FAdC Mle 93

Design and Development
The project that led to the adoption of the caseless FAdC Mle 93 rifle began with a 1966 Naval White Paper initiating a radical revision of naval infantry small arms. The White Paper initiated two programs, first was the caseless ammunition program which would ultimately lead to the 6.2x43mm service round. The second program was the universal rifle program, which would ultimately lead to the FAdC Mle 93.

The Mle 93 was intended to replace the infantry rifle, submachine gun, automatic rifle, and marksman rifle in naval infantry service, and has accomplished these goals since introduction.

The rifle is fed from a top mounted single stack magazine containing 40 rounds. The magazine is aligned along the top of the barrel and feeds rounds down into a rotating chamber. Two additional magazines can be carried on the weapon on either side of the feeding magazine for a total of 120 rounds on the weapon. The Mle 93 is select fire, with safe, semi-auto, two-round burst, and full-auto firing modes. Controls are fully ambidextrous with the exception of the cocking dial, which is on the port side of the rifle. The weapon is long stroke gas operated, with a rotating chamber fed from above by the magazine. The gas piston and operating rod recoil under the principle of "constant recoil", allowing the rifle to fire on full automatic with minimal felt recoil to the shooter. The two-round burst mode fires two rounds at an exceptionally high rate of fire of 2,200 rounds per minute while the entire firing mechanism recoils rearward in the gun. The balanced mechanism with high rate of fire is intended to fire two rounds before the shooter feels the recoil of firing in order to improve accuracy against an armoured target. All rifles are fitted with a 54cm long heavy barrel in order to better absorb the heat of sustained firing, and the chamber is designed to dissipate heat to the barrel in order to prevent cook-off of the caseless rounds. A carbine variant does not exist of the Mle 93 as the rifles short size of 75cm make the rifle as short as many compact carbines already. The handguard includes an integrated bipod allowing a stable shooting position for full automatic fire. Because of these features and the large magazine capacity, the rifle is capable of acing as a light machine gun. Additionally, these features make the rifle exceedingly accurate for an assault rifle.

Accessories for the Mle 93 include a bayonet which mounts to a recess under the front hand guard between the bipod legs, a suppressor specially developed for the rifle, various optics, a three point sling, and various other options which are issued with the rifle.

Service History
The Mle 93 was introduced to troop trials from March 1992 to November 1993. Troop trials ended with a litany of issues for the caseles ammunition and the cleaning procedures for the rifles. Despite the issues noted, the rifle was officially adopted into service with the Marine Nationale in December 1993 as the Fusil Automatique de Combat Modele 93. It was intended to replace the Fusil Automatique de Combat Modele 78 and Mitrailleuse d'Assaut Modele 82 in frontline service but saw numerous problems which prevented its introduction into active service despite adoption. It was not until 2013 that the rifle would enter front line service with naval infantry airborne units.By the 2020s it would become the standard combat rifle of the Marine Nationale.

Variants

 * Fusil Automatique de Grenadier Mle 01: The FAdG Mle 01 is derived from the Mle 93, using it as the basis for the rifle portion. The Mle 01 includes a new body, an integral semi-automatic grenade launcher, and no provision for spare magazines to be carried on the rifle.

Current Operators

 * Chezzetcook - Main user