Something Rotten in the State of the Armed Forces

[hit&run]

My apologies for messing up with the name of the Author. However I will still contest his choice of word that Modi government has failed.

@Ray Thanks sir for the explanation, it was quite enlightening.

In that discussion I was more looking at the politics part of it. It seemed to me that we were teleported back to 1999 by Bakha Dutt for obvious reasons that she doesn't want the nation to see the current rot we are discussing caused by UPA government but her spin against then and present BJP governments.

As usual she brought in Human stories in that debate but again from Kargil war when she could have easily picked up many human stories from present times.

 

[Bhadra]

I have many questions which are nagging my mind :

One of the prime factors for determining Ammunition reserves is to calculated keeping in mind the the number of days the production lines for ammunition will gear up to start to supply more than full capacity and restart supplying ammunition for war fighting. This includes the availability of raw material, its procurement and the production lines to go full swing in manufacturing ammunition more than capacities. Have not other nations done it?

If it be so, increase on War Wastage reserves from 30 days earlier to 40 days intense meant that there were problems in the above process, That is OFB was considered unreliable to start the process in 30 days. If this doubt was unrealistic, Kargil episode proved it when we went begging for ammunition to South Africa , Ireal and many others !!

More than that, I wish to ask MoD that if the OFB is not able to meet the requirement of making up deficiencies in first roll on plan of five years, how can the same OFB gear up to make up the requirement in 40 days ?

Is their estimates of 40 days WWR wrong? If yes, in that case the WWR should be for minimum three years war? As neither MoD mor ordinance factory would wake up before three years.

The news papers and CAG now say that India will be able to make up full deficiencies by 2019 - four years from now ??

Well if our OFB is so inefficient why do not MoD disband it and hand over Ordinance factories to some one else.

There are enthusiastic members here who sing praises of Mahendara, kalyani Baba, L&T and Tata every day. I ask them why do not they advocate taking over OFB by these stalwarts? Why should they be producing only guns, vehicles and ship , high end and lucrative high profit margin products? There are many avenues in defence industries and the Indian industry should be interested in all spheres.

Considering all this, should not the DGOS, QMG and IA Chief sit in hunger strike outside the office of the RM rather than quietly passing their time as the CAG report suggests.?? They should go and grab collars of Defence Secy, Secy Def Production and DG OFB in national interest. All the formation commanders having deficiencies in ammunition should have resigned as they were not capable of fighting wars. What were they doing ? Sitting on their chairs enjoying more than their perks? These so called peacetime Army Commanders having no training ammunition want more avenues but no responsibilities ?

Chalta hai for national defence ??

All are naked in this bath tub ?

 

[Bhadra]

Something latest from the recent interview of RM as Manthan on Aaj Tak :

# Ten days WWR ( of Daru Gola ) or less than that does not include 4 days equivalent of intense rate WWR held with units and formation - right one first line and two second lines of Daru Gola - Baaju men Rakh Ke .

# Over two years there has been 18 % increase in capacities of ordinance factories - right why not more. Please bring it upto 50 percent increase ... or they should be able to manufacture more than one days intense WWR per day for the entire requirement of the Army (all India average of expenditure). That is the whole logic of WWR. Is not it? That OFB will be able to give one WWR per day after forty days!

# Out of 125 listed critical items, it is only now 66 items which reamin critical _ right make tank, guns and small arms ammunition full. No criticality in ammunition like 155mm or 125mm APFSDS or 84 mm RL.


# There is five year roll on plan and three years order has been placed or from now on three yaers orders will be placed. - Five year roll on plan existed earlier but OFB did not demand money to meet the requirement of Army. Outsources or import if OFB fails,. please give money in advance for procurement of raw material but it should not result in a state like OF Ambajhari which can not even deliver empty shell (Khoka)...khali khoka..