The Falkland Islands Defense Force is a small organization independent of the British military, run directly by the Falkland Islands government. When it decided to update its small arms form the L1A1 SLR (aka British FAL) in the early 1990s, the British assumed they would purchase the new L85A1 rifles. However, by that time the flaws in the L85 were pretty well known, and the Islanders exercised their independence and chose to adopt something different. After investigating a number of different options they chose to use the Steyr AUG. At this time the AUG was in service with a number of other nations including the Australians and New Zealanders, and Steyr offered good terms and good support for the FIDF.
The FIDF purchased about 160 AUG rifles in total, including a small number of carbines and heavy-barreled LMGs. The carbines were particularly useful in a maritime role, which was part of the FIDF mission at the time (fisheries patrol). The LMG version, fitted with an Elcan C79 4x optic, was intended to supplant the FN MAG as a support weapon, but was found unfit for that role. Instead, most of the LMGs were converted to standard rifles via simple barrel swap. In addition, the Elcan optics proved prove to breakage, and were eventually replaced with British SUSATs. Indeed, some of the standard AUGs had their factory scopes replaced with SUSATs as well.
The AUG remained the standard rifle for the FIDF until recently, when the service received L85A3 rifles from the British. The AUG was not configured to use the bullet-trap blank adapters that the British used, and the L85s were intended to allow better integrated training between the two forces. A formal replacement for the AUG has not yet been determined, as it remains a bit unclear what the British military will decide to do to replace the L85 in the coming years.
Many thanks to the FIDF for giving me access to their armory to dig out these rifles to film for you! They remain today a small but quite well-equipped all-volunteer force dedicated to maintaining the security of the Falkland Islands.
Small correction: AUG integrated optic is 1.5x not 3x.
The 3 positions change lever (to use British terminology) remind me of FN P90 & F2000 controls. By the way, F2000 was too late (2001) to compete here. But FAMAS could, if the French were OK and the FIDF had no prejudice (Exocet anybody?).
Out of the three then-available bullpup rifles, I think the FIDF made the absolute right choice. Steyr AUG is the only one of the three still lurking out there in production/use.
The FAMAS was, at the time, an idiosyncratic oddball of a rifle, typically French. It also did not come stock with optical sights. The L85 was what it was, and that wasn’t ready for primetime, something the islanders were wise to recognize. Hell, the Bermudans opted to buy ‘effing Mini-14 rifles, rather than adopt the L85… That’s a ringing endorsement for their common sense, and an honest appraisal of where that rifle really was, in those days before HK wrung out most of the issues. If I’d been given the choice between one of the early L85 rifles and just about anything else on the market in 5.56mm in those days, I’d have said “Yeah, the anything else, please…”
Early L85 was truly a study in what not to do for a modern combat rifle. Design, production, all the rest… The only thing on it that was really worthwhile was the sling, and that was something you could copy pretty damn easily for everything else on the market. The rest of the rifle rightly belonged back a lot deeper in the procurement process, and should never have gotten into general issue as it was actually issued. I’ve memories of observing Brits over here for Trumpet Dance, and the ranges they were using were a place where you could learn a lot of creative swearing, as well as observe some really good infantry small tactics. You got them aside, and none of them liked the L85, with some considerable justification. I mean, they’d defend the thing on general principles, but… Their hearts weren’t in it. Every time we did a small arms exchange with them, they universally preferred US rifles with US ammo… The Radway Green 5.56mm did not live up to the old 7.62 NATO standards, and I’d highly recommend anyone firing it through an AR-15 family weapon to lay off on that idea. Whatever the hell they used as propellant in those rounds in that era was best described as “filthy”. You almost believed the guys who told you it was factory-floor sweepings; it’d jam an AR-15 up pretty tightly within a few magazines. I had to do a drug deal with our armorer, and clean all the ones I borrowed from him for cross-training, because the usual drill just did not work. I’ve no idea what the hell the folks at Radway Green were doing, but that ammo just caked on the carbon, and you’d wind up having to do an armorer-level detail cleaning to get it all out… It was not anywhere near as easy as the US-specification ammo we had, which was exquisitely clean by comparison.
You’d almost believe the factory-floor BS. At that point in the history of it all, the British standard ammo was not, in my humble opinion, at all compatible with US rifles. It did function relatively well in the M249, from the magazine. No idea on the belts; I had no way of sourcing enough links to put their ammo into a belted configuration.
As an aside, the US ammo in the L85 of those days didn’t do very well either; lots of jams, and you rather got the impression that it was over-gassed or that the pressure profile was wrong for the L85. Friends of mine who did the same thing with the French described analogous issues with cross-compatibility on the ammo. I suspect that 5.56mm is much more prone to these things; I’ve never heard of or seen issues with 7.62 NATO compatibility; the British and German 7.62mm NATO stuff always functioned really well in any of the civilian-side rifles I fired it out of, and it did really well in our MGs, as well. Maybe better than the issue M80 ball, actually… I suspect that down on the level of powder/energies that 5.56mm functions at, any minor in-specification tweaking is going to produce large, observable issues when you start swapping the ammo between rifle systems. That cross-in-circle lies, sometimes…
@Kirk, You take this too seriously. I doubt FIDF would ever had considered the FAMAS, even the NATO compatible G2 export model.
But it is fun to imagine reactions to an announce of a British territory adopting the weapon of the frogs.
Like every other French rifle since the black powder days, the “French option” never really existed, being as it was too idiosyncratic and designed to uniquely French sensibilities. It is significant that neither the L85 or the FAMAS were ever really considered as serious competitors anywhere in the world, outside of people who were outright gifted the damn things. Steyr AUG, on the other hand, was fully competitive and won many bids around the world, for those who wanted the bullpup designs.
Ergonomically, I have my issues with it. I think it’s less awkward than either L85 or FAMAS, but it still possesses all the ergo-vices typical of the bullpup designs. None of which are weapons I’d want to take into combat, given all the minor little “issues” they all possess; being unable to do clearance drills and having to put attention on the rifle rather than doing things up in your line of sight are significant detractors, in my mind. Loss of situational awareness is almost baked into the bullpup, and you can’t get around it. Almost all of what I might reasonably have to do with a rifle is available to me in a conventional design, without having to remove the weapon from my shoulder and then perform the drills. Trying to correct or reload a bullpup in the middle of a firefight is a good way to get yourself killed, in my opinion.
Spot on.
@RO Phil,
As I recall, while 1.5X was the standard, Steyr had higher power options available from the factory. Given the wide-open terrain, I would have ordered the higher magnification version, were I the guy ordering the rifles. FIDF may have done just that…