The FN FAL Battle Rifle
Page 9
While the British used the SUIT, the Argentines employed scope-sighted FALs, many of them having high-quality German Hensoldt Zf scopes, and they also produced a dedicated FAL dust-cover scope mount for them. This Argentine mount is very solid and holds the scope much lower to the bore than the German STANAG mount, making it easier for a rifleman or sniper Royal Marines conduct weapons to get a cheek weld with the stock. The Argentines also possessed some training with their L1A1s aboard a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel during
dedicated sniper rifles, such as the US Model 700 Remington with 3–9× the voyage to the South Atlantic.
Redfield scope, and the M21; these proved deadly in well-trained hands.
(IWM FKD 2200)
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Falklands: FALs on both sides (previous pages) During the Falklands War of 1982, both the Argentine and British forces were equipped with a version of the FAL. The former used the standard-design FAL with full-automatic capability, while the latter had the semi-automatic-only SLR. Both sides also used the FN MAG 58, but only Argentina used the heavy-barrelled FALO SAW version of the FAL.
In a battle lasting for hours during the night of 13/14 June 1982, 2nd Battalion, The Scots Guards, fought unsuccessfully to drive the Argentine defenders of the Batallón de Infantería de Marina 5 from their dug-in positions atop Tumbledown Mountain. By 0200hrs the battle was essentially stalemated. In an attempt to break this stalemate before daylight found the pinned-down Guards exposed in the open, Major John Kiszely led a small group of men up a gully and was able to outflank the Argentine positions.
Here we see the final moments of their charge, the Guards armed with their SLRs with bayonets fixed. The Argentine Marines shown here have been engaging British forces below with their standard FALs and a bipod-mounted FALO. One man has an AN/PVS-4 night-vision scope mounted on his FAL. With the many night battles in the conflict, Argentine marksmen armed with such sights proved highly effective.
A British sniper who served in the Falklands recalled that in
exasperation with his rusty L42 Enfield he threw it away, picked up an Argentine FAL and used it as an impromptu sniping rifle for the rest of the campaign. Although it had no scope he commented that the lack of one was no hindrance, as it ‘worked just fine out to four or five hundred yards’ and the British scopes had all fogged up anyway. (Pegler 2006: 289) Some Argentine forces were also equipped with the American
AN/PVS-4 night-vision scope, which could be mounted on the FAL among other weapons, such as the FN MAG GPMG. It was a second-generation night-vision device (NVD), giving the user a good viewing range of 400–600m (437–656yd), with a range-finding and BDC reticle calibrated for the 7.62mm NATO round. It weighed 1.8kg (4lb). Argentine snipers equipped with the PVS-4 proved particularly deadly in the numerous night battles that occurred in the Falklands, a relative handful of these sharpshooters inflicting casualties far out of proportion to their numbers.
In contrast, British forces had only the ‘Starlight’ AN/PVS-2 night scope, known as the Individual Weapon Sight (IWS), a first-generation NVD weighing 2.7kg (6lb) and with a range of only 300–400m
(328–437yd). Still, they made good use of it mounted on the L1A1. In addition to sniping individuals, a shooter armed with night sights would fire tracers at a target he had identified to guide the fire of his mates.
Technology notwithstanding, night fighting remained a particularly bloody and brutal short-ranged kind of combat. Corporal Steven Newland of 42 Commando Royal Marines described in detail the confused night combat on Mount Harriet on 11/12 June 1982. Believing his troop was pinned down by a single sharpshooter, Newland and another Marine crawled up silently through a maze of boulders. Instead of a lone sniper, there were ten Argentine soldiers, including one armed with a GPMG.
They were taking only occasional single shots at the British below to give 60
the impression of a single shooter. They were apparently hoping to lure
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the Marines into an assault on what they would think was only a single British soldiers heavily laden with sniper, at which time they could open up with the machine gun and all SLRs and gear wait to embark by their rifles when their targets emerged into the open – a perfect ambush. helicopter. (IWM FKD 2124) At about the same time Newland discovered this, he also found himself all alone, having lost his companion somewhere along the way.
The corporal made one of those apparently crazy combat decisions in which sheer audacity can succeed; he would assault the Argentine position single-handedly. Newland described the action:
Then having made up my mind I picked up my SLR, changed the
magazine and put a fresh one on and slipped the safety catch. I then looped the pin of one grenade onto one finger of my left hand and did the same with another. I was ready. So I thought, ‘Well, you’ve got to do something.’ I pulled one grenade, whack – straight onto the machine gun. Pulled the other, whack – straight at the spics [ sic; a derogatory term used by the British of their Argentine opponents]. I dodged back round the rock and heard the two bangs. As soon as they’d gone off I went in and anything that moved got three rounds. I don’t know how many I shot, but they got a whole mag. I went back round the rock, changed the mag and I was about to go back and sort out anyone who was left … (Quoted in Arthur 1987: 350)
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Newland had to pull back momentarily
as the British troops below fired two
66mm LAW rockets at the Argentine
position, then went back in again:
I went up by a different route and as I
rounded this rock, I saw one of the
guys that I’d hit. I’d only got him in
the shoulder but he’d gone down like
the rest of them and in the dark I’d
automatically thought he was dead.
