Falkland Island Imbel vs. L1A1

I have heard that during the Falkland Islands War That British troops abandoned their semi auto L1A1's and picked up the Argentine selective fire Imbels. Does anyone know for sure if this is fact or fiction?

True - to a point. The British soldiers were issued rifles by Her Majesty. A soldier in battle 'losing' his rifle is just about the most discreditable thing to do. However, after the battle the Argie rifles were gathered in piles.

I read somewhere that selective fire, folding stock rifles were set aside for use by Special Forces. (The mention was that a man in Northern Ireland had a cutdown captured 'SLR' on his lap under a newspaper when they were stopped at a roadblock.)

But, the real prize were Argie .45cal handguns. Every swinging dick needed one of those!

Argie FN Fals were captured in large numbers but I have to say, they were in what we call 'crap' condition. I have never seen butts as loose as on them! The only ones I ever saw back in the UK were a few hundred that came back and were converted to lookalike L1A1's and upgraded to L60A1 DP configuration for paras, training on the wilds of Brecon etc etc. I know this because I drew up the specification to convert them to DP. In fact, one turned up in private hands a year or so ago but it was still deemed to be dewat

I had an Argentine Navy (Armarda) .45 pistol that had cooked off in a unimog truck fire. But it wasn't an M1911 as we know it but a local copy called, if I remember correctly, a simplified model 1927 or something. I got it back to the UK and then dewatted it and sold it a couple of years ago

Arkley Arms had a large number of L1A1's that Al N. bought out of the Falklands when they were offered by the gov. Some were still in wraps. Some wood, some plastic..all NICE. I believe he sold all but 1 or 2. Regret I couldn't import any to the US.

The Systema or 1927 is a true 1911 copy licensed by Colt. All parts are interchangable.

The pistol might've been a Ballester-Molina.
The Argentines used FMAP-manufactured FALs not Imbels.

Eli

Eli; I never heard of a FMAP could you please give more info"?

Argie Govt. arms factory. Also made/make licenced copies of the BHP and a few other little goodies.

Search engines are your friend:
Ballester-Molina
Firearm Review, June 2000
The Sight's 1911 .45 ACP History

Boy that link to Cruffler and then to the old JLD page is a blast from the past. I studied long and hard about buying a Colt marked Argie pistol. Went for the Mod 27 instead.

You're right Eli......, now that you've reminded me, it WAS an Ballister Molina. It was pretty tough. Even after it had cooked off in the fire and a few rounds had cooked off in the magazine, it only blew the magazine out through the sides of the grips and blew the grips off and jammed the slide to the rear. But I put it into the workshop waste oil bath for a few months, cleaned it down, new magazine (all numbered to the pistols I recall), it went as good as any other M1911

I remember one Falklands picture in particular of a Brit Para in the streets of Stanley either at dawn or dusk with a folding stock Para FAL slung over his shoulder with the stock folded.

Ive also just watched a documentary called "Battle for the Falklands" from 1983 and right near the end theres a soldier from 2 Para in a truck with an FAL in his lap saying how 2 Para were first into Stanley by quite some time.

Perhaps these guys were armed with Sterlings and found them to be less than usefull over the long ranges in the Falklands and picked up discarded FALs.

Probably find the Para's had picked up souvenirs in the hope of bringing them home. But they weren't allowed to. As to the weapons captured .... they "sleep with the fishes".

There were a fair few which were picked up as private souvenirs - and mostly subsequently binned. A few came back as official war trophies, some for training use - we had one or 2 in NITAT. All were in a really manky condition; the conscripts just did not look after them. Most were destroyed or dumped at sea.

One thing that those who could did was to get hold of 30 round LMG mags which fitted the SLR and gave an extra 10 rounds.