Canada quietly loosens limits on assault-weapon exports to Colombia

[happyslug]

6. The preferred Weapon by Columbia is the Galil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_Army#Assault_Rifles

Now the Galil is a derivative of the AK-47, but designed to use American M16 magazines. Its use in the Israeli Army is weird. When designed in the early 1970s it was the result of the Special Forces of Israel given several different weapons to test as a replacement for the FN FAL rifles the Israelis had been using. As a control, the AK-47 was included. The special forces ended up liking the AK-47 the best, thus modified to fire American 5.56 mm ammunition and use M16 magazines (and called the Galil after the Israeli arms designer who made the modifications) it was adopted.

Due to massive American aid, the M16 ended up replacing the FN FAL in almost all infantry and armor units of the IDF. The Field Artillery insisted on using the Galil. I have read many rationales for this, such as the Infantry and armor units preferring the lighter M16 to the heavier Galil, that the M16 was more adaptable to different configurations, unlike the Galil etc. The reason I liked the best was the Galil was loved by various American Supported groups in Latin America, and thus purchased by the US for use in Latin America, while the cheaper M16 was literally given away to Israel.

The Galil is derived from the original AK-47 NOT the Modified AKM-47 that was adopted in 1959 and has spread all over the world. The difference is HOW the weapon is made. The AK-47 was designed to be a stamped out weapon, but in 1947 the USSR did not have the capacity to produce it as an stamp weapon, and thus it was re-designed as a weapon that received as machined instead of stamped. It is this Machined AK-47 the Galil is derived from. The later AKM-47 was modified after the Soviet Union had improved its Stamping capacity to mass produce AK-47s.

To this day the Galil is a machined weapon, like the original AK-47. Like the original AK-47 this made the weapon an expensive weapon to produce, much higher then the Cost to produce the M16 (Thus the Soviet Army made and used the SKS in the 1950s, to arm its units instead of the AK-47, which appears to have been reserved for special units). When the AKM-47 (the stamped version) came out in 1959, it could be produced at a 1/4 of the price of an M16. Thus became the dominate weapon in the world today (And remain so, but the bullpup design Tavor started to replace the M16 and M4 starting in 2001)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMI_Tavor
http://www.defense-update.com/directory/tavor.htm

Anyway, Latin America loved the Galil, it used American Ammunition and American Magazines, but had the reliability of the AK series of weapons. Thus Israel ended up selling most of their Galils to various Latin American Governments and groups and arming its own troops with American M16s (and later American M4s, which is an M16 with a 16 inch barrel instead of the 20 inch barrel of the M16). The Galil's ability to operate, even when neglected seems to be the reason the Israeli Artillery retains it (Armor and Infantry groups do take a lot more care of their small arms then does the Artillery, whose main interest is their Artillery pieces).

Just pointing out, the preferred weapon in Columbia is the Galil, followed by the M16 (FRAC prefers the AK). Canada produces neither, and does NOT have the machinery to produce the Galil. Canada does produce a variation of the M16, so it may be an option. The real question is why now? Columbia is in a low level fight, heavy equipment is NOT usable, what is needed is light weapons (Mortars and downward, along with Helicopter to move troops around) NOT anything bigger (Columbia is looking at Tanks, for some unknown reason, probably more to look good on parade then be effective it their war with FRAC).