But he was far from that, because as I
came back round the corner, he just
squeezed off a burst from his
automatic. He must’ve realized he was
going to die unless he got me first. I
felt the bullets go into both my legs. I
thought, ‘Shit, I’m hit.’ I was so angry
I fired fifteen rounds into his head.
(Arthur 1987: 351)
Many commentators and observers
lauded the extra ‘firepower’ the
Argentine forces enjoyed in having
FALs capable of full-automatic fire, but
this feature, nearly uncontrollable,
generated much more noise than hits.
Attacking Two Sisters (11/12 June
1982), one company of Royal Marines
from 45 Commando was pinned down
for an hour by a massive volume of
Argentine small-arms and mortar fire.
A Royal Marine with his L1A1
Despite the swarms of bullets coming in their direction, the Marines found rifle in the Falklands.
that the only casualties they suffered came from shrapnel from the mortar (IWM FKD 94)
bursts. In the battle for Wireless Ridge (13–14 June 1982), it was noted that only one Para was actually killed by small-arms fire. The indiscriminate shrapnel from mortars and artillery fire inflicted the majority of casualties.
The 1/7th Gurkha Rifles arrived too late for the majority of the major land battles of the war, but their experiences mirrored those of the Royal Marines. All the Gurkhas’ wounded were hit by indirect fire, and the lone Gurkha killed outright was the victim of a landmine. One Argentine soldier complained that he and his colleagues had been told they had stockpiled ammunition sufficient for three to four days’ wor
th of battle, but that they had burned up practically all of it in two to three hours of actual combat (Middlebrook 1987: 255).
In a spirited counter-attack mounted by Argentina’s 7th Infantry Regiment to push the British Paras back off Mount Tumbledown, Private Horacio Benitez was one of approximately 20 men who gained the summit.
As a FAP-gunner, he fought bravely against the inevitable British counter-62
attack, but did not feel his extra firepower did much good: ‘Sergeant
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Vallejos told me to open fire with my FAP. I fired a magazine of twenty rounds; when I was replacing the magazine, it seemed to me that the British were laughing. I opened fire again. Then the British rushed at us. I fired another magazine and then got into some cover’. (Quoted in Middlebrook 1990: 148). The firefight raged on and Benitez soon ran out of ammunition for his select-fire weapon. While trying to scrounge magazines from the body of a nearby casualty, he was severely wounded when a British bullet penetrated his helmet, and knocked him out of the fight.
The one aspect in which the Argentines’ full-automatic FALs did provide a decided edge was in use against British aircraft, particularly helicopters. On the very first day of the battle, a group of Argentines reported by a British pilot as ‘About forty men, firing automatic rifles’
(Arthur 1987: 73) did serious damage to the British helicopter force in remarkably short order. Dubbed the ‘Fanning Head Mob’ by the British, Argentine FAL rifles piled beside this was actually a small detachment known as ‘Eagle Detachment’ under the road leading to the airfield at Port Stanley, after the Argentine
the command of 1st Lieutenant Carlos Esteban. These were actually the surrender on 14 June 1982. (IWM
only Argentine forces close enough to oppose the unexpected British FKD 366) amphibious landing at San Carlos
(21–25 May 1982), but they were
too few in number to offer real
resistance. When the landings
began, Esteban withdrew his
small force out of the village of
San Carlos and into the hills.
To the Argentines’ amazement,
British helicopters began flying
over. The first, a Westland Sea
King HC.4, passed by the
Argentine infantry unscathed, but
the Argentines were now alerted
and had the range. The Sea King’s
escort, a Westland Gazelle AH.1,
flew within 91m (300ft) of the
Argentines. Eagle Detachment
unleashed all the fire they could
from their FALs and FAPs on full-
automatic; the helicopter was hit
numerous times, but the pilot
successfully made a forced
landing in the bay. As the
crewmen, one already injured,
swam from the Gazelle, some of
Esteban’s men opened fire on the
men in the water, and continued
to do so until the lieutenant
stopped them; one of many
regrettable incidents in that war,
and one that caused great anger
among the British force.
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As Eagle Detachment climbed to higher ground, another Gazelle appeared. Esteban reported:
The small one nearly came over us; it was only about thirty or forty metres away. We opened fire and it was hit at once. It crashed only ten metres from me. It didn’t burn but was badly crushed. I could see that both of the crew had died at once. Then another Gazelle came in. We opened fire on that one, and it got out quickly. (Middlebrook 1990: 148)
Unknown to the Argentines, they had done far greater damage than merely scaring off the helicopter. The second Gazelle had sustained hits from at least 14 7.62×51mm rounds, one passing through the cockpit and another knocking one of the blades off the tail rotor. Only the extreme skill of the pilot enabled the heavily damaged chopper to limp back to and land on the Landing Ship Logistic Sir Galahad.
