Description

As World War II had approached its end, Egypt obtained possession of a large quantity and assortment of armaments left behind by Nazi Germany. It possessed large stockpiles of 8mm Mauser ammunition that had been manufactured by a number of Axis countries and allies. 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.