What kind of gun is he carrying?

[Panag]

Originally posted by DanS
Are these guns made in the US or in Israel? Both?

hi ,

only in ct in the usa and liege in belgium ( colt and fn )

have a nice day

[Alvaro]

Colt and quite a few other licensed companies in the USA make the M16's/M4's.

Russia and China make AK's

Fabrique Nationale (Belgium) and Israel make Uzi's

+

read the edit to my first post for what you asked about those weapons in comparison to one another

[DanS]

If the M16 variants cost about $600 new, then how much would an AK-47 cost new? An Uzi?

[Alvaro]

automatic weapons are very illegal.

only black market...

And there are no new Uzis anywhere but in storage warehouses of the IDF

[Panag]

Originally posted by Alvaro
Colt and quite a few other licensed companies in the USA make the M16's/M4's.

Russia and China make AK's

Fabrique Nationale (Belgium) and Israel make Uzi's

+

read the edit to my first post for what you asked about those weapons in comparison to one another

hi ,

both fn and imi stopped making the uzi , ....

in the big post you can see "manufacturer's"

have a nice day

[DanS]

Of course they are illegal. Two items that make me curious: (1) Saddam was paying $2,000 per copy for his AK47s; and (2) AK47s were said to be selling in the markets of the Sadr district of Baghdad for $80 post war.

The US military is said to be buying these weapons back at market price in Baghdad, which is pushing up the prices.

[Spiffor]

I've read in Libération that the usual price for an AK-47 was between 60 and 300 €

[Alvaro]

panag: i related to that in a later post. ("there are no new Uzi's"). both stil carry the licences though. The M.A.G. is in the same status, ofcourse.

As for prices: The IDF gets M16's (long ones after quite some use) at shippment cost every now and then (4 shippments of roughly 35,000 weapons). Same with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (and Egypt too, I think), however with far smaller quantities.

M4's are purchased at 20$-100$ a piece when they are purchased in batches by the IDF.

[Chemical Ollie]

The Uzi does not really belong in this comparison. It is a sub-machinegun (9 mm I presume), a close-range weapon, while all the American assault rifles mentioned and the AK-47 are powerful rifles that could easily kill someone 300 meters away. A 9 mm sub-machine gun bullet could, if the victime is lucky, be stopped by a heavy coat at long range. Baluba warriors used wooden shields (like Impis) to stop the bullets from Swedish UN soldiers' sub-machine guns in Kongo 1962. That helped the Swedish army make the decision to get 7.62 AKs instead.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
Excellent! Thanks, MtG.

Is there anything we can infer by them having these weapons. For instance, is an M4A1 issued to a certain unit or to somebody with a certain function within a unit?

Edit: Also, what are the relative strengths and weaknesses of these weapons versus an AK47 or a standard Uzi? How much do these cost in the US market (not enabled for semi-automatic, of course)?

Theory about optimizing squad and platoon level firepower gets tweaked constantly, so things are subject to change, and my info may well be a bit dated. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children do things their own way, of course - some of the ex-jarhead types like Mr. Dimbleby could better answer for them than I could, if he was still around.

Ranger and air-assault chalks (squads to the lower forms of life except airborne, which still call them squads) typically carry a lot of firepower - three fire teams of four men each, one FT with an M60 MMG, and one or two with M249 SAWs. The remaining fireteam members have one M16A2/M203 and two M4A1s, as a standard, but Ranger units and SOCOM attached units can vary things around according to mission. Since they're considered well enough trained to not target fixate and burn ammo, they're still all issued fully auto - three round burst - single shot semiauto configured weapons.

There's an M203 variant (M203C) that fits under the shorter barrel and vent assembly of the M4 series. The US doctrine on the differences between M16A2 and M4A1 issuance is that the M4A1 (lighter weight, more compact, faster on target, but less accurate at range) is for assault and heavy fighting oriented units - Rangers, SOFs, D-boys, and also a compact weapon for the other combat branches who need a dismount weapon better than a sidearm, but not as cumbersome to handle while dismounting or fighting from around a disabled vehicle. So armor pukes, arty pukes, etc., get M4A1s. (They're replacing the original M4).

