Modernisation of Indian Army Infantry

Kumaoni

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as they say hindsight is always twenty twenty.

from an equipment point of view, moving from SLR to AK/vz happened during that period for COIN, which is a big deal in itself. the pace and intensity of 90's was far higher than what's happening now a days, those years were spent adapting tactics of regular military to counter insurgency. TAR-21 started getting inducted in 2005.

this is to say, developing small arms is not India's forte even today. INSAS served it's purpose for the day, and that's about it.


on a side note, unable to find pics of zitara bullpup, do post it here if you find one.
I’m not sure, but many times battalions would use captured AKs and PKMs from the slain insurgents. The AK was not standardized, it was only procured for few units, the ISNAS rifle is what largely was used in both coin in kargil. Even the 7.62 SLR proved to be more effective than the 5.56, and was often used more than the latter.

In 2002 when a new battalion came in Kishtwar under Maj Gen GD bakshi, they even asked him to procure them just 100 AKs, as they felt that the ISNAS was ineffective. Gen Bakshi further states that the 5.56 round of the ISNAS proved to be far too ineffective in delivering lethal hits to the insurgents.

The historical fact is that we should have began manufacturing the AK in the 90s itself, instead of relying on Junk ISNAS. A 5.56 round is simply ineffective in the dense forests of kishtwar or the barren steep heights of the Mushkoh valley.
 

ezsasa

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The historical fact is that we should have began manufacturing the AK in the 90s itself, instead of relying on Junk ISNAS. A 5.56 round is simply ineffective in the dense forests of kishtwar or the barren steep heights of the Mushkoh valley.
look into this once, find out if such a proposal of manufacturing AK locally was ever made in that period.
 

Love Charger

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look into this once, find out if such a proposal of manufacturing AK locally was ever made in that period.
I understand sir you have never heard of AK 7 saga .
Kalashnikov once came to defexpo in 2000s and found out this prototype AK on OFB exhibition, he was very displeased and even wanted to sue the OFB for making a unlicensed version
That being said and done , actually Indian army came across lethality of kalash in jungles of Ravan land , also called as Lanka in 80s.
There our troops indeed felt disadvantaged by the cumbersome SLR in close quarters .
And later in Kashmir they came across similar issue , in cqb SLR failed .
So much so we even made a new verison called SLR 1c with a shortened barrel.
The thing is not that SLR was made here in 3 versions
1A based on Belgian Fn fal and was full auto .
And then 1A1, the version we used most , and it was based on British L1A1 and semi automatic, which was best for such a rifle.
The point is , it is impossible to fire straight at all at full auto , a SLR which fires a .30 cal or 7.62×51 mm NATO round will fire everywhere but at the target .
Hence our men used it in semi auto or single round shots , to aim and fire accurately which was deemed problematic when we were confronted by spray and pray type fire of insurgents as our men faced a large volume of fire and could not aim accurately and fire fast enough and often they were pinned down by this volume of fire allowing insurgents to escape , hence we moved to AK.
 

Love Charger

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The biggest flex I have known is about British India invading Tibet .
In 1903 , Lord Curzon was India's viceroy and russia and Britain were engaged in a conflict of sorts known as the great game .
Now the Brits were paranoid about a possible invasion of India by Russian empire and had taken measures in previous century to secure the Afghan and Persian Frontier, heavily guarding the Khyber and Bolan passes and areas on the either sides with fortresses and garrisons .
One Frontier was wide open, and that was Tibet .
Thus British India sent emmisaries to Dalai Lama , but were received with not much affection.
Instead there were credible intelligence reports ( also known as rumours) that Tibet was working with Russians to harm British India .
Well, a force under General Francis younghusband was created ,3000 strong with 2 maxim machine guns , 4 arty pieces and all men armed with Lee Enfield bolt action rifles .
The force consisted of both Anglo and indian troops.
Some time later an incursion by Tibetans was reported by Nepalis ,a defacto protectorate on india , it could not be verifled whether it was Tibetan army or a group of Shepards , although in hindsight the latter possibility is more likely.
The British interpreted this event as a invasion of Nepal by regular Tibetan army and got a reason to invade to Tibet itself .
The men marched under general younghusbands command and wintered in mountains in December of 1903 .
Soon they resumed their March in 1904 and reached the village of gurum or semyonchuk by March 31 ,1904 .
Their they met their first obstacle , force of Tibetan army around 3000 men strong blocked their path near a mountain pass.
They were armed with matchlok guns and clubs and bow and arrows.
The British were armed with cutting edge tech of their time.
It is said that general young husband convinced Tibetans to extinguish the matches on thier guns , and as a gesture of peace ordered his own men to take out the cartridge in the chamber of their Lee Enfield.
When Tibetans extinguished their guns , he immediately ordered his men to fire on the enemy .
In just 4 minutes, 700 Tibetans of 3000 present were killed .
Later on Tibet was forced to cede some areas to British India ( that region is arunachal pradesh of today ) and pay a war indemnity to the British government in india. ( the spelling of the location of the battle might be misspelt but it's certainly not intentional and wholly inadvertent mistake on my part )
@ezsasa
@Suryavanshi
@Waanar
@Tactical Doge
@FalconSlayers
@ALBY
@Kumaoni
@Haldilal
@Johny_Baba
 

Tridev123

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I think the reason our weapons and rifle designs are in such a shitshow is because we have no ORSA (Operations Research and Strategic Analysis). We need to record our war experience and operations better. Most of what we know is from Histories (which use battle reports and records) and officer accounts.

The fact of the matter is that 5.56 isnas round utterly failed in its duty, in compared to a 7.62 AK round. Many injured terrorists managed to escape encounters as a result of the weakness of the bullet.

Not my word, But Maj Gen GD bakshi who was both a sextor commander and a force commander in the most violent years in J and K, and whose sector who scored the most kills in his tenure
I find one observation intriguing.
A lot of people including serving and retired army guys bemoan the sub optimal performance of the Insas 5.56 rifle. Fair enough criticism if the shitty quality control followed by the OFB reduces an somewhat average assault rifle design(indigenously designed INSAS) to an embarrassment of defects.

But this pillorying of the 5.56 Insas round is mysterious.
The same 5.56 * 45 mm round if used in the American M16/M4 and the Israeli Tavor assault rifle becomes magically lethal and deadly. Our Special Forces use imported assault rifles which use the same much maligned 5.56 * 45 round.

But literally nobody criticises the American M16/M4 rifle or the Israeli TAR for using the same 5.56 round which cannot kill but only wound the adversary.

Simply put does the 5.56 * 45 round become impotent when fired from the INSAS rifle but performs excellently when fired from the imported M16 or Tavor assault rifle.

Maybe somebody will say that the OFB made 5.56 round is defective and if the INSAS uses imported 5.56 rounds(let's say NATO manufactured) it will perform much better.

This is not an attempt to gloss over any defects in the INSAS rifle arising out of sub standard OFB manufacturing.
 

abingdonboy

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Any ideas what products (SMPP) were ordered? I hope not those crappy IA designed plate carriers.

+ so those Sikh helmets have actually been ordered, lmao

 

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