The Military Rifles of Portugal Part 2

The Military Rifles of Portugal Part 1

The post-WWI period saw increasing political instability in Portugal as various republican, socialist, communist and liberal parties and the military vied for power. There was a short-lived monarchist insurrection in January 1919 which was quickly crushed by loyalist military units. The chronic political instability and government’s neglect of the army created opportunities for military plots and it 1925 there were three failed coups.

Continuing political chaos, strikes, harsh relations with the Church, and considerable economic problems aggravated by a disastrous intervention in WWI led to the military coup of May 28, 1926. This coup installed the “Second Republic,” which started as the Ditadura Nacional (National Dictatorship) and became the Estato Nova (New State) in 1933, led by António de Oliveira Salazar (1932–1968) who transformed Portugal into a single party Fascist state.

Salazar’s policy was to provide a certain level of liberalization in politics, in terms of organized opposition with more freedom of the press. Opposition parties were tolerated to an extent, but they were also controlled, limited, and manipulated, with the result that they split into factions and never formed a united opposition.

In the 1930s, the Portuguese army began upgrading and replacing their small arms with more modern weapons, most of which were obtained from Germany and Italy. In 1933, a contract was placed with Mauser for a number of their Standard Modell rifles known as Espingarda 8mm Mod.933.

In 1937, the Portuguese army ordered 100,000 Mauser 98 rifles from the Mauser company with 50,000 to be delivered immediately. This resulted in Karabiner 98k rifles being taken off the assembly line with German markings intact which Portuguese called the Espingarda Mod.937. The balance of the 100,000 featured front sight guards and sling swivels and were called Mod.937-A

A second contract model, delivered in 1941-42, were called Espingarda Mod.937-B. All were chambered for the Cartucho com bala de 7,9mm m/37 (7.9x57 Mauser; 7,9mm Patrone sS).

So, as to extend the service life of the Mod. 1904s still on hand, many were retrofitted with 24-inch barrels chambered for Cartucho cal. 8 com bala m/37, reinforced stocks, new sights and re-baptized the Espingarda Mod.904/39.1

During the Spanish Civil War (1936 – 1939), Salazar gave material and diplomatic aid to General Francisco Franco’s forces while maintaining a formal neutrality. A volunteer force of 18,000 — the”Viriatos” — led by regular army officers, was recruited to fight as part of Franco’s Nationalist army. When the civil war ended in 1939, Portugal and Spain negotiated the Treaty of Friendship and Nonaggression which committed the two countries to defend the Iberian Peninsula against any power that attacked either country and/or helped to ensure Iberian neutrality during World War II.

While officially neutral, during WWII Portugal collaborated with the British and sold them strategic materials (e.g. rubber, tungsten) and allowed the Allies to establish air bases in the Azores to fight German U-boats. However, Tungsten was also sold to Germany until June 1944, when the threat of a German attack on Portugal was minimal. Salazar worked to regain control of East Timor after the Japanese had seized it in 1942. 

Also, he admitted several thousand Jewish refugees during the war. Lisbon, maintaining air connections with Britain and the U.S., became a hotbed of spies and served as the base for the International Red Cross in its distribution of relief supplies to POWs.

Unlike other European nations in the post-WWII period, the Portuguese did not withdraw from their African colonies as they were considered overseas territories of the mother country. 

From 1961 to 1975, Portugal was involved in a series of violent wars in its African colonies as various national liberation groups began guerilla conflicts in hopes of driving out the Portuguese. The guerillas received support — weapons, training, advisors — from the USSR, Red China, Cuba, Egypt and other African nations while the Portuguese were supported (clandestinely in some cases) by South Africa, Rhodesia, the USA, Israel and to a limited degree Britain and France.

The first troubles began in Angola on January 1, 1961, when agricultural workers demanded better pay and working conditions. Spurred on by the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola or MPLA), the protests soon became violent and attacks on prisons, police stations and military bases and personnel grew. The Portuguese responded with air strikes on suspected MPLA villages, killing hundreds.