On the British end of things, small arms became part of their air-defence system in San Carlos Bay when surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) alone could not stop the aggressive Argentine air strikes. The Argentine jets came in low and fast, the terrain around the bay cluttering British radar. The warships of the Royal Navy were primarily armed with Sea Dart high-altitude SAMs; only a very few had low-level Sea Wolf SAMs.
Ashore, the vaunted Rapier missile systems of the ground forces took considerable time to get up and running, components having suffered from poor handling and rough seas en route. The Shorts Blowpipe man-portable SAM was nearly useless: ‘like trying to shoot pheasants with a drainpipe,’ according to Brigadier Julian Thompson, the British land commander in the Falklands conflict.
So the guns were brought back. Some of the ships had their decks virtually lined with GPMGs on improvised anti-aircraft mounts. Marines and seamen even armed themselves with L1A1s, often equipped with 30-round L4 Bren magazines and doctored to fire on full-automatic. When within range, the ground troops also unleashed every weapon at their disposal at attacking Argentine jets. The background audio of film footage of the air strikes in ‘Bomb Alley’ sounds like popcorn from the continuous crackle of small-arms fire.
That small arms needed to be integrated into the air-defence system showed that the British had placed too much faith in high-technology missiles. Some US Army officers seemed fascinated by this use of infantry weapons in the age of modern technology and later studied these actions in detail:
British troops were preparing to move out of the beachhead at San Carlos Bay when four Argentine jets flying at a low level appeared without warning and headed out over the water. Forces on the ground firing small arms and automatic weapons placed a ‘curtain of lead’ in front of the flight path of the aircraft. As the four aircraft exited from the area, pieces of the tail section from one of the Mirages began to fall 64
off and smoke appeared to be coming from out of its side just before
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it crashed … The use of a higher proportion of tracer rounds can Royal Marines of 40 Commando
disturb an enemy pilot's concentration enough to cause him to miss the raise the British flag on West
target or abort his attack plan. (Cozad 1988)
Falkland after the Argentine
surrender. (IWM FKD 435)
In terms of the ground fighting, the battle for the Falklands was an acid test of the debate about the value of aimed semi-auto fire versus full-auto fire, a debate conducted largely through the FAL. In 1983 – not long after their involvement in the Falklands – a company of 1st Battalion, 7th Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Gurkha Rifles conducted joint training with US
Army Rangers at Fort Lewis, Washington State. The Rangers were, of course, suitably impressed by the Gurkhas:
Unlike American forces, who believe in small-caliber, fast-shooting semi- or full-auto rifles, Gurkha riflemen carry British-made FN
semiauto only rifles in 7.62mm NATO caliber. Their legendary steel-clad nerves, which according to numerous reports allow them to return slow fire even when being shot at by automatic weapons, account for their philosophy of ‘one kill for one shot’. And that’s how they’re trained … they make every shot count … ‘We find that the extra weight of the larger caliber doesn’t matter with the Gurkhas, because they’re so strong,’ offered Palmer [Captain John Palmer, Officer Commanding C Company, 1/7th Gurkha Rifles]. ‘But the increased range and killing power possible with the 7.62, plus the effectiveness of aimed fire, makes them a very deadly soldier in combat …’ (Zambone 1983: 68) 65
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CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA
In Cuba, the revolution to overthrow the regime of president turned dictator Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (
1901–73) sputtered from 1953 to 1956 before breaking out into fully fledged guerrilla warfare against government forces. When the United States could no longer overlook Batista’s excesses, his principal source of arms and ammunition dried up, and he turned to Europe and procured FALs and heavy-barrelled FAPs.
Thus FAL variants appeared in the hands of both sides – but then so did just about every type of military firearm.
Guerrilla leader and future head of state Fidel Castro (1926–) himself was most noted for his use of a scoped bolt-action Winchester Model 70
sporting rifle in .30-06 calibre. Later, he acquired an FAL as his personal weapon. When he marched victoriously into Havana with his rebels in 1959, he was carrying an FN-made Venezuelan FAL in the unusual 7×49.15mm ‘Liviano’ calibre. Weapons in this calibre were later rebarrelled to 7.62×51mm NATO.
The FAL as a SAW
sight; adjustable for 200–1,000m
SAW stands for squad automatic weapon, essentially an LMG
(219–1,094yd)
used to provide a base of fire to suppress the enemy while the Sight radius:
534mm (21in)
riflemen in the squad or section manoeuvre on that enemy.
Cyclic rate of fire:
675–750rds/min
Examples of earlier weapons serving in this role would include Effective rate of fire:
75rds/min