Indian Special Forces (archived)

Status
Not open for further replies.

FalconSlayers

धर्मो रक्षति रक्षितः
Senior Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2020
Messages
27,294
Likes
187,936
Country flag
I don't mean to nitpick, but the Vz 58 is not an AK.
It was inspired from from the Kalashnikov during the pre-cold war era time. The serbs also make some interesting Kalashnikov variants by the Serbian Zastava Firearms.
And what about CZ BREN that the Porkis are considering (but they won’t have money for it).
 

12arya

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2017
Messages
4,208
Likes
15,080
Country flag
My Story: After Half An Hour Of Unconsciousness, I Led An Assault On Zulu Top And Defeated The Enemy In Kargil War

1606552555226.png

As a young cadet at Sainik School, Kazhakootam, Thiruvananthapuram, I always knew that I wanted to be a soldier. I was in my school's football team, and an avid cyclist in college. Physical activity and practical challenges had always attracted me much more than sitting around in the classroom, listening.

There was one mentor I looked up to in particular – Captain Paul Bastine, a friend of the family, infantryman in the Jat Regiment, and my 'big brother' – apart from being the namesake of my real brother. As a Para Commando, a member of 9 Para SF (the 9th regiment of the Para Commandos – an Elite Special Forces unit of the Indian Army, Captain Bastine specialised in deep sea diving and passed away on a fateful day while carrying out an underwater feat. The incident crystallised my desire to make it to 9 Para SF myself.

Eventually, I volunteered for the Para Commandos and made it through the gruelling selection procedures. My Commanding Officer, aware of my, tossed me his maroon beret – part of the unit's insignia – in front of Captain Paul Bastine's portrait adorning the wall of motivation.

When the Kargil war broke out, GOC in C, 15 Corps had tasked us to plan a special mission to cut the enemy lines of maintenance. That was on May 28, 1999. I, Major Prince Jose, was 26-years-old. By June 6, we had decided to go for the Gultar Mother base being used by infiltrating enemy forces as their main administration base. The COAS approved the plan by June 9. With ground recce from Trishul Ridge done in two days, the detailed plans were finalised. Enemy locations along the ridge were unknown, but we felt we could chance it, take the plunge and succeed.

It was no secret that the Indian forces had to wage a pitched battle to win the heights and occupy the vantage points to effectively cut off the enemy administrative lines.

The first resistance we faced was at Sando Top where I was leading the assault in the early hours. While our team was manoeuvring the Sando feature, we came up against an ice wall which had to be scaled by fixing up a rope. As a qualified climber in the group, I took on the lead and went ahead with fixing the rope on the slope.

It was then we had a brief sighting of around 30 enemy soldiers climbing towards Sando Top from the glacier, across the ridge connecting Sando Top and Point 5368. We screamed for artillery support.

The artillery poured fire on Sando Top, Saddle and Nallah but there were also Indian troops on the three spots. By 1900 hours, Indian artillery had stopped its relentless firing to differentiate between its own and enemy incoming.

The enemy's artillery had opened up by then and mortar shells continued to rain on Sando Top, Saddle and Nallah. The Indian artillery started off its pounding again, this time on a counter bombardment role on known enemy gun positions. The air was thick with dense black smoke.

1606552500647.png


Almost near the top of the ice wall, an artillery shell landed 10 metres from where I was. I stared at it as if those were my last moments. But it didn't go off as it was an impact fuse shell that landed belly down. In another 10 minutes, another one landed right amidst us, tearing the team apart. The pressure wave of the artillery blast threw me off the slope, against the rocks, and I landed 100 meters downhill, unconscious and heavily bleeding. Under mortar fire, my friend got me back to their huddle point and revived me. Unmindful of the physical condition that I was in, I continued with the operation and went on to lead one more assault on Zulu Top and take it back from the enemy. It was not long before the enemy would come down, seeking truce with India. The fall rendered me 75% disabled as per the Indian Army.

