I believe this conversation giving away too much to the enemy, although I hope the INSAS critics take note of what Kunal Biswas said above that Finish metallurgy was imported to improve the rifle.
Critics have not ever mentioned that INSAS and its improved avtar, Excalibur is not the same rifle as it was in 1994 when it was introduced in large numbers to replace FAL rifle. Some how INSAS critics and they aided by Yellow Journalism has been constantly hammering at INSAS as inadequate based on 1999 Kargil war experience. Even then incidents of failure were less but multiplied several times over to make INSAS look bad. Critics are selling their own brand by foul mouthing the local made. I am pained that our valiant officer corps and most inglorious retired officer corp kept pressure on INSAS even though they knew about improvements and the difference improvements had made.
Now it is time to stop foul mouthing INSAS. Keyboard warriors take a note, also now discussion should be to upgrade and replace this rifle in next five years with even a better one.
May I remind you that a lot of rifle prototypes are out there but have not fought a war. Many armies field those but have not used it in an actual battle where enemy is shooting at you with an equally good rifle. A terrorist act or chase of a terrorist is not a battle action, it is urban warfare where eye ball to eye ball shooting match does not happen. A bunch of rifle sent by foreign vendors three years back, failed to make a grade. One of the reason of the test failure was the vendors spent too much time to improve the external hardware and furniture and failed to improve the design, the metallurgy and the build. These rifles look very sexy but are for parade ground material.
Imagine a soldier fielding a rifle of current bullpup design with practically no place to fix the
bayonet and he finds himself with enemy coming at him with bayonet in a hand to hand fight situation. The only choice left for him is drop the sexy rifle and run. Not a good situation. My advice, stop going by the looks and glossy brochures and also the test results conducted in a highly favourable conditions. These are not battle results.
May be that our own Multi Caliber Rifle stand an equal chance. If we less foul mouth ourselves and be honest to improve the multi caliber rifle, it may come out as a winner.
