Military industry of Egypt

The military industry of Egypt.[1]

History

As World War II had approached its end, Egypt obtained possession of a large quantity and assortment of armaments left behind by Nazi Germany.[2] It possessed large stockpiles of 8mm Mauser ammunition that had been manufactured by a number of Axis countries and allies.[3] Egypt decided to manufacture a semi-automatic main battle rifle, and so purchased the tooling and plans for the Swedish Ag m/42 rifle. They re-engineered this rifle to use the 8mm Mauser cartridge and added a gas adjustment valve. This rifle was called the Hakim, and Egypt manufactured and fielded it from the early 1950s until about 1961. They also briefly manufactured another reengineered Ag m/42, this time chambered for the 7.62×39mm Soviet cartridge, called the Rasheed. These guns were replaced in the 1960s by the Maadi AK-47 a licensed copy of the widely distributed Soviet automatic assault rifle.

During the late 1950s Egypt built the Jabal Hamzah ballistic missile test and launch facility to test-fire and to experiment with the indigenously built Al Zafir and Al Kahir SRBMs.[4]

Egypt was involved in supplying the CIA with various weapons for Operation Cyclone and the Soviet-Afghan war. Officer Gust Avrakotos managed to set up a deal with Abd al-Halim Abu Ghazala for Egypt to manufacture .303 ammunition for the thousands of Lee–Enfield rifles the CIA had supplied to the Mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI. Congressman Charlie Wilson (close with Avrakotos) helped grease the political wheels for the deals to go through.[5]

See also

References
  1. Mikhail, George (2020-03-04). "Egypt boosts local weapons production". Al-Monitor. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  2. "Afrika Korps", Wikipedia, 2022-04-05, retrieved 2022-04-07
  3. "Axis powers", Wikipedia, 2022-03-26, retrieved 2022-04-07
  4. "Egypt - Missile". NTI. James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  5. Charlie Wilson's War, George Crile, 2003, Grove/Atlantic.
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