One of the most successful items now produced by Ta’as, Israel’s national arms industry, is a kinetic energy shell for tank combat, Ta’as director Michael Shor disclosed today.
Together with a newly-designed small-size Uzzi submachine gun for special purposes, the shells have helped boost the industry’s sales to over half a billion dollars a year.
The kinetic energy shell is of 105 mm. caliber and is equipped with a winged tip which helps send it over long distances with the power to penetrate several centimetres of steel, including the toughest armor in use in any tank in present use.
The new shell is now sold throughout the world, including to relatively highly advanced industrial nations with their own weapons industries, Shor said.
He described it as of “high technical standard relatively cheap and of great accuracy.” Shor said to compete with other arms manufacturers today a country had to be “quicker in supply, cheaper and of better quality.” Israel and West Germany
are the only countries equipped with long-distance rocket shells.
Production of the kinetic energy shell in Israel began in 1978, and since then hundreds of thousands of shells, costing about $1,000 each, have been sold to 16 countries, including members of NATO.
The mini version of the Uzzi was developed in response to the growth of terrorism throughout the world. It is now in the final stages of pre-production and is aimed at use by commandos and other secret anti-terror forces.
It is lighter than the original Uzzi, which was seen in use by President Reagan’s secret service bodyguard during the abortive attack on his life last month. It has a shorter barrel but is just as accurate. It can also be fitted with a silencer.
Shor said that most of Ta’as output was sold abroad, while at the some time helping to build up local stocks. “You can’t wage war from current production. Nobody can produce at the rate at which weapons are used up in fighting. And so you have to have large stocks, “he said. He noted that it took “between one and two years” to replace the ammunition that was used up in the three weeks of the Yom Kippur War.
Shor said he and his colleague were not always happy with the countries to which Israel sold its weapons. “They are not all always cradles of democracy or ideal countries. But the country’s potential must be used in full, for the sake both of our security and our economy,” he said.
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