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Costa Rica p. 2
Background
Following the civil war in 1948, the Costa Rican Armed Forces were
formally abolished and replaced by a paramilitary CIVIL GUARD which
combined internal security and defense functions. The Civil Guard thus
combines the functions of Army, Navy, Air Force and National Police and
was originally intended to have very limited military capacity and a
primarily internal security function.
Being relatively free from external military threat or internal
disturbance, Costa Rica has maintained an extremely modest military
establishment for most of its history. The Army, at the time of its
abolition, consisted of only one company of infantry and a single field
battery with a total establishment of 339 all ranks. A Militia of 33
battalions backed this, in theory, although these appear rarely if ever
to have been mobilized. Arms available in 1940 included 3,800 Mauser and
1,000 Remington rifles, 300 sub-machine-guns, 65 machine-guns of
assorted types, eight 75mm Skoda mountain howitzers and four 20mm Breda
A/A pieces.
During the 1948 civil war, the constitutional forces used two ex-U.S.
White M3A1 scout cars, 14 jeeps, six M1919 Browning 0.30" caliber
machine-guns and 24 Thompson sub-machine-guns, in addition to the usable
residue of the above inventory.
In 1955, during an attempted "invasion" from Nicaragua, the Government
obtained 2,000 M1 Garand semi-automatic rifles and limited additional
numbers of Browning machine-guns from commercial sources.
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