Power to the People

IMI began manufacturing the Galil ARM at its factory in Ramat ha-Sharon in 1971, and the IDF began deploying the new rifle to its troops in 1972. IMI subsequently licensed the Galil assault rifle to be produced in South Africa (1982), Columbia and Italy (later in the 1980s), Croatia (1995), Ukraine (2008), and Chile and Vietnam (2014). Several US c

Following the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) analyzed the performance of their main battle rifle, the Fusil Automatique Léger (FAL) and found it wanting. It did not perform well in the dusty desert environment in which the IDF primarily fought. Examination and testing of Egyptian and Syrian AK-47s and AKMs recovered by the IDF f

Still, as often happens in war, innovation spurred reciprocal innovation. Copying the Ketchum grenade, the Confederacy developed the Raines, which was named after its inventor, Confederate general Gabriel Raines, head of the Torpedo Bureau.

Confederate soldiers stretched out sheets of fabric over trenches and earthworks so the Ketchum grenades would have a soft landing, fail to explode, and could then be thrown back even harder.22

That was almost impossible to accomplish, especially in the midst of a battle, so they rarely worked.21 Plus there were easy countermeasures.

When thrown in an arc, these explosive darts had to hit something hard, square on the nose where the percussion cap was, if they were to explode.

As we saw in the last chapter, gunpowder-filled military grenades had not become a major element of military combat.

In the US Civil War, while both armies used grenades, they were ad hoc and ineffective. In the North, Ketchum grenades, which were patented by William Ketchum in 1861, were shaped like big darts, or iron mangoes sporting four fins, with cylindrical plungers at the nose designed to jab into the tamped gunpowder within.

Terrorists leapt ahead of military tacticians in creating sophisticated small explosive devices that used dynamite.20