My Commanding Officer Col John De Britto wrote this in his battle performance report : "This young and energetic officer while fixing a rope on a 70-degree ice gradient was hit by an enemy artillery splinter fell 300 ft and became unconscious for half an hour. On regaining consciousness, he suffered memory loss for 15 minutes and went on to lead the assault on Sando Top.

A commendable Operational performance." War as we know it, is brutal and unfair in the sense that it takes away from among us our best, our dearest, our liveliest and the youngest, leaving us with memories and feelings that are buried deep within us. War is also (at the risk of saying this) enriching and rewarding for it allows us to see the pinnacle of bravery and camaraderie, and an opportunity to be with and lead brave men into adversities unheard and arrive at answers.

I believe that we must take risks at some point in life, while we are working for a noble cause. If I never risked my life, I would not know how dear and precious it really is. As a soldier, I gathered courage from the strong belief that what I was doing was much bigger than me and my life. I fought for the greater good. I fought for my country and its people.



 

Killbot

Senior Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2020
Messages
1,890
Likes
4,026
Country flag
It was inspired from from the Kalashnikov during the pre-cold war era time. The serbs also make some interesting Kalashnikov variants by the Serbian Zastava Firearms.
And what about CZ BREN that the Porkis are considering (but they won’t have money for it).
It (Vz 58) has absolutely nothing in common with AK. You can't even use the same magazine.

Serb guns are just vanilla AKs with different trunnions.

CZ BREN/BREN 2 is inspired by (read copied from) SCAR minus the quality control.
 

mist_consecutive

Golgappe Expert
Contributor
Joined
Oct 2, 2018
Messages
4,821
Likes
40,828
Country flag
Are Garud commandos still sent to Kashmir valley for gaining combat exposure or that stopped after the initial Garud casualties?
 

abingdonboy

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
Messages
8,039
Likes
33,573
Country flag
ANI confirms what some had reported earlier- Garuds were used along the LAC back in July and August to move into strategic heights, they are now functioning as combat air controllers and forward observers for AD

very much a legitimate AF SOF job

MARCOs are also being sent to eastern Ladakh
 

abingdonboy

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 13, 2010
Messages
8,039
Likes
33,573
Country flag
Sorry this is not true 26/11 happened in 2008. The NSG from internal evaluation immediately began a review and upgrade program which included going back to GSG-9. Today is the result of that.

Let's post and restrict ourselves to facts please atleast on this thread. Not propoganda.
Indeed this is true. The NSG’s formal modernisation effort commenced in 2010 but it’s also true that the BJP have given FAR more support and importance to NSG, they’ve removed most VVIP duties from them, they’ve approved additional hubs, they have pro-actively employed them and given them a much freer hand in terms of operations and procurement.



Why are SG Champs in deputation for a max 3 years...
In my view SG need a permanent structure with total secrecy for a better co-ordination, for a dedicated mission oriented but what I gain from this forum and also from some of our most knowledgeable people that as worst management as it could be:crazy::crazy::crazy:.
They are using the most valuable sword for vegetable cutting:doh::doh::doh::doh:.
You and I don’t know what SG do 99.99% of the time and let’s just accept that.

but it’s a myth that there’s this fixed 3 year deputation to the unit, guys can serve for much longer than that based on needs of the unit.

there’s a similar arrangement in SPG and to an extent NSG, there are guys that have been in SPG for 6-7 years and some support staff the majority of their careers serve in SPG on ‘deputation’


Found this clip on Russian SF.

It’s just so hilarious that the Russian SOFs were used as an example of why poor equipment levels didn’t equate to capabilities, today they are basically carbon copies of any top line Western SF unit and Indian SFs are still at African militia levels.
 

Automatic Kalashnikov

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2020
Messages
5,545
Likes
21,855
Country flag
Yeah typical BS

these devices only seem to malfunction in India, every other top unit has adopted them as standard issue equipment for the past decade plus

I wish they would just be honest and say they don’t have such stuff and or don’t know how to use it.
How much do these comms cost, I searched it on google found it's around 1000 dollars, is it right?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Global Defence

New threads

Articles

Top