With the frightening realization of global totalitarianism’s resurgence, the joy at the Allied victories worldwide is fading glock subcompact 9mm. The ever-expanding tentacles and repercussions of a worldwide Soviet are replacing the dread of the 1,000-year Reich. Communism, if Nazism were the disease of the free world ds arms m4 stock, then it would be Communism. Large-scale army clashes like those a decade ago are not the norm.
A new warfare model was developed, where many powerful countries gathered up smaller, less advanced lands, much like loose change on the global floor. Admirals and generals used to laying force like bricks and mortar are now reduced to playing checkers against peasant commandos and guerrillas who don’t speak their language. MOOTW stands for Military Operations Other Than Wars.
This is the backdrop in which legendary arms producer Fabrique National launches their FAL — Fusil Automatique Leger or Light Automatic Rifle. Although initially designed for the 7mm NATO intermediate cartridge, also known as.280 British, it was adopted by more than 90 countries in the larger 7.62 NATO. The FAL was used by Allied forces in various Cold War hotspots and became known as “The Right Arm of the Free World.”
However, the failure of the U.S. military leadership to adopt the larger 7.62mm NATO cartridge would ultimately make the FAL a forgotten figure in pop culture. The U.S. military’s adoption and rapid overtaking of the M14 by the M16 and it’s smaller 5.56mm ammunition during Vietnam would end the FAL’s role in the global vanguard of democracy. The U.S. is the exception.
The FAL’s role in American culture has been limited to first-person shooter video games and films about conflicts in Africa and South America. FN USA does not even make it for the American market. Fans of the historical battle rifle turn instead to DS Arms. DS Arms maintains stable FAL variants — branded the SA58. This is a scrapbook of Cold War history, told through the different configurations of its flagship model. DSA quietly introduced the SA58 I Series two years ago. This version features some practical improvements that, while not visually appealing to historical cloners or purists, are very useful.
We are not usually big fans of septuagenarian battle guns. The I Series’s striking appearance, post-facto improvements, and all the alternate-history TV we’ve binge-watched this past year gave us exciting food for thought. We mentioned earlier that the U.S. involvement was the last nail in the FAL’s service lives. The shift from 7.62mm NATO to 5.56 NATO was the final nail. Ironically, we weren’t the only ones to tourniquet Communism’s spread through Southeast Asia.
Let’s look back at 1951 when two events were co-occurring. In the fall of 1950, the French Army, backed by Legionnaires, suffered their first major military defeat in Indochina against Communist guerillas at the Battle of Route Coloniale 4. This battle was part of a 1950 Border Campaign, in which insurgent forces sought to establish a dedicated supply route from Vietnam to the newly formed People’s Republic of China. French troops tried to heal this wound and stop Mao from filling France’s colonies with Communist ideology and arms.