Tag Archives: captured FAL

A toast to the Marina de Guerra del Peru

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As part of my curiosity when it comes to everything naval, I follow a lot of fleets around the world, and the Peruvian Navy has been very busy in the past few months.

Besides the Caribbean cruise of the tall ship BAP Union to participate in Operation Sail 250 (which is what I am enjoying in New Orleans this week!), the fleet has been getting it done.

Submarino BAP Chipana

Peru has a rich 100+ year submarine tradition and operates a six-pack of German-made Type 209/1100 (Islay-class) and 209/1200 series (Angamos-class) SSKs delivered in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

One of these, the Angamos-class BAP Chipana (SS-34), recently left her homeport headed West to join U.S. forces in RIMPAC and SUBDIEX, both of which she has participated in in the past.

Commissioned in October 1982, Chipana gave 35 years of dedicated service without incident in the first half of her career.

I say “first half” because Chipana last year completed an intensive 7.5-year (December 2017 to June 2025) reconstruction and modernization by SIMA in Callao. This consisted of the installation of the new Kallpa fire control and combat system, 480 new high-performance batteries, four new Rolls-Royce-MTU engines, a new Siemens electric motor, a new Hensoldt SERO 250 optronic mast, the Elbit Timmes II ESM system, and the ability to launch SM-39 Exocet anti-ship missiles and AEG DM2A4 Seehecht (SeaHake Mod 4) and Leonardo WASS Black Shark torpedoes.

She was essentially hauled on dry land, cut open, scooped out, and refilled with all new stuff, then put back together and refurbished, all under the watchful gaze of ThyssenKrupp advisers sent from Germany.

This is expected to give her at least another 15 years of service life, and her three Type 209/1200 sisters will follow in similar modernizations. This should buy enough time to develop a local submarine production line (with assistance from HHI) at SIMA.

Peruvian Type 209s have deployed to California’s Naval Base Point Loma as part of the U.S. Navy’s Diesel-Electric Submarine Initiative (DESI) program no less than 20 times since 2001, typically a 2-3 month deployment that sees the submarino both serve as a “target” for ASW forces and work alongside surface assets to better interoperate in multi-national task forces.

PACIFIC OCEAN (Nov. 1, 2019) An MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopter from the Magicians of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 35 conducts a hoist exercise with the Peruvian navy submarine BAP Angamos (SS-31) off the coast of San Clemente Island. HSM-35 is conducting antisubmarine warfare training to maintain readiness by utilizing a live submarine. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Patrick W. Menah Jr./Released)

Meanwhile, in the green inferno

The Peruvian Naval Infantry brigade (Infantería de Marina del Perú) has also been heavily involved with the Army’s 2a Brigada de Protección de la Amazonía along the country’s Amazon border regions with Colombia and Brazil in counter-narco operations and in wrapping up illegal mining operations and general banditry.

The IMP (unfortunate acronym) is distinctly armed with a combination of FN 2000 “Tactical Tuna” rifles, IMI Galils, and FN SCARs, so they stand out.

And, of interest to all the gun nerds that follow this page, the captured weaponry taken off aforementioned narcos and banditos is amazing, including homemade MAC-10s, condemned FALs, shorty Galils, and the occasional MP5K and M1A1.

 

The Refuse of War, 40 Years on

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On 14 June 1982, the two-brigade-sized British Army and Marine force secured the final defeat of a reinforced division-sized Argentine military element in the Falkland Islands.

Original telex message from Major-General Sir Jeremy Moore to London announcing the recapture of the Falkland Islands, 14 June 1982. The signal, marking the end of the Falklands War (1982), is based in part on a similar surrender signal sent to Winston Churchill by Field Marshal Montgomery from North West Europe in May 1945. NAM. 2013-11-17-1

As the Argentines were quickly repatriated, sans equipment and arms (except for being able to march off with their unit flags while the officers, in an ode to chivalry, kept their sidearms), the invaders left behind a lot of gear that became the property of the Crown.

A rubber-booted SAS man, armed with an M16, inspects captured Argentine weapons in the Falklands. In his hands is an American-made M3 Grease Gun SMG. The pile includes a 90mm M20 “Super bazooka,” assorted FN FAL rifles, and other items, now all “property of the Queen.”  

