Discussion on Indian Special Forces

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member_20317
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by member_20317 »

Agree there.

Dragunov SVD was the 'best for us' and in most cases is likely to remain so.

What I was thinking of was M82/M107 class weapon used in all sort of settings. A .50 BMG cal weapon firing twice the distance of an SVD, could be a great force multiplier. I dont know what is used by IA for roles suitable for such bigger calibres.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by atreya »

@ ^^
Vidhwansak is used by BSF, I don't know if the Army uses them too.
Added later: Just learnt that the Gepard GM6 Lynx is used by IA. Pics here
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/sh ... 010/page10


Rohitvats, can you point towards the discussion of those pics of MARCOS and their Dragunovs?

Thanks
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Marut »

rohitvats wrote:^^^Marut, there is nothing like a Ghatak batallion....it is a platoon within an infantry unit. Those pics are infact of men from MARCOS. There was a detailed discussion on these pics and Dargunov version on BRF.
Thanks for the correction Rohit. I did mean the Ghatak platoon. I remember the pics and discussion from that thread, but find it odd that of all the marcos these are the ones without any face mask! hence my doubts whether they really are marcos
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by rohitvats »

atreya wrote:<SNIP>Rohitvats, can you point towards the discussion of those pics of MARCOS and their Dragunovs?
Thanks
Please look for discussion thread on 26/11.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Marut »

Gepard, Vidhwanshak (aka Denel NTW) are heavy caliber rifles primarily categorized as anti-material rifles. They are usually 12.7mm or 14.5mm in caliber which gives them much higher range than a regular 7.62mm rounds.

The primary use for these rifles is against light skinned vehicles & helos (shooting out the engine/rotors), battlefield C&C centers & command post, targets through sangars & fortifications etc. Their use against plain human targets is incidental and mostly due to the long range of engagements that were encountered in the Afghan and Iraq theaters by US. Even the IA & BSF employ these rifles for their primary roles.

In our context, the usual range of engagement in COIN ops is usually less than 500m for a sniper, hence the Dragunov & more recently the Galil 7.62 - which are essentially a designated marksman rifle - are found to be adequate for the job by RR & most SF. The NSG uses PSG-1 & MSG90 for their sniping operations. The PSG-1 considered to be one of the finest (& most expensive-USD8000 per unit) rifles has a range of 700-800m only and primarily used by law enforcement agencies abroad. The MSG90 is the militarized version of the PSG but is still labelled as designated marksman rifle.

The proper sniper rifles used by IA are the Mauser SP66 and SP86 as per pics & info in public domain. But there is no public info about any sniper training program like the ones you find in US military, etc. If any such info is available in public domain then jingos may please share and enlighten all of us.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

i think we managed to buy 900 of NTW rifles before Denel got banned, hope the service contract was not banned and these remain fully operational.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Aditya_V »

ravi_g wrote:Agree there.

Dragunov SVD was the 'best for us' and in most cases is likely to remain so.

What I was thinking of was M82/M107 class weapon used in all sort of settings. A .50 BMG cal weapon firing twice the distance of an SVD, could be a great force multiplier. I dont know what is used by IA for roles suitable for such bigger calibres.

In Kargil type areas where the mountains don't have too much vegetation, such snipers would be useful in shooting Pakis in Sangers and Bunkers with Machine guns. I think in operation Parakram and thereafter anti-material rifles procured from Denel had a huge impact on Paki Morale. Alas, UPA 1 and Renuka Choudary put paid to procurement of more of these.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

but there are other vendors like barrett and more if we need 0.50cal and bigger rifles. its not a unique product.
barret is used by a huge list of countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M82_Barrett_rifle

the pakis btw use a turkish bora-12 MKEK rifle as their main sniper rifle now per a tender.

there are even 20mm rifles...almost like a portable cannon from fighters. FBI has purchased some of these
some fascinating pix here
http://www.anzioironworks.com/MAG-FED-20MM-RIFLE.htm

maybe the FBI needs such overwatch snipers to disable criminal vehicles attempting to flee...or maybe they are just nuts for big guns and are pissed the army didnt give them a bushmaster cannon.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Marut »

^ Denel NTW has a 20mm caliber as well. It's interchangable with the 14.5 so a 2-man team can carry the complete system and snipe as needed by the situation. We predominantly use the 14.5mm.

The development of the 0.5BMG and higher calibers were driven by the need to disable fleeing vehicles in urban settings and to strike at targets in vehicles, helos, bunkers/sangars etc. in military use. The range for the purposes is mostly around 1200-1500m. But it was also found that these bullets could be 'accurate' upto 2000+m against human targets due to their bullet weight and energy. This led to them being used in Afg & Iraq by the coalition forces to eliminate threats at standoff ranges. Even we can use them in these roles apart from sangar busting. Nothing says we aren't doing so :)
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Nick_S »

Singha wrote:but there are other vendors like barrett and more if we need 0.50cal and bigger rifles. its not a unique product.
barret is used by a huge list of countries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M82_Barrett_rifle
Looks like India is one of the users of this Barrett.


- India: The M107 is used by Mumbai Police Force One Commandos.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Marut »

^Let's me rephrase the above statement.

India (Mumbai Police Force One) has the M107 Barret rifle.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

their small arms looks like a good mix of colt M4, ak56 and H&K.

what sniper rifle is used here in the chennai test match
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tacks.html

to me it looks like a heavy barrel FN-FAL with bipod and scope. is that unit chennai police ATS ?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by sum »

TFTA SAS+SBS combo fail in their hostage rescue mission:
Briton, Italian killed in failed rescue bid
A British-Nigerian operation, using helicopters and hundreds of troops including the elite SAS, to rescue two abducted foreigners went awry on Friday with the militant group Boko Haram killing the captives.

The special troops failed in their daring bid after waging a gun battle lasting over seven hours, with the Briton, Chris McManus, and his Italian co-worker, Franco Lamolinara, killed in the operation.

Italy seethed with anger for being kept in the dark about the deadly raid in the northwestern Nigerian city of Sokoto. At least two of the captors were also killed in the raid.

In the strongest condemnation, Italian President Giorgio Napolitano told reporters in Rome: “The behaviour of the British government in not informing Italy is inexplicable.”
“A political and diplomatic clarification is necessary.”

While Nigerian President Jonathan Goodluck blamed Boko Haram for the death of the hostages and said the killers had been arrested, British Prime Minister David Cameron took responsibility for authorising the botched operation.

Cameron said he had given the go-ahead for the rescue mission after the UK received “credible information” about the location of the two hostages.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Raja Bose »

Is that a Chankian use of hyphenation to distribute the blame? :mrgreen:
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Sid »

Singha wrote:their small arms looks like a good mix of colt M4, ak56 and H&K.

what sniper rifle is used here in the chennai test match
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tacks.html

to me it looks like a heavy barrel FN-FAL with bipod and scope. is that unit chennai police ATS ?
That sir.. is good old PSG-1, in use with NSG and other services since 80s.
Lalmohan
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Lalmohan »

Raja Bose wrote:Is that a Chankian use of hyphenation to distribute the blame? :mrgreen:
some parts of the british media will definitely blame the nigerians for this - incompetent dark colonial underlings blah blah
but so far they've held back. junior ministers have been on