SAR-80
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The Singapore Assault Rifle 80 (SAR 80) is an indigenously built, conventional assault rifle from
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
.


History and development

In the late 1960s, the
Singapore Armed Forces The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) are the military services of the Republic of Singapore, responsible for protecting and defending the security interests and the sovereignty of the country. A military component of the Ministry of Defence (MINDE ...
(SAF) adopted the
AR-15 An AR-15-style rifle is any lightweight semi-automatic rifle based on the Colt AR-15 design. The original ArmaLite AR-15 is a scaled-down derivative of Eugene Stoner's ArmaLite AR-10 design. The then Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation ...
as their main service rifle. Due to difficulties in obtaining the rifles from the United States, the Singaporean government purchased a license to domestically manufacture the
M16 rifle The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-r ...
, which was then designated the M16S1. However, the domestic rifle requirements were not sufficient to allow Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS, now
Singapore Technologies Kinetics ST Engineering Land Systems Ltd (STELS), doing business as ST Kinetics, is a strategic business area of ST Engineering and handles land systems and specialty vehicles. In 2000, ST Engineering acquired the Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS) ...
) to economically maintain operations at its rifle factory. Export sales of the M16S1 were not a viable option. Due to the requirements of the license agreement, CIS had to request permission from Colt and the US State Department to allow any export sale, which they rarely granted. In the early 1970s, Sterling Armaments Company engineers had developed their own 5.56 mm rifle design, the Light Automatic Rifle (LAR), but this had been shelved when Sterling acquired a manufacturing licence for the US-designed
Armalite AR-18 The ArmaLite AR-18 is a gas-operated assault rifle chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition. The AR-18 was designed at ArmaLite in California by Arthur Miller, Eugene Stoner, George Sullivan, and Charles Dorchester in 1963 as an alternative t ...
assault rifle. While Sterling could not legally sublicense the AR-18, their AR-18 derived Sterling Assault Rifle (SAR) was available. This was based on a refined version of the Light Automatic Rifle, fitted with an AR-18 trigger group. Sterling licensed the SAR design to CIS, who put it into production as the SAR 80. The successor to this weapon is the
SR-88 The SR 88 (Singapore Rifle 88) is an assault rifle designed and manufactured in Singapore by Chartered Industries of Singapore (CIS, now ST Kinetics). Development Following the poor sales of the SAR 80, and with their involvement with the Ste ...
.


Users

*: Seen in the hands of Central African
Gendarmerie Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...
. *:
Croatian Army The Croatian Army ( hr, Hrvatska kopnena vojska or HKoV) is the largest and most significant component of the Croatian Armed Forces (CAF). Role and deployment The fundamental role and purpose of the Croatian Army is to protect vital national i ...
. *:
Papua New Guinea Defence Force The Papua New Guinea Defence Force (PNGDF) is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Papua New Guinea. It originated from the Australian Army land forces of the territory of Papua New Guinea before independence, coming into be ...
. *:
Slovenian Army The Slovenian Ground Force is the primary component of Slovenian Armed Forces. History The current Slovenian Armed Forces are descended from the Territorial Defense of the Republic of Slovenia (''Teritorialna Obramba Republike Slovenije''; ''T ...
. *: Somalia received SAR 80s during the 1980s. Most seen in the Middle East, heavily modified by various forces fighting in the region. * * * Some used by
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (french: Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR) is an armed rebel group active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As an ethnic Hutu group opposed to the ethnic Tuts ...
in
Democratic Republic of Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...


See also

*
SA80 The SA80 (Small Arms for the 1980s) is a British family of 5.56×45mm NATO service weapons used by the British Army. The L85 Rifle variant has been the standard issue service rifle of the British Armed Forces since 1987, replacing the L1A1 Se ...
*
Leader Dynamics Series T2 MK5 The Leader T2 MK5 Series firearms were chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge and manufactured by Leader Dynamics of Smithfield, NSW, Australia (1978-1982/1983). The Leader was the brainchild of British weapons designer Charles St. George. ...
*
Heckler & Koch G36 The Heckler & Koch G36 (Gewehr 36) is a 5.56×45mm assault rifle designed in the early 1990s by German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch as a replacement for the heavier 7.62×51mm G3 battle rifle. It was accepted into service with the ''Bu ...
*
List of assault rifles An assault rifle is a rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge, a detachable magazine, and can switch between semi-automatic/ fully automatic fire. Assault rifles are currently the standard service rifles in most modern armies. Some rifles lis ...


References


External links


Modern Firearms
{{DEFAULTSORT:SAR-80 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifles Assault rifles of Singapore