Combat Support and Combat Service Support (REMF) unit personnel also get M4A1's, as do MP's. That's according to the more or less current BOIPs (Basis of Issue Plans), but any time a new variant weapon gets into the forces, it does so somewhat piecemeal.

Light infantry (11-Bravo) squads are set up differently from the mechanized pukes (11-Mikes) due to the organic fire support from the Bradleys that the mech pukes get. LI squads have more infantry, and more firepower since they have to hump their own medium weapons, rather than hide behind the fire support of a Bradley. Mech Infantry squads lose a fire team because the vehicle commander is the squad leader, and the gunner and driver take up a couple of grunt slots. They all have M4A1's for dismounted fighting, if they have to operate separate from their vehicles.

The M16A2 limits auto fire to three round bursts per trigger pull, whereas the M16A1 does not. Another thing is the barrel is different - the M16A2 is designed to fire "green tip" M855 ammo, which has a tungsten cap, giving it greater penetration and potential range, thus the barrel is heavier, and has a 1 in 7 twist in the rifling, instead of the earlier 1 in 12 twist.

The Uzi is a machine-pistol, firing 9mm (or .45 ACP in one variant) pistol rounds, in spray and pray mode. Very close in, that's nice to have, but it's usefulness falls off rapidly at range.

AK-47's etc. are in two categories - the older 7.62mm x 39 ammo that the true -47 uses, and the less common (at least in third world export) 5.45mm x 39 ammo that the AK-74 and later variants use.

The 7.62 x 39 round has more hit effect at close range due to the greater mass of the round, but you trade off in rate of fire, accuracy, weight of weapon and ammo, etc. The fact that the Warsaw Pact followed NATO into development of a lighter, smaller, M16esque round speaks volumes.

The 5.45 x 39 round is very close to the 5.56 x 45 round of the M16A2 in performance, with a slight edge in nominal muzzle velocity (actual muzzle velocity is also dependent on the weapon firing the round) and mass. The difference isn't enough to argue over, though. Kalashnikov now makes an AK-101 and AK-102 variant of the AK-100 (the new sexy one for export) that fire 5.56mm NATO standard ammo. That's not a sign that they're giving up on 5.45mm, just a sign they want to cover all the markets. The AK-103 is a listed AK-100 variant that goes back to firing the old 7.62 x 39 cartridge. It makes sense, though, since there's more of that caliber of ammo lying around the world than just about everything else put together.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
Are these guns made in the US or in Israel? Both?

FN (which is Belgian, not French, as some posters in other threads have thought) has a subsidiary in South Carolina which manufactures M16s, M4s and M249s, among others.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by DanS
Of course they are illegal. Two items that make me curious: (1) Saddam was paying $2,000 per copy for his AK47s; and (2) AK47s were said to be selling in the markets of the Sadr district of Baghdad for $80 post war.

The US military is said to be buying these weapons back at market price in Baghdad, which is pushing up the prices.

In Somalia, the going rate for AK's was about $20 US. It depends on supply and demand for both the gun and the currency, of course.

[Chemical Ollie]

Hehe, my friend who has been a UN soldier on 7 missions in Lebanon, Hebron and Bosnia met a Lebanese weapons dealer who wanted to sell him stuff. My friend has a nice collection of bayonnettes but he did not want fire arms. They are illegal in Sweden anyway. The arms dealer offered him Uzis, AK-47:s, hand grenades and all the standard stuff. "Special price for you my friend" My buddy told him: I want a Merkava! (Israeli Tank). "-Yes, off course, come back in a week and I will have one ready for you!" However, he was never able to deliver it... The weapons dealer never embarassed my buddy again.

[Alvaro]

If your buddy really wants a Merkava he can probably find something very similar if he chooses to go on a peacekeeping vacation at South Africa

Not a single Merkava has been lost in tank battle and of the 3 that were ever disabled in Lebanon none were left to the Hezbollah.

[Chemical Ollie]

He asked for the Merkava to get rid of the annoying salesman.