The Argentine uniform of the Falklands War and a curiosity about its rifles

The Falklands War, in 1982, was a conflict in which both sides used Western equipment and weapons.

A tour of the Falkland Islands and the remains of the 1982 war there
An interesting report on the Falklands War between Argentina and the United Kingdom

In the Argentine case, the uniform and individual equipment of each soldier consisted of a local copy of the American M1 helmet (adopted by Argentina in the 1960s) and pieces of clothing from various sources, including an Israeli-made coat. Yesterday, the channel Tropa Guripa (which I recommend subscribing to if you like history and military recreation) published an excellent video reviewing what the individual equipment of the Argentine soldier was like in that war, which was fought in a territory with a very cold climate, which posed no small number of problems for both sides (the video is in Spanish but has English subtitles; you can activate them in the bottom bar of the player):

As the Tropa Guripa video points out, the Argentines and the British used very similar rifles. The Argentine Army used a locally manufactured version under license of the Belgian FN FAL assault rifle ("Fusil Automatique Léger" - Light Automatic Rifle, in French), caliber 7.62 mm. It is a very powerful weapon and, in fact, in automatic fire creates a fairly large arc of dispersion of shots, since it is difficult to control.

In turn, the British Army used the L1A1 (SLR) assault rifle, the British version of the FN FAL. The main difference between the two assault rifles is that the British model could only fire in semi-automatic mode, that is, single shot. Its fire selector only had two positions: "S" (for "safe") and "R" (for "repetition"). The L1A1 used 20- or 30-round magazines.

In contrast, the Argentine FN FAL (known as the "Light Automatic Rifle") included an automatic fire option in addition to the single-shot option. In automatic fire, it could reach 700 rounds per minute. Argentina used four variants of this rifle: the FAL I (with a wooden stock, pistol grip, forend, and carrying handle, and a barrel without a flash suppressor), the FAL II (which replaced the wood with plastic and had a barrel with a flash suppressor), the FAL PARA III (a local version of the FAL 50.63 and 50.64 for paratroopers, with a folding stock), and the FAL IV (a modernization of the FAL I but replacing the wood with plastic).

There is one other notable difference between the Argentine FN FAL and the British L1A1, a difference that gave British soldiers a certain advantage in that war. The Argentine FAL used metric measurements, as did the rifles of this type manufactured in Belgium and most of the countries that manufactured them under license. However, the L1A1 used the imperial system, with measurements in inches instead of millimeters. This in theory shouldn't have made much of a difference, but in reality it did, as the L1A1 had slightly larger dimensions in some of its parts.

According to various sources, the L1A1 could use both imperial and metric magazines, including the 20-round magazines carried by Argentine soldiers for their rifles. However, the Argentine FN FALs could not use the L1A1 magazines, giving British soldiers an advantage when it came to capturing captured ammunition. It should be noted, however, that both rifles used the same type of ammunition: the 7.62 × 51 mm NATO cartridge.