The Royal Lao Armed Forces (French: Forces Armées du Royaume), best known by its French acronym FAR, were the official armed defense forces of the Kingdom of Laos from 1959 to 1975. Subordinated to the Ministry of Defense of the Royal Lao Government at the capital Vientiane, the FAR branches were organized as follows:
An eclectic variety of weapons was used by all sides in the Laotian Civil War. Laotian regular FAR and FAN and irregular SGUs weaponry in the early days of the war was a hodgepodge, with most of their combat units equipped in a haphazard way with an array of French, American, Australian, British and German weapon systems, mostly of WWII-vintage, either drawn from First Indochina War stocks handed down by the French or secretly provided by the Americans.[8][9] After 1955 however, the FAR began the process of standardisation on U.S. equipment, with its airborne and infantry units first taking delivery of semi-automatic and automatic small-arms of WWII/Korean War-vintage in late 1959, followed by the delivery between 1963 and 1971 of more modern military equipments, which included aircraft, armored and transport vehicles, and long-range artillery pieces. In 1969 secret deliveries of modern U.S. small-arms arrived in Laos, and were initially only given to the Laotian Royal Guard and airborne units; standardisation in U.S. fully-automatic infantry weapons in the RLA and the irregular SGUs was completed by 1971, replacing much of the older weaponry.[10][11] Captured infantry weapons of Soviet and Chinese origin were also employed by elite commando or airborne units and the irregular SGUs while on special operations in the enemy-held areas of north-eastern and south-eastern Laos.[12][13]
During the early phase of the war, the Pathet Lao likewise was largely equipped with WWII-vintage French, Japanese, American, British, German, Chinese and Czechoslovakian weapons either pilfered from French colonial forces during the First Indochina War, seized from Laotian FAR units or provided by the Vietminh and subsequently by North Vietnam. As the war progressed, these obsolete weapons began to be partially superseded by more modern Eastern Bloc military hardware, including semi-automatic and fully automatic small-arms, artillery pieces, armored and transport vehicles, and aircraft of Soviet, Chinese and Hungarian origin, mostly being funnelled through the North Vietnamese. Although the Pathet Lao standardized on Soviet and Chinese weapons and equipment by the early 1970s, its guerrilla forces continued to make use of captured enemy stocks until the end of the war.
Royal Lao Armed Forces, FAN and SGUs equipment
Revolvers
Received from the U.S. Government, used by Laotian government officials and military officers.[14]
^Foss, Jane's Tank & Combat Vehicle recognition guide (2002), p. 72.
^Kinnear, Sewell & Aksenov, Soviet T-54 Main Battle Tank (2018), Appendix eight: known customers and users of the T‑54 medium tank, p. 182.
^Kinnear, Sewell & Aksenov, Soviet T-55 Main Battle Tank (2019), Appendix six: known client users of the T‑55 medium tank, p. 160.
^Foss, Jane's Tank & Combat Vehicle recognition guide (2002), p. 295.
^Foss, Jane's Tank & Combat Vehicle recognition guide (2002), pp. 386-387.
^Conboy, The Erawan War – Volume 2: The CIA Paramilitary Campaign in Laos, 1969-1974 (2022a), p. 51.
^Conboy, The Erawan War – Volume 1: The CIA Paramilitary Campaign in Laos, 1961-1969 (2021), p. 51.
^Conboy and Greer, War in Laos 1954–1975 (1994), p. 30.
^Conboy and Greer, War in Laos 1954–1975 (1994), p. 64.
^Conboy, The Erawan War – Volume 3: The Royal Lao Armed Forces 1961-1974 (2022b), p. 63.
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