IMI Tavor

[He219]

There have already been a few threads on this, but these are new images:


http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030808/i/1060345306.2281914459.jpg

An employee of the Israeli Military Industries shoots the Tavor, a new domestically produced assault rifle slated to replace the U.S. made M-16 in the Israeli Defense Forces, at a shooting range at the production compound in Ramat Ha'Sharon near Tel Aviv, August 8, 2003. A 35-month long Palestinian uprising speeded up the production schedule for the Tavor which is designed specially for urban warfare. *******/Reinhard Krause


http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030808/i/1060345279.2684584025.jpg

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20030808/i/1060345191.2281881692.jpg

Moti Rosen, Vice President of Israeli Military Industries, displays the Tavor, a new domestically produced assault rifle slated to replace the U.S. made M-16 in the Israeli Defense Forces, at a shooting range at the production compound in Ramat Ha'Sharon near Tel Aviv, August 8, 2003. A 35-month long Palestinian uprising speeded up the production schedule for the Tavor, which is designed specially for urban warfare. *******/Reinhard Krause

[Helly]

Seems like the Tavor uses the same mags as that of the M16s/M4s. A wise decision on the IDF's part, if I may say so, considering that the IDF already have tens of thousands of M16s/M4s/CAR-15s so the number of mags for those is probably in the hundreds of thousands. KISS.

~Henjie

[Jooglae]

I guess that bullpup rifles are the trend.

[Helly]

I guess that bullpup rifles are the trend.

Or maybe politics played a part on the IDF decision. The IDF just bought more than 10,000 M4A1s in the past three years or so. Why not just buy more? Especially since the M4A1s cost less than the Tavor (due to the US FMS <Foreign Military Sales> program) and seems to be more adaptable and flexible.

Bullpups have their advantages, but it's funny how special ops units from bullpup-issuing countries like the UK, Australia, France, etc. all seem to prefer "regular" rifles, especially the M4 and its variants.

~Henjie

[fokket]

Good work, Helly,

Helly has hit the correct.

The development of Tavor had no direct relevance with what Israelis wanted from having fought thousands of real combat experience.

True, they wanted short, light rifle but the reason why
Tavor is bullpup was to catch the trend in early 90s.

Being able to retain long barrel while having short overall length
seemed like a good idea (for that moment) and there
was a boom for a while...

And some were issued.

Thing is there's no real advantage with Tavor over
M4s, is it cheaper than M4, No, in fact, 2 times more expensive.

The Israeli soldiers who actually fight wanted AR variants.
(mostly M4)

So the Tavor was put into a real-life test.
The result? obvious, almost no one favored Tavor over M4,

The typical problems of bullpup came up,
(Bad weight balance(I've handled SA80 for 2 1/2 years))

Being in FIBUA/MOUT situ. often, changing rifle shoulder transition
was a concern, with M4, that's no prob. but you have
to disassemble Tavor to do that.

Changing magazine is lot harder than M4,
Yep, changing a mag for bullpup sitting on armchair is easy,
being under HIGH stress makes it really hard
(training was enough for me to realise that)

Major reason that Tavor keeps coming up is due
politics and money, IMI gun dept. which is quite well known
isn't doing well at this moment..
(Galil's phased out, Uzi's not being exported as well as it used to etc.)

IMI was originally planing to sell the gun dept. , but
if IMI does that now, IMI won't get much $$$.

However, Tavor being issued will save IMI and due to that,
there have a lot of pressures and lobbies to the Israeli government.
So Last year July, the government announced that Tavor will be issued,
However, again, the money issue came and it wasn't easy
to buy a rifle that has no significant advantage which costs 1000 USD
each in mass quantity is a joke.

-fokket

[usa320]

ive never held one, but i would personally find holding a bullpup style rifle rather awkward and uncomfortable.

[Sirpad]

Cool down everybody - this whole article is nothing but a publicity stunt devised by the good folks in IMI. because of the huge cut in the in defence budget, the IMI is willing to publish just about everything in order to promote their precious gun...
I have a good friend in one of IDF's most elite units - a unit that thouroughly checked and evaluated the gun (also in combat) - and he says it has some serious down sides. As we have a phrase in hebrew "don't show a fool a half-finished work", and the tavor sure feels like a half-made work.
I's sorry to say that, but think this time i'll go with the M-16.

[warchild1/27scout]

why dont they just do like canadiens and make an m-4 variant like the c-7 or whatever it is and then they can have the gun thier troops want and keep thier money going to an isreali business? i know thats its not that simple and i dont know all the facts of the sit. just another opinion.

[Hullebullen]

If I were an Israeli tax-payer I would be upset with a government that instead of buying cheap M4's ;which I think are a good, solid rifles, buys a rifle that is more expensive and perhaps less battle-worthy. But I guess they are trying to protect Israeli jobs more than getting a good rifle for their troops...

[He219]

Sirpad pretty much summed it up. It sounds like Pork-barrel action to me. 6 BILLION US Dollars in aid this year alone!

http://www.isayeret.com/weapons/assault/tavor/tar-m203.jpg

[budanski]

I've seen a Tavor rifle disassembled, and it seems to me that Israel Military Industries (IMI) isn't even trying to hide the fact that they basically copied the Austrian Steyr AUG in designing it's new Tavor bullpup. Of course, they copied the Galil from the Soviet AK-47, and the UZI from the Czech M23 and ZK476 SMGs.

Going with what works is a smart idea.