Ronaldo is a long-time (starting in the 1960s) Brazilian writer on aviation, military, LE, and gun subjects, with articles published in local and international (UK, Switzerland, and U.S.) periodicals. His vast experience has made him a frequent guest lecturer and instructor in Brazil’s armed and police forces.
Following a recent firing incident with a 5.56x45mm IA2 semi-auto carbine in LE training use in Brazil, IMBEL – Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil has issued an official recommendation note covering two aspects of the weapon’s operation. The first of them [Read More…]
Hi, there! One more time, here’s a small random selection of pictures and text on miscellaneous guns that have been located in this writer’s somewhat messy files. You may find them of some interest, though.
When you, TFB readers not from South America, frequently comment that some of the prototype guns shown by this senior scribe in this blog were unknown to you, this is easily understandable as a mere consequence of your geographic distance from this continent. But the [Read More…]
It looks like the whole thing started in late 1980 or so, when the U.S. Government, within its Joint Service Small Arms Program (JSSAP), issued an RFP (Request For Proposal) for the conceptual design and fabrication of a 9x19mm submachine gun. Historically, the U.S. [Read More…]
For five whole decades or so after World War II, the .45 ACP and 9x19mm calibers were, as known, the most widely employed in pistols and submachine guns worldwide, this including Brazil. Types in wide use by the country’s armed and police forces included the [Read More…]
Following WWII, Argentina’s State-owned FMAP-DM (Fábrica Militar de Armas Portátiles – Domingo Matheu), located in the city of Rosario, Santa Fé Province (380km Northwest of Buenos Aires), carried out production of the .45ACP caliber Colt M1911A1 pistol [Read More…]
In a previous article (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/03/03/weapons-rios-crime-war-pmerj-side/), TFB showed some images of PMERJ – Polícia Militar do Estado do Rio de Janeiro in the frontline of the war against crime in Rio. Being the major responsible for [Read More…]
Having previously shown some of the items that the Força Aérea Brasileira (Brazilian Air Force) ground elements currently pack for their ground work (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/06/23/brazilian-air-force-infantry-weapons/), it’s time, now, to see what [Read More…]
Gathering material for articles here at TFB is a mixture of results for this senior scribe, ranging from full exultation to sheer deception. Sometimes an interesting photo negative is dug out from surviving files, just for yours truly to find out that no related info is [Read More…]
When one mentions an air force, what almost immediately probably comes to mind are images of sleek, fast-flying jet fighters, huge transport aircraft, and helicopters of all variations. However, it should be remembered that a whole lot of equipment is involved in the [Read More…]
As it may have been shown in some recent articles here in TFB, my browsing in old photo negatives files and notes has sometimes resulted in successfully unearthing material that proved to be of some interest for our readers, if the Comments that followed are to be [Read More…]
In my recent article (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/06/09/brazils-7-62x51mm-mosquefal/) on the Mq 7,62 M968 rifle made by Fábrica de Itajubá (Itajubá Factory) for the Brazilian Army, I also showed said gun in a photo alongside two shorter carbines, one [Read More…]
The 9x19mm Uru submachine gun, created in the mid-1970s by Brazilian designer Olympio Vieira de Mello Filho and placed into series (though, limited) production in the early 1980s by Mekanika Indústria e Comércio Ltda. in Rio de Janeiro, has already been the subject of [Read More…]
It is generally accepted that the first serious attempts at using the .50BMG (or 12.7x99mm, if you’re into metrics) round for long-range sniping dates to the Vietnam War era, first using actual, scope-fitted Browning M2HB machine guns, and at a later stage some [Read More…]
Pretty much like many of the world’s countries in the early 20th Century, Brazil was a faithful user of German bolt-action Mauser rifles, to which the Spanish-favored 7x57mm round was chosen. The first adopted species was the Model 1894, soon followed by the Model [Read More…]
We have here at TFB given occasional news of different guns being seized by local authorities in Brazil. Weapons of all kinds have fallen into the hands of police agencies on a nationwide basis, but the concentration of such events in the Rio de Janeiro area is [Read More…]
Back in the end of the 1940s, when Argentina was ruled by the very controversial President Juan Domingo Perón (he would eventually be taken out of the presidency by a military coup d’état in 1955), an interesting, but generally unknown, submachine gun project [Read More…]
As a long-time (since the mid-1960s) licensed manufacturer of the well-known 7.62x51mm FN FAL rifle for the Brazilian Armed and Police Forces, plus also for export, IMBEL – Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil took the opportunity to use it as a basis for other [Read More…]
Back in the 1970s-1980s, VHS was immediately associated with a Video Home System (thus, the name) created in Japan by the JVC company and which became highly popular worldwide. Nowadays, however, most people probably don’t even know what I’m talking about here on [Read More…]
In 1997, while Brazilian Army Captain (later, Lieutenant-Colonel) Paulo Augusto Capetti Porto was working at IMBEL’s Fábrica de Itajubá as head of the R&D Office, several interesting ideas materialized into a series of prototypes generally designated as FIL-97 [Read More…]
Having recently reported (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/04/13/imbels-new-7-62x51mm-ia2-carbine-rifle/) on the official certification test program of Brazil’s IMBEL 7.62x51mm IA2 semi-auto carbine currently under way at the CAEx – Centro de Avaliação [Read More…]
Back in 2015, TFB (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/08/15/potd-a-mystery-fifty-cal/) showed a DIY .50BMG caliber rifle that was seized from criminal hands in Rio de Janeiro by the local Military Police BOPE – Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais [Read More…]
Back in 2011, TFP published a “reader” Ronaldo Olive contribution (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/02/11/fmap-dm-cam-1-the-argentine-stg44-clone/) on CAM 1, the Argentine copy of the WWII German Sturmgewehr assault rifle granddad made in that South American [Read More…]
Among the dazzling amount of weapons displayed at the LAAD 2017 Defence & Security exhibition in Rio de Janeiro (April 4-7), a lesser-known name called the attention in the South African Pavilion, the Rippel Effect, a privately-owned military equipment and systems [Read More…]
When nauseating substances hit the fan, as it most often happens in civil riots and similar manifestations, LE forces have to count on whatever equipment items that may help them to deal with the very complicated process of applying progressive use of force, or the [Read More…]
Forgotten Weapons’ recent video on the M3 and M3A1 “Grease Guns” (https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/04/19/forgotten-weapons-covers-well-remembered-grease-guns/) briefly mentioned the conversion kits built in limited numbers – 500 or so, Ian says [Read More…]
The name of Brazil’s CBC (Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos) is almost immediately associated with ammunition manufacture, since this has been the company’s main area of activities since it was founded by two Italian immigrants in São Paulo back in 1926. In the [Read More…]
Brazil’s Forjas Taurus, following a particularly difficult year dealing with much publicized market/users complaints about safety/functioning aspects of some of its guns (pistols, mainly), appears to be entering 2017 with a serious commitment towards products [Read More…]
During the recent (April 4-7, 2017) LAAD Defence & Security exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, IMBEL – Indústria de Material Bélico do Brasil showed the latest development examples of its 7.62x51mm IA2 carbine and rifle prototypes which are expected to soon join the [Read More…]
Looks like it’s becoming a series here in TFB to show some South American countries’ earliest and generally unknown submachine gun designs. This time it’s from Argentina, where a designer called Juan Lehnar produced the single prototype of a particularly [Read More…]
Your Privacy Choices