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 Exterior of the FM offices in 2015 | |
| Company type | State-owned company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Arms Metallurgy |
| Predecessor | Dirección General de Fabricaciones Militares |
| Founded | 1941; 84 years ago (1941) |
| Founder | Government of Argentina |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Cdor. Hugo Pascarelli (President) |
| Products | UAVs, freight wagons,small arms,fertiliser,artillery,SAMs |
| Owner | Government of Argentina |
| Parent | Ministry of Defence |
| Website | fm.gob.ar |
Fabricaciones Militares Sociedad del Estado (Spanish forMilitary Industries State Corporation) is a state-ownedArgentine arms manufacturer based inBuenos Aires. The company was a government agency under the name Dirección General de Fabricaciones Militares ("Directorate General of Military Industries").
Founded in 1941, over the years the company has diversified into different areas such as mining, petroleum,rolling stock andpetrochemicals. The company is under the direction of the Argentine Ministry of Defence.
The company was created in 1941, under Argentine law 12.709,[1][2] in order to expand theArgentine defense industry to compensate for the shortfall of imports that came about during theSecond World War. In its early years, it produced primarily small arms andmunitions whilst aiding in the development of other key industries in the country. The company expanded quickly and would eventually have 14 factories around the country.[3] However, starting in the 1980s, many of these plants were sold to private firms.[4][5][6]
The company has a long history of producing rolling stock for theArgentine railways. It has produced trams, urban commuter rail trains, and trains for theBuenos Aires Underground.[7]
In more recent years, the company has begun to grow again, acquiring new factories and expanding into more areas outside thearms industry.[8] This includes the production of rolling stock for the state-owned rail operatorFerrocarriles Argentinos's freight divisionTrenes Argentinos Cargas y Logística, which ordered over 1,500 carriages in the mid-2010s.[7]
In June 2015, the first 10hopper cars manufactured by FM to transportcereal were officially introduced as part of a contract to build 1,050 cars for state-owned freight lines.[9] The wagons were produced in FM's factory inRío Tercero, Córdoba and each one has a capacity for 45 tons of grains. It is expected that the factory will manufacture 3 wagons per day, to be used in the three lines operated by the National Government, theSan Martín,Belgrano andUrquiza.[10]
Other types offreight wagons to be produced by FM areflat,spine andtank cars.[10]
On December 9, 2016, theArgentine Ministry of Defense announced FM had signed an accord withBeretta to produce theARX-200 rifle andPx4 pistol under license. It is expected these weapons will replace the FM license-builtFN FAL andBrowning Hi-Power currently in Argentine inventory.[11][12]
After World War II, Fabricaciones Militares began recruiting foreign specialists, including a group of highly qualified Polish engineers. The most numerous group consisted of Polish technicians contracted by Fabricaciones Militares, led by engineerWitold Wierzejski, who had previously served as General Director of Armaments Manufacturing in Poland and later worked in France and the United Kingdom. After the war, he was hired by the Argentine Ministry of War to oversee modernization of the arms industry. Wierzejski, one of thePolish engineers in Argentina, also became the first president of thePolish Engineers and Technicians Center in Buenos Aires and helped launch a multilingual technical journal published by the Center. Other Polish specialists recruited to Fabricaciones Militares includedAlejandro Stulgiński, a professor of machine elements and materials resistance, who also taught metrology and authored a textbook based on his many years of academic work.[13]
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