On March 1961, another guerilla movement Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola; (National Front for the Liberation of Angola — FNLA) launched an incursion into northern Angola with 4,000–5,000 insurgents who attacked farms, government outposts, and trading centers, killing everyone they encountered. Buoyed by belief in tribal spells that they believed made them immune to bullets, the attackers spread terror and destruction, area killing 1,000 Portuguese settlers and an unknown number of indigenous Angolans.

In response, Portuguese Armed Forces instituted a harsh policy of torturing and massacring rebels and their supporters. Much of the offensive operations against FNLA and MPLA was undertaken by the Cacadores Especiais  (Special Hunter) units skilled in light infantry and anti-guerrilla tactics who became well known for their ruthlessness in hunting down insurgents eventually forcing both groups out of Angola. By most accounts, Portugal’s counterinsurgency campaign in Angola was the most successful of all its African campaigns.

Another factor was internecine struggles between three competing revolutionary movements — FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola — National Union for the Total Independence of Angola — UNITA — an offshoot of the MPLA) — and their guerrilla armies. For most of the conflict, the three rebel groups spent as much time fighting each other as they did the Portuguese. 

In Portuguese Guinea, the Marxist Partido Africano para a Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde — PAIGC) began operations against the Portuguese in January 1963. The war in Guinea has been termed “Portugal’s Vietnam.” The PAIGC was well-trained, well-led, and equipped and received substantial support from safe havens in neighboring countries like Senegal and the Republic of Guinea (Guinea-Conakry). The conflict between the PAIGC guerrillas and the Portuguese army proved the most intense and damaging of all conflicts in the Colonial Wars.

In Mozambique, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Liberation Front of Mozambique —FRELIMO) began operations against the Portuguese in September 1964 and grew quickly. But Portuguese troops, assisted by Rhodesian and South African units, gained control of much of the countryside by 1973.

In 1954, Indian nationalists seized control of the Portuguese enclaves of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. Over the next few years, the Indian government demanded that Portugal return their colony of Goa and the enclaves of Daman and Diu to Indian control — which they refused to do. In December 1961, 30,000 Indian troops invaded Goa, Daman and Diu. The Portuguese garrison of only 3,300 — mostly reservists and Angolan Cipaios, put up a fight but eventually the governor of Goa surrendered on December 19, 1961, thus ending 450 years of Portuguese rule in India.

As the fighting in the colonies grew, the Portuguese armed forces were expanded and the need for additional — and more modern weapons — became obvious. Until 1961, the army’s standard rifle was still the Espingarda Mod.937-A/B supplemented by numbers of ex-German Karabiner 98k Mausers bought in 1941 and after WWII on the international market while reservists, police and Cipaios used a mixture of Modelo 1886, 1896, 1904–39 and 1917 rifles.

In 1961, the Portuguese adopted the Heckler & Koch G3A3 and G3A4 (retractable stock) rifles as the Espingarda Automática m/961 and the HK G21 as the SAW. They obtained a license to produce all three models at the government arsenal Fábrica de Braço de Prata. They also placed an order with Fabrique Nationale (FN) for 12,500 FN-FAL and 970 FN-FALO rifles known as the Espingarda Automática 7,62 mm FN m/962 and Espingarda de Assalto FN 7,62mm m/962 in addition to purchasing 15,000 Gewehre G1 (FN-FAL) that the West German army had recently replaced with the G3A3. Reportedly, the m/962 was the more popular rifle but the m/961 was adopted as standard as it was less expensive, easier to produce, maintain and simpler to train with.

As the fighting went on, Portuguese troops captured large numbers of weapons from the rebels including Russian/Chinese/East German AK47/AKM assault rifles many of which were taken into service by government troops.