Captured Argentinian firearms following their surrender. Note the FALs and FN MAG 58s

A Royal Marine Commando is very happy with his second-hand Argentine M20 3.5-inch Super Bazooka, of U.S. origin

The haul included:

100 Mercedes-Benz MB 1112/13/14 trucks (Which the Argentines bought on credit and did not pay West Germany for)
20 Unimogs
20 Mercedes-Benz G-Class jeeps
12 French Panhard ERV 90mm armored cars
1 SAM Roland launcher
4 SAM Tigercat launchers
1 Improvised shore-based Exocet ASM launcher with four missiles
3 CITER 155mm L33 Guns
10 Oto Melara Mod 56 105mm pack guns, along with 11,000 shells
15 120mm RCLs with rockets
15 Oerlikon twin 35mm GDF and Rheinmetall twin 20mm air defense cannons
1 AN/TPS-43 3D mobile air search radar
10 Skyguard, Super Fledermaus, ELTA, and RASIT AAA fire control radars
Over 90 (British-made!) Blowpipe MANPAD SAMs
Assorted Soviet-made SA-7 MANPADs (120 supplied to Buenos Aires in late May by Gaddafi’s Libya)
11 FMA IA 58 Pucará COIN aircraft, formerly of the Argentine Air Force, many destroyed on the ground by SAS
2 Army Agusta A109
7 Army Bell UH-1H Iroquois
1 Army CH-47C Chinook
1 Aérospatiale Puma SA330L in Argentine Coast Guard markings
3 Argentine Navy Aermacchi MB.339A trainers
11,000 small arms, mostly FN FAL variants, as well as assorted M1911 and Browning Hi-Power clones
Over 500 assorted machine guns, usually FN MAG 58 variants, but also some M2 .50 cals
4 million 7.62 NATO rounds
The Argentine Coast Guard Z-28-class patrol boat Islas Malvinas (GC82)
Plus lots of interesting night vision goggles, thermal imagers, portable radars, EW, and commo equipment

As the FALs were select-fire metric variants rather than UK-standard L1A1 inch-pattern semi-autos, they did not mesh with the British supply train and were mostly discarded– dumped at sea in the deepwater offshore.

The horror…

Some rumors persist that at least a few container loads were clandestinely given away to needy anti-communist guerrillas in Third World stomping grounds, but, of course, those are just rumors until such action is declassified. What is known is that at least some were transferred to the Sierra Leone government as military aid for their security forces.

Plus, the MOD was totally against any trophies being brought back home, as had occurred in the World Wars and Korea.

Warning from Captain Seymour, RFA Resource, regarding Argentinian equipment

But what of the larger stuff?

Some 90 Blowpipes were discovered among the Argentine equipment

Argentia’s occupation force included 12 of these Panhard AML-90 armored cars. Due to the terrain on the islands, they were restricted to the roads around Port Stanley and saw very little fighting. They were all captured more or less intact, and the two best examples were brought to the UK. One is at the Household Cavalry barracks in Bulford, and one is in the Tank Museum collection.

AML 90 Argentine Panhard circa 1966 production captured in the Falklands 1982 on display at Bovington

AML-90s in Port Stanley

One of the two CITER 155s brought back to the UK is currently at the Marine Museum in Norfolk

Paratroopers from 3PARA with a captured Oto Melara 105mm gun of GA3. These guns actually belonged to 7 Para RHA but were sold by UK MOD to Argentina in 1976/7. Irony

The ammunition and Blowpipes, however, were absorbed and fired off by the MOD in training. No word on what happened to the SA-7s, but if you told me they made it to the muj in Afghanistan who were then fighting the Soviets, as often hinted at, I would not scoff.

Libyan-supplied SA-7s recovered in the Falklands

Likewise, the vehicles were kept in the Falklands and used by the follow-on garrison, with some of the Unimogs surviving into the 1990s.

One of the captured Argentine Panhards has long been on display at the Bovington Tank Museum, while most ended up as hard targets for the British Falklands garrison.

Perhaps the most useful of the kit, the Skyguard radars and Oerlikon flak guns, were used by the RAF Regiment, protecting airbases in the UK, against the Russians until the end of the Cold War.

Men of 1/7th Gurkhas (Duke of Edinburgh’s Own) just before Stanley with a captured Argie 20mm AAA gun

Captured Argentine Oerlikon 35 mm twin Cannon

Cañon bitubo Oerlikon de 35 mm en Puerto Argentino

The British inherited some advanced Swiss and German AAA guns, gently-used

The aircraft and artillery pieces were typically just used as museum pieces except for the damaged Chinook, which was mated with other parts and returned to service with the RAF.

RAF Harrier GR3 at RAF Stanley with several Pucara wrecks in the background. Notice the matting on the ground.

22 SAS D squadron commander Cedric Delves, Pebble Island Pucara, after the surrender in June 1982, looking at their work handiwork. Note the M-16s, which the SAS and SBS used almost exclusively

A Boeing Chinook (k Bravo Juliet off Atlantic Contender) hauls the wreck of an Argentinian Pucara away. The Pucara is a ground attack aircraft, but had little impact on the battle. A captured Pucara is in storage at the RAF Museum.

A Pucara wreck. Some were brought to Britain for tests, but most wrecks stayed on the islands for several months, proving popular with incoming garrisons looking for a photo op

As for the 90-foot patrol boat Islas Malvinas, she was renamed HMS Tiger Bay and used until 1986 when she was sold for scrap, which is a pity as she would have made an interesting little museum ship that would have required little in the way of maintenance.

HMS Tiger Bay as PNA Islas Malvinas (GC-82)