FAMAS

The FAMAS (Fusil d'Assaut de la Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne, French for "Assault Rifle of the Saint-Etienne weapon factory") is a French-made assault rifle. Its development began in the late 60’s during the Vietnam era and it is in wide usage within the French military today, adopted in 1978, as the service rifle of the French army. It uses a bullpup layout, and the F1 variant fires the 5.56mm NATO round from a 25-round magazine, but the later G2 model can use 30 round NATO STANAG magazines. It is featured in Battlefield 2: Euro Force, Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand and Battlefield Play4Free.

Battlefield 2: Euro Force
"The FAMAS is a French mase assault rifle. Its development began in the late 60's and it is in wide usage within the French military today. It uses a bullpup layout with the magazine at the back of the gun, behind the trigger and fires standard 5.56 NATO round. Its low damage is balanced by its high rate of fire."

- FAMAS in-game description.

The FAMAS is the standard assault rifle issued to the EU Medickit. It has decent damage, fair accuracy, moderate recoil, and a high rate of fire at 900 rounds per minute. It is also equipped with a 4x magnification scope on its carrying handle, comes with a 30-round magazine, and can fire in fully automatic or three-round bursts.

Battlefield Play4Free
In Battlefield Play4Free, the FAMAS is a purchaseable assault rifle for the Assault kit. It is a bullpup assault rifle that boasts the highest rate of fire amongst the available assault rifles. By default, it features medium damage, a 26-round magazine and a reload speed that is slightly slower than most of the other assault rifles. As the case with most bullpup weapons, the recoil of the FAMAS tends to pull mostly to the right and up. When aiming down sight and firing in bursts, the recoil is fairly easy to manage if the user is familiar with this recoil pattern. Due to its rate of fire and accuracy, the FAMAS can be a viscious and devastating weapon at all ranges. At close range, in particular, the FAMAS has the potential to outgun almost any weapon that cannot score a one-hit kill such as a shotgun. A drawback of this weapon is the fact that ammunition will be expended rather quickly. Even though the Assault essentially carries unlimited ammunition, the user should pace the shots in most situations, Otherwise, he or she may end up spending more time reloading than killing and playing the objective.

Battlefield 3
The FAMAS was added in the Back to Karkand expansion along with nine other weapons. The FAMAS was first seen on the "Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand Gameplay Premiere Trailer" with a Holographic Sight and a Laser Sight attached.

The FAMAS has the highest fire rate of all fully automatic weapons but is hindered by extremely obtrusive iron sights and muzzle which block much of the peripheral vision, making an optic a must. To further hinder its usage the recoil pulls up sharply, and bounces significantly from side to side, making the foregrip a must, yet the upwards recoil is not too hard to compensate for experienced players. But the small magazine size of 25 rounds, and extremely long reload time make getting caught off guard extremely detrimental. Additionally, it has the highest spread of the assault weapons when aiming down sights, on par with the F2000. These factors make the FAMAS shine in close quarters engagements, yet despite a laser sight seeming a good choice, having the same hipfire as the non-bullpup assault rifles, makes the laser sight less beneficial than on bullpups. To improve performance in middle range engagements, a heavy barrel and foregrip work well as the aimed accuracy is significantly improved, and the hard sideways recoil partially compensated. A foregrip can be coupled with a suppressor to make an extremely deadly, and reasonably accurate stealth weapon. This configuration makes the FAMAS slightly more controllable, but as said before the upwards recoil can be managed, so a significant reduction in aimed accuracy is often not worth the slight improvement in controllability.

Yet despite its minor setbacks, The FAMAS has the highest rate of fire of the Assault Rifles and the quickest time to kill weapon in Battlefield 3 multiplayer closely followed by the M240B, although it is highly theoretical comparison, as the M240B is under no circumstance suitable for the playstyle the FAMAS is. Its flaws such as running out of ammo can be remedied by staying close to a Support class and/or using the AMMO specialization. Long range engagements can be difficult to win, but, depending on the player's aim, long range engagements are possible with the FAMAS.

The FAMAS is the first unlockable assault weapon of the expansion pack and is obtained through the completion of the assignment "Best Friend Forever ", which requires completing the following challenges:
 * Performing 10 revives
 * Performing 10 heals

Trivia

 * In Battlefield 3, the Battlelog icon of the FAMAS shows it without its magazine.
 * Battlefield 3's FAMAS formerly had slightly different stats on each platform although it has been corrected as of the latest patch.
 * In Battlefield Play4Free the FAMAS's extremely high rate of fire is only comparable with the M134 Dillion Minigun, as being the fastest firing gun in-game.
 * The FAMAS is the only bullpup weapon in Battlefield 3 which does not receive the according benefits (hipfire accuracy increase and increased movement speed while aiming).