Photo Of The Day: Today we have a few pictures of the old French FAMAS and their new Heckler & Koch HK416F. The FAMAS above seems to have the controls of the FÉLIN system (Fantassin à Équipement et Liaisons Intégrés or Integrated Infantryman Equipment and [Read More…]
Today we’re looking at some monkey business with the French FAMAS rifle deep down in the Amazon rainforest. This picture is from 2020, but the FAMAS is soon history, for good and bad. The FAMAS replacement, which is the Heckler & Koch HK416, is still being [Read More…]
The École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr (“Special Military School of Saint-Cyr”) is the foremost French military academy. In our Photo Of The Day, we’ll follow some of the soldiers in this military school and their FAMAS bullpup rifles. As [Read More…]
Recently, a Redditor named Jordan bought a Keltec RDB bullpup rifle, which is chambered in 5.56 NATO. After the RDB’s 2 month birthday, Jordan found some FAMAS airsoft parts for sale and wondered if they could be mated to his RDB. One of his goals was to not [Read More…]
You all know the story about the French Army switching the FAMAS to the Heckler & Koch 416F by now. The first HKs have recently been delivered, and the changing process will continue for several years. It takes time to produce almost 100 000 rifles, and the Heckler [Read More…]
As previously reported, the French Army’s new service rifle will be the Heckler & Koch HK416F. The HK416F replaces the rather old FAMAS, and you can sense the depression in the air as this happens, they are letting go of an old friend. 5 000 units are supposed [Read More…]
Even though the French government has adopted the Heckler & Koch HK416F assault rifle to replace the aging FAMAS, it seems “Le Clairon” will remain in service for at least the next decade. The reason for this is the recent re-establishment of the French [Read More…]
The French next generation rifle competition is coming to an end, the two finalists, one from Belgium and the other from Germany, and the incumbent is set for replacement over the next few years. Before either the SCAR or the HK416 are inducted as the new arm of France, [Read More…]
France, one the world’s first adopters of the bullpup rifle, will officially be abandoning the stockless rifle concept for good, it seems. The competition to replace the venerable FAMAS bullpup rifle has moved forward, and the only competing bullpup design, HS [Read More…]
French military blogs are reporting that General Paul Tellié, the lead engineer of the FAMAS assault rifle, has passed away. The General began working on what would become the FAMAS in the late 1960s. It would take more than a decade before the French military [Read More…]
It may have been a long time coming, but finally last week the French Ministère de la Défense has officially launched a program to replace the FAMAS rifle. A few days ago a tender notice (N ° 14-70321) was published on BOAMP.fr (the official government [Read More…]
[ This guest post was written by Julien, a French TFB reader and gun enthusiast, in order to give us insight into the French Army rifle upgrade program. ] First of all, forgive my quite miserable english, I’ll try to explain with my own words. I am a French [Read More…]
A trusted source has revealed to me that the French Army has adopted the Heckler & Koch HK416 to replace the FAMAS. I will endeavour to find out which model has been adopted. I fully believe my source, but you should treat this as rumour until it has been [Read More…]
There is nothing quite like a military coup to bring dusty rifles from the depths of secret armories and into the light of day. The attempted coup in support of one of the pretenders to the Prime Ministership of Papua New Guinea ended just days after is began. The [Read More…]
I knew before I wrote the list of potential contenders for the next French rifle I would take a lot of flak for it (some of it more than justified), but I do appreciate the comments and discussion. My response to many of your questions is below … @Tinkerer and [Read More…]
I first reported rumors that the French would be replacing the FAMAS rifle back in 2009. During a recent meeting with the Commission of Defense, the French CEMAT (Chef d’Etat Major de l’Armée de Terre / Chief of Staff of the Army), General Ract Madoux, [Read More…]
Rumors that the French military are considering dropping the FAMAS rifle have been spreading fast across the internet. The speculation arose from a post [English translation] at The Mammoth, a French milblog. I asked Aurelien, an authority on the French military, what [Read More…]
Famous Guns has nice write up a about the french assault rifle, the FAMAS (Fusil Automatique, Manufacture d’Armes de St. Etienne), and it’s history. Development of this rifle began in 1967, under the leadership of the Paul Tellie, a French arms designer. [Read More…]
VHS could be short for Video Home System, but in this Photo Of The Day, we’re looking at the Višenamjenska Hrvatska Strojnica (“multifunctional Croatian machine gun”). On this occasion, the HS Produkt VHS and some other firearms are used by Croatian [Read More…]
Over the weekend Headstamp Publishing launched their second book – Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms, 1901–2020, written by Jonathan Ferguson of the UK’s Royal Armouries. The new book launched its Kickstarter campaign on the 12th April, it [Read More…]
The MATEBA Autorevolver, thanks to some media exposure, uniqueness and limited availability, has gained a cult status among firearm enthusiasts. In the anticipation of hopefully seeing newly manufactured models on the market, here we get the chance to have a close look [Read More…]
The French Army has selected the SCAR-H PR as their new Semi-Automatic Sniper Rifle. In French that becomes: Fusil de précision semi-automatique (FPSA). In 2018, the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) – which is the French Government Defence [Read More…]
Since the late 1990s, the Heckler & Koch G36 is the standard rifle of the German Bundeswehr. Already in the 2nd quarter of 2017 it was made official that the Bundeswehr were going to procure roughly 120 000 assault rifles with accessories, to replace the G36. In [Read More…]
I know from previous Photo’s Of The Day that any French FAMAS action is appreciated. Here we have a bunch together with the Heckler & Koch HK416Fs (well at least one visible) that are being phased into the French Army. 300 soldiers, 13 Personal Carriers and 4 [Read More…]
When it comes to the improvement of the main service rifle of the Armed Forces, different countries demonstrate various approaches. Some decide to completely replace the existing stock of weapons, like France, that replaced the venerable FAMAS with HK416. Other [Read More…]
Formerly known as Renault Trucks Defense, and part of the Volvo Trucks Group, the French company Arquus are working on something a little bit more than your ordinary Volvo station wagon. As the French Army is planning to buy a new fleet of light armored vehicles by [Read More…]
Welcome everyone to the 12th edition of ‘Hot Gat or Fudd Crap?’, one of our many series here on TFB. If you missed any one of our other articles, this is where we look at the most obscure firearms that are actually for sale and ask the question – is [Read More…]
Back in March Ian McCollum, Nic Jenzen-Jones & James Rupley launched Headstamp Publishing, a new publishing house specialising in small arms and military history. The first book published by Headstamp will be Ian McCollum’s book on French Military Rifles. [Read More…]
If you’re a gun guy you’ve probably spent a few hours thumbing through gun books, if you’re a collector or old gun lover then you probably have a shelf full! In an exclusive interview, TFB spoke to Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons, Nic Jenzen-Jones [Read More…]
The “Edelweiss Raid 2019” is an international, military special competition for mountain fighters from 12 nations. The competition teams come from Austria, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Romania, Slovenia, Spain and the USA. [Read More…]
