Muhammad’s army in 628 (breaking the Treaty of Hudaybiyya) and from which the Jews were expelled by Caliph ‘Umar some years later. Making the same allusion, Iran’s flunkies, Hezbollah, dubbed a class of missile “Khaybar” in 2006. And there’s a popular Arab chant: “Khaybar, Khaybar, yâ Yâhûd! | Jaysh Muhammad sawf ya‘ûd!” (“Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jew! | The army of Muhammad shall return!”-- To which Israelis presumably respond, “Scoreboard! Scoreboard!”)

So, there’s a scorecard for you for checking off what rifles you might see IDF guys carrying on CNN or the BBC. Next time, we may venture a little farther from the headlines.

* I kid the Croats. It stands for Višenamjenska Hrvatska Strojnica, or “Multifunctional Croatian Assault Rifle.” Still, you might be able to snag the contract if you introduce a “super firearm of destruction” (Divno Vatreno oru?je Destrukcije).