 The Short Automatic Rifle (SAR) with a shortened barrel was issued to vehicle crews, army staff and specialty troops.Although the Galil was the official service rifle of Israel from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, it was never the principal rifle used in terms of numbers.Around 1975, 60,000 M16A1s from the U.S. Military Aid Program (MAP) began to arrive for Israel, which were quickly integrated into IDF service.