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Ero: The Croatian Uzi (With Israeli Help?) (Ad-free)
🕑 Added 2024-01-03 12:00:01 +0000 UTCThe best of the submachine guns made in Croatia during the Homeland War was the Ero, made by a company called Arma. The Ero is a basically perfect, parts-interchangeable copy of the Israeli Uzi that was developed in 1992 and adopted into Croatian Army service in 1993. The only really distinguishable difference between the Ero and Uzi is the Ero's use of Croatian-language selector markings (and receiver markings). Between 15,000 and 20,000 were produced, and they remained in service long after Croatian independence was secured. They were issued to vehicle crews, military police, special forces, and reconnaissance units.
Arma was a subsidiary of a major Croatian engineering firm, and after the Ero production it developed the APS-95 Croatian AK (which is a story for another video). They were a very competent company, but the details and quality of the Ero are so good that I believe it must have been made with tacit or explicit assistance from Israel. Croatia does have a strong Jewish community, and there were rumors during the war that the technical data package for the Uzi did find its way into Croatia. There is no official acknowledgement of this happening, but it would certainly not be hard to believe. But however the development happened, the result was a very high quality submachine gun.
A big thanks to the Croatian Police Museum (Muzej Policije) in Zagreb for giving me access to film this cool piece for you! Check them out at: https://muzej-policije.gov.hr
Comments
Christian D. Orr
Hvalo/Toda raba for sharing! 🇭🇷🇮🇱✌️🇺🇸😎
Vlad Marinkovic
You can call it the war of Croatian independence, although "one of the wars that dissolved Yugoslavia in the nineties" would be much more accurate. Saying that Croatia was Invaded by Serbia is a stretch very few who lived through those wars would make. They were not separate countries, but more-less autonomous regions of the same country back then. In any case, steer clear of whatever political or national agenda they serve you and stick to the firearms at hand.
Guido Schriewer
must be the best subgun back then! would take that 16" civi carbine here...
