#Egypt

In part 1 of this article, I talked about the history of Egyptian AKs, often called “Maadi” or “Misr”. In the second part of the article, I want to talk about the issues I experienced with Maadi AKs and the current developments related to Egyptian AK production.

If you’ve ever seen a cult classic movie “Red Dawn” (obviously I am talking about the 1984 version, not the 2012 remake), you probably remember that all Soviet soldiers were equipped with authentic Kalashnikov rifles. But the guns they were using were not, in fact, Soviet, they were Egyptian AKs. 16 years ago TFB published a post about it when one of the original “Red Dawn AKs” was sold at an auction.

Photo Of The Day – Today we are off to a pretty sandy and warm place, the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Mohamed Naguib Military Base. These images are from the exercise Bright Star 23, and all we’re missing are some Pyramids in the background. There are some pretty interesting sniper rifles in this POTD.

Historically, throughout the 20th century, Egypt had a strong and extensive firearms industry. Hakim and Rasheed rifles, Helwan pistol, Egyptian-made AKs called Maadi or MISR were used domestically and exported throughout the world. But at the beginning of the 21 century, most service weapons in Egypt, especially with the Ministry of Interior, are imported, which means that political turmoils can easily compromise procurement and supply of spare parts for the currently issued firearms. To decrease the country’s military dependence on exports, the Egyptian Military Factory is slowly trying to modernize the firearms they currently manufacture. Two examples of such efforts are the “upgraded 7.62x39mm automatic assault rifle” presented at EDEX-2022 in Cairo and World Defense Show in Riyadh.

The Egyptian Hakim service rifle was a license-produced version of the Swedish 6.5mm Ljungman AG-42 semiautomatic gas impingement rifle. Egypt changed several features such as the grasping grooves, a removable muzzle brake, an adjustable gas system, and no cleaning rod. Some references will state that the Hakim was used in the 1956 Suez Crisis, however, upon review of available serial numbers on the current market, it appears that less than a few thousand Hakim rifles even existed in 1956. From observations of archival media from the war it appears that Egypt had a much great stock of Soviet SKS carbines and Czech Vz.52 rifles from the 1955 Czech Arms Deal which rippled across the Middle East as one of the largest arms deals in the region during that time period.

The Egyptian contract FN49 rifles are a fascinating example of the geopolitics of Egypt became entrenched in the Warsaw Pact side of the Cold War. Adopted in the same era that Nasser was seizing power from the Egyptian royalty, the Egyptian contract numbered approximately 37,000 rifles purchased from FN Herstal in several different orders directly from Belgium. The majority of these rifles were of standard configurations but among these, there were precision rifle variants with Meopta quick-detach optics that are highly coveted on today’s surplus market.

A recent image posted on Egypt Defense Review has shown perhaps one of the more detailed images publicly available of Beretta GLX160 40x46mm Low-Velocity UBGL/Stand Alone configuration grenade launchers in use by Egyptian special operations forces (also in use are CZ 807s). The caption states that these operators are from the “103th Battalion” after a night raid. Due to the rising level of violence in the Sinai Peninsula, it is possible that their location is in Sinai as well. Of particular note here is that this appears to be the second order of GLX 160s from Beretta, being that the first went to Egyptian Naval special operations personnel.

According to a recently published interview with the current director of Česká Zbrojovka in a Czech media platform, the small arms company is currently in the process of launching a small arms plant in Egypt. The director Lubomír Kovařík mentioned in the interview that the plant would be manufacturing both handguns and rifles. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to TFB readers as we reported on the possibility of this opportunity in December of 2017 with the use of 7.62x36mm CZ 807s in use by Egyptian Special Operations forces. Although not specifically mentioned, it is almost certain that the CZ 807 will be manufactured as the rifle Mr.Kovařík is talking about. That being the case, it appears that Beretta might have lost Egypt as a future defense customer for large-scale purchases. Previously Beretta 7.62x39mm ARX160s were in use throughout various units within the Egyptian Army. But with an entire manufacturing plant being built in the country, this has to mean a much larger use of the CZ 807 by Egyptian forces, most likely beyond the Special Operations component. The Egyptian infantry is still mostly armed with locally manufactured “Maidi” AKMs of either a folding stock (more like a folding strut) or fixed stock variety.

Photographs of Egyptian Security Forces armed with 7.62x39mm CZ 807s have recently surfaced, thanks to the efforts of Egypt Defense Review and Mahmoud Gamal, both in-depth analysts of Egyptian defense programs. The 7.62x39mm rifles were recently seen in what appears to be a joint operation with Egyptian Paratroopers and Sa’ka special forces in Egypt. In 2013 we reported that a large contract with Česká zbrojovka Uherský Brod (CZ) had taken place wherein CZ P-07 handguns, Scorpions, and 5.56x45mm CZ 805s were purchased. From the images, at the time it would appear that this was a law enforcement program to Egyptian police forces separate from the defense forces. Now, from various sources online, it looks like Egypt is actually interested in manufacturing the 807 at home, purchasing a manufacturing license from CZ. This process appears to have picked up in May of this year, and there isn’t much information beyond that. We also have a post on Egypt Defense Portal that has this to say about the technology transfer (Google Translate)-

Recent news reports have revealed that an arms cache in use by the Muslim Brotherhood was recently uncovered by Egyptian Security Forces in the vicinity of Alexandria. A number of small arms and explosive devices were uncovered, several of which will be noted below due to their peculiarity. However one of the more important finds to Egyptian authorities is the presence of Iranian-made grenades and anti-personal mines. Finding this evidence is hardly surprising due to Iran’s policies of trying to undermine potential enemies by supporting minority groups in such places as Lebanon and Palestine, to include a number of countries in Africa. The article on the topic also specifically mentions the recent video released by the so-called Islamic State that we covered earlier, on taking shots at Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. In addition, it mentions the Iranian anti-material rifle that is a copy of the HS .50 made by Steyer, labeling it as the “إم 50” or AM50 in English. This rifle was observed to be used by so-called Islamic State sharpshooters in the aforementioned video.

Soon after the release of the so-called Islamic State’s marksmen shots video ( discussed in-depth here), the terrorist organization released another video but this montage focused on the Sinai peninsula in Egypt. The largest difference between the two is the enemy faced and the tactical employment of the IS marksmen teams. In the Sinai IS affiliated shooters are facing troops who are heavily armed compared with the Kurds in Kirkuk. Although these troops are better armed, their counter-sniper tactics, behavior, and reactions under fire aren’t that much better than the Kurdish volunteers that were seen earlier. As an example, we are seeing Egyptian troops at the very same positions and outposts taking far too many casualties than they should be.

Roy sent us these photos of his original Remington Model 1987 Single Action Army that were part of the order delivered to Egypt in the late 1800s. Apparently not many of the 10,000 revolvers ordered by Egypt were actually manufactured. This was because Egypt, or more specially the Khedivate of Egypt, an autonomous state in the Ottoman Empire, had an outstanding debt to Remington for the purchase of Remington Rolling Block rifles chambered in .43 Egyptian.

Egypt has announced that it  purchased 50,000 9mm CZ P-07 Duty, “several hundred” 9mm Scorpion EVO III submachine guns and an unspecified number of CZ 805 BREN A1   assault rifles from Ceska Zbrojovka (CZ) for an undisclosed sum.