In 1960, the Armalite AR-10 rifle was officially adopted by the Portuguese army’s Caçadores páraquedistas (paratroopers) and other special forces units as the Espingarda Automática 7,62mm Armalite m/960. Most were issued to units in Angola where the light, environmentally resistant rifle proved popular with the troops and remained in service until 1975.4 Reportedly up to 5,000 were obtained before the Dutch imposed an arms embargo on Portugal which stopped deliveries from the Dutch manufacturer Artillerie-Inrichtingen.5

There were originally three classes of soldier in Portuguese colonial service: commissioned soldiers (whites), overseas soldiers (colonists or African 
assimilados), and native or indigenous Africans (indigenato’). Later, after official discrimination based on skin color was outlawed, some Portuguese commanders began a process of “Africanization” which included a large increase in African recruitment along with the establishment of all-black military formations such as the Milícias negras (Black Militias) and the Batalhão de Comandos Africanos (African Commando Battalion). Eventually black soldiers accounted for 50% of the Portuguese troops.

As the war progressed, Portugal established a military draft required all males to serve three years of obligatory military service; many of those called up to active military duty were deployed to Africa. The national service period was increased to four years in 1967 with all conscripts facing a mandatory two-year tour of service in Africa which resulted in a sharp increase by Portuguese men seeking to avoid service. By the end of the colonial war in 1974, black African participation had become crucial due to declining numbers of recruits available from Portugal itself. By the late 1960s, an increasing number of native Africans were promoted as noncommissioned or commissioned ranks, some rising to ranks as high as Lt. Colonel.8

By 1974, guerrilla operations in Angola and Mozambique had been reduced to sporadic ambushes against the Portuguese in the rural countryside. The exception was Portuguese Guinea, where PAIGC guerrilla operations, strongly supported by neighboring Guinea and Senegal, were largely successful in 
liberating and securing large areas of the region. Resistance to the ongoing colonial wars, which consumed 40% of Portugal’s annual budget, grew among the general populace and the rank file of the military. In addition, international pressure from the Western powers, and increasing military assistance for the guerillas from China and Soviet bloc nations, resulted in the Revolução dos Cravos (Carnation Revolution) of April 25, 1974, a semi-peaceful coup led by younger army and navy officers overthrew the Estado Novo and ended the forty-one years of “benevolant” dictatorship.9

The post-revolution government announced freedom for all the former Portuguese colonies which resulted in the sudden withdrawal of Portuguese administrative and military personnel which resulted in anarchy in many of them while hundreds of thousands of assimilados returned to Portugal. A series of (mostly peaceful) coups and counter coups between liberal/democratic and leftist/communist forces continued for a year, but free elections in 1975 and 1976 resulted in a democratic government.

Portugal had become a founding member of NATO in 1949 and the European Union in 1986. Since then, Portuguese troops have participated in peace keeping missions in Africa, Europe, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and Oceania. As their Espingarda Automática m/961s were reaching the end of their service life, the Portuguese began purchasing modern assault rifles in 5,56mm NATO caliber, including the Heckler & Koch G36, U.S. M4 Carbine, Israeli GALIL, and SIG SG543, all of which were issued to airborne, naval and special operation units.

In 2017, a program began to reequip all forces with new rifles and after a series of trials, and in 2019, the FN SCAR L (5,56mm) and SCAR-H (7,62mm NATO) were adopted as standard issue. To replace the hodgepodge of rifles used by special forces and naval units, the HK416 (5,56mm) and HK417 (7,62mm NATO) were adopted.10

Recent Portuguese operations include anti-piracy action in the Gulf of Aden, the conflicts in the Central African Republic and in Afghanistan, the peacekeeping missions in East-Timor, Lebanon, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the air policing of Iceland and the Baltic States.

I would like to thank the following for providing materials used to prepare this report: FNH-USA, HK USA, Joel Kolander, Danielle Smith, Leroy Thompson, Tasha Lopez, Stuart Mowbray, Rock Island Auction Co. and Morphy Auctions.

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