During the Rhodesian Bush War, the Rhodesian Security Forces turned to a sympathetic South Africa as a major supplier of arms. South Africa already manufactured a metric-pattern FAL under licence as the R1, and transferred a number of these rifles to Rhodesia.[31] Rhodesia also acquired FAL variants illicitly on the international black market, including original FN rifles from Belgium[50] and G1s from West Germany.[31] Many of the FAL derivatives in Rhodesian service were fitted with custom flash suppressors to reduce recoil on fully automatic fire.[49]

The FAL was produced under licence[53] in South Africa by Lyttleton Engineering Works, where it is known as the R1. After a competition between the German G3 rifle, the Armalite AR-10, and the FN FAL, the South African Defence Force adopted three main variants of the FAL: a rifle with the designation R1, a "lightweight" variant of the FN FAL 50.64 with folding butt, fabricated locally under the designation R2, and a model designed for police use not capable of automatic fire under the designation R3.[54] (200,000 were destroyed in UN-sponsored "Operation Mouflon" in 2001). A number of other variants of the R1 were built, the R1 HB, which had a heavy barrel and bipod, the R1 Sniper, which could be fitted with a scope and the R1 Para Carbine, which used a Single Point IR sight and had a shorter barrel.[55] R1 was standard issue in the SADF until the introduction of the R4 in the early 1980s. Still used by the SANDF as a designated marksman rifle.[citation needed] The first South African-produced rifle, serial numbered 200001, was presented to the then Prime Minister, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, by Armscor and is now on view at the South African National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg.[56]

Dsa Fal Serial Number And Manufacture Date