The FARA 83 ( es, Fusil Automático República Argentina; "Argentine Republic Automatic Rifle") or FAA 81, "Argentine Automatic Rifle" ( es, Fusil Automático Argentino) was a rifle locally designed and developed for the

Argentine Army The Argentine Army ( es, Ejército Argentino, EA) is the land force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of Argentina. Under the Argentine Constitution, the president of Argentina is the commander- ...

in the 1980s. It is one of the first indigenously designed assault rifles in the continent.

Development

The FAA project started in the early 1980s, when the government was still controlled by the

National Reorganization Process The National Reorganization Process (Spanish: ''Proceso de Reorganización Nacional'', often simply ''el Proceso'', "the Process") was the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, in which it was supported by the United Sta ...

. The

DGFM Fabricaciones Militares, the full name is Fabricaciones Militares Sociedad del Estado (Spanish for Military Industries State Corporation), is a state-owned Argentine arms manufacturer based in Buenos Aires. The company was a government agency un ...

(General Government Directorate for Military Procurements, or ''Dirección General de Fabricaciones Militares'') ordered a replacement be designed for the FMAP FAL, a

FN FAL The FAL (a French acronym for (English: "Light Automatic Rifle")), is a battle rifle designed in Belgium by Dieudonné Saive and manufactured by FN Herstal (simply known as FN). During the Cold War the FAL was adopted by many countries of th ...

license-built in Argentina. The

prototype A prototype is an early sample, model, or release of a product built to test a concept or process. It is a term used in a variety of contexts, including semantics, design, electronics, and Software prototyping, software programming. A prototyp ...

was completed in 1981, but production didn't start until 1984, and continued until 1990. By the late 1980s, under

Carlos Menem Carlos Saúl Menem (2 July 1930 – 14 February 2021) was an Argentine lawyer and politician who served as the President of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. Ideologically, he identified as a Peronist and supported economically liberal policies. H ...

's tenure as president, the country was undergoing economic difficulties. The economic crisis severely limited the production of modern weapons. This factor forced President Menem to cancel several projects, including the Condor I and Condor II, the FARA 83, and

SAIA 90 The FMA SAIA 90 was a cancelled air superiority fighter aircraft project, designed by the FMA (Fábrica Militar de Aviones) with the collaboration of Dornier Flugzeugwerke, Dornier in the mid-1980s. The SAIA 90 was the last stage of the ACA (Av ...

. He was also forced to close armament factories, including TAMSE (''Tanque Argentino Mediano Sociedad del Estado''), which was responsible for the TAM tanks and '' Domecq Garcia Shipyard'' (the only submarine-related shipyard). Production of the rifle ground to a halt after 1193 rifles had been completed, however, it was resumed in 1990; it is unknown how many rifles were made, but for the most part the Argentine Armed Forces are still armed with the FAL rifle, while the FARA 83 is a secondary weapon.

Main characteristics

The FARA-83 was mostly inspired by the Beretta AR70 (Model of 1982). Features include a folding buttstock and

tritium Tritium ( or , ) or hydrogen-3 (symbol T or H) is a rare and radioactive isotope of hydrogen with half-life about 12 years. The nucleus of tritium (t, sometimes called a ''triton'') contains one proton and two neutrons, whereas the nucleus o ...

sights for aiming in low light conditions; the rifle uses a proprietary 30-round

Beretta AR70 The Beretta AR70/90 is a gas operated assault rifle chambered for the 5.56×45 mm NATO cartridge, and is the standard issue service rifle of the Italian Armed Forces. The weapon is also designed to be fitted with a rifle grenade, and has ...

magazine (early issue), and has a trigger group that enables semi-automatic and fully automatic fire.

In Popular Culture

The FARA 83 is featured in the first-person shooter video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War as part of the Season 2 battle pass which is claimed at tier 15.

References

{{Reflist

External links

FARA 83
5.56 mm assault rifles Rifles of Argentina Fabricaciones Militares Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1984