re: #55 William Lewis

The Galil was an interesting rifle. It was based upon a Finnish copy of the AK-47 . But was mostly built in the US M-16 (5.56x45) cartridge. It was intended as replacement for the standard IDF rifle, the FN-FAL after the 1973 war.

(Can’t blame them. The FN-FAL is long unwieldy, heavy and shoots the old 7.62x51 cartridge. Plus it really sucked due to many malfunctions from the desert dust. It got so bad that during the 1973 war a lot of soldiers ditched their FN and scrounged up very old Uzi submachine guns.)

However, as production geared up, the US decided to sell Israel M-16 and M-4’s. The US could produce the M-16 family much more cheaply than Israel could the Galil.

Eta- Galil is the Hebrew word for Galilee.