Uzi submachine gun
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| Uzi | |
|---|---|
 The Uzi SMG |
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| Type | submachine gun |
| Place of origin | Israel |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Uziel Gal |
| Designed | late 1940s |
| Manufacturer | Israel Military Industries, FN Herstal |
| Specifications | |
| Weight | 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) |
| Length | 470 mm (18.5 in), 650 mm (25.6 in) with stock extended |
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| Cartridge | 9 mm Parabellum, .22 LR, .45ACP, .41AE |
| Action | open-bolt, blowback |
| Rate of fire | 600 round/min |
| Muzzle velocity | ~400 m/s (~1,310 ft/s) |
| Feed system | 10 (.22 and .41AE), 16 (.45ACP) 20, 32, 40 and 50 round magazines |
| Sights | iron sight |
The Uzi (Hebrew: עוזי) is a family of guns that started with a compact, boxy, light-weight submachine gun. Smaller and newer variants are considered machine pistols. The first Uzi submachine gun was designed by Uziel Gal in the late 1940s. It was manufactured by Israel Military Industries, FN Herstal, and others.
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[edit] Design
[edit] Overview
The Uzi uses an open-bolt, blowback-operated design. It and the Czechoslovakian series 23 to 26 were the first weapons to use a "telescoping" ("overhung") bolt design, in which the bolt wraps around the breech end of the barrel (Hogg 1979:157-158). This allows the barrel to be moved far back into the receiver and the magazine to be housed in the pistol grip, yielding a heavier, slower-firing bolt in a shorter, better-balanced weapon.
It is made mostly of stamped sheet metal and has relatively few parts, making it easy to strip for maintenance and making it less expensive per unit to manufacture than an equivalent design machined from forgings. The fact that the magazine is housed within the pistol grip allows for intuitive and easy reloading in dark or difficult conditions ("hand finds hand"). On the other hand, the high grip also makes the weapon awkward to fire when prone.
The weapon also features a grip safety, making it difficult to fire accidentally. Despite the grip safety, the Uzi is notorious for slam-firing when dropped or exposed to sudden shocks.
When the gun is decocked, the ejector port closes, preventing entry of dust and dirt. Though the Uzi's receiver is equipped with pressed reinforcing ridges to accept accumulated dirt and sand, the weapon may jam with heavy accumulations of sand in desert combat conditions when not cleaned regularly.
The Uzi is generally a highly effective weapon, and has been found especially useful for mechanized troops needing a compact weapon, as well as for infantry units clearing bunkers and other confined spaces.
[edit] Cartridge and magazine options
The most usual variant fires the 9 mm Parabellum cartridge, though some fire .22 LR, .41AE, or .45ACP.
Available magazines include 20-, 32-, 40-, and 50-round magazines (9 mm Parabellum), 10-round magazines (.41 and .22LR), and 16-round magazines (.45ACP). All of the above are manufactured by IMI. Other high-capacity magazines exist (e.g., 50-round magazines and 100-round drums in 9mm) which are manufactured by companies such as Vector Arms.
The grip-mounted magazine gives the Uzi a highly distinctive, instantly-recognizable profile, and it is often seen in TV shows, movies, and computer games. In such portrayals, the weapon is often fired one-handed (especially the Mini- and Micro-Uzis) and in some cases even as a pair of weapons, one in each hand.
[edit] History
The weapon was designed by Major Uziel Gal of the Israel Defense Forces following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The design was loosely based on the Czechoslovakian series 23 to 26 submachine guns introduced in 1948 (Hogg 1979:157). The Uzi submachine gun was submitted to the Israeli army for evaluation and won out over more conventional designs due to its simplicity and economy of manufacture. Gal did not want the weapon to be named after him, but his request was ignored.
The initial model was accepted in 1951 and was first used in battle in 1956 and gained huge success. It was soon developed into a number of better engineered variants.
Israeli defense doctrine includes the practice of loading a magazine so that tracer rounds alternate with regular rounds. In operation, the personnel aim by walking the tracers onto the target.
The Uzi submachine gun was used as a personal defense weapon by rear-echelon troops, officers, artillery troops and tankers, as well as a frontline weapon by elite light infantry assault forces. The Uzi's compact size and firepower proved instrumental in clearing Syrian bunkers and Jordanian defensive positions during the 1967 Six-Day War. Advanced and smaller Uzi variations were used by the Israeli special forces until recently, when in December 2003, the Israeli military announced that it was completely phasing the Uzi out of use by its forces but would continue to manufacture the weapon for both domestic use and export.
Total sales of the weapon to date (end 2001) has netted IMI over $2 billion (US), with over ninety countries using the weapons either for their soldiers or in law enforcement.
The German Bundeswehr used the Uzi since 1959 under the name MP2 (especially for tank crews) and is now changing to the MP7.
[edit] Variants
There are several smaller variants of the Uzi SMG:
- Mini Uzi, 360 mm (14.17 in) long and basically a scaled-down version of the Uzi. First introduced in 1980, It comes with a side-folding stock and retains a small forward handgrip. The Mini Uzi weighs about a kilogram less than the Uzi when unloaded. The Mini Uzi has a rate of fire of 950 rpm, or about 16 rounds a second.
- Micro Uzi, At only 250 mm (9.84 in) in length, it is slightly larger than a standard pistol and is about as small as the original Uzi design could be made. It fires from a closed bolt position and has a side-folding stock similar to the one on the Mini Uzi. The forward handgrip is completely eliminated. First introduced in 1986, the Micro Uzi weighs 2.2 kilograms less than the Uzi when unloaded and fires at a rate of 1250 rpm, which can unload the 20 round magazine in 0.96 seconds.
- Para Micro Uzi, designed specially for counter terror units. It was recently developed by the IMI and is in use by the Shabak and the Israeli counter-terror units such as the YAMAM. It has a side-mounted charging handle, a provision which makes room for top and bottom-mounted Picatinny rails. It has an angled pistol-grip to accommodate a 33-round Glock 18 magazine.
- Uzi Pistol, a semi-automatic version of the Micro Uzi developed for sale in countries where the civilian ownership of automatic weapons is restricted, such as many states in the U.S. Externally, it is distinguished by not having a stock or a recoil compensator, as well as a different trigger guard and a slightly different grip design.
- Uzi Carbine, a semi-automatic version of the full sized Uzi SMG, with a longer 400 mm (16 inch) barrel. Was also generally available for sale to civilians in the United States prior to both semi-auto models being banned from import in 1994. New Uzi Carbines are still available from several American manufacturers as of March, 2006.
Those variants are still in use by many special forces and law enforcement agencies in the world - including in Israel, United States and the Sri Lanka[1].
- The unrelated Ingram MAC-10 is often dubbed the "American Uzi" or even mistaken for an actual Uzi because of its similar style of use.
[edit] References
Hogg, Ian V. (1979). Guns and How They Work. New York: Everest House, pp. 157-158. ISBN 0896960234.
[edit] See also
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