Uzi submachine gun

The Uzi is a compact, boxy, light-weight submachine gun. It is manufactured by Israel Military Industries (IMI) and was designed by Uziel Gal (1923–2002).

Design

The Uzi fires the 9 mm Parabellum cartridge (though some variants fire .22LR, .41AE, or .45ACP) using an open-bolt, blowback operated design with a cyclic rate of 600 round/min with a muzzle velocity of ~400 m/s (~1,310 ft/s). The weapon is 650 mm (25.6 in) long with stock extended and 470 mm (18.5 in) without. It weighs 3.5 kg (7.7 lb) empty and 4 kg (8.8 lb) with a fully loaded 25 round magazine inserted. A longer 32 round magazine is also available.

It is made of stamped sheet metal and has relatively few parts, making it easy to strip for maintenance. It features a magazine held within the pistol grip, allowing for intuitive reloading in difficult conditions ("fist finds fist"). The weapon also features a grip safety, making it difficult to misfire. Despite the grip safety, the Uzi is notorious for misfiring when dropped or exposed to sudden shocks. When decocked, the ejector port closes preventing entry of dust and dirt. Also, the bolt wraps around the barrel, allowing a heavier, slower-firing bolt in a shorter, better-balanced weapon.

It is said that although a superb weapon, the Uzi is prone to jamming in desert enviroments because of sand, a fact which possibly contributed to the Israeli military's decision to phase out the gun.

The grip-mounted magazine gives the Uzi a highly distinctive, instantly-recognizeable profile, and as such 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. While theoretically possible, such a method of use would be nothing short of wasting ammunition.

History

The weapon was designed shortly after Israel gained its independence in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. 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 is to load 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 primarily used as a personal defense weapon by rear-echelon troops, officers, artillery troops and tankers. Advance 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 still use the Uzi under the name MP2.

Variants

There are two smaller variants of the Uzi SMG: The Mini-Uzi, 360 mm (14.17 in) long and basically a scaled-down version of the Uzi firing from the closed-bolt position, and the Micro-Uzi, at only 250 mm (9.84 in) in length barely larger than a standard pistol and about as small as the original Uzi design could be made. The Micro is also available as a semi-automatic pistol. A Para Micro Uzi variant, designed specially for counter terror units, was recently developed by the IMI and is in use by Israeli CT units such as the YAMAM.

Those variants are still in use by many special forces and law enforcement agencies in the world - including in Israel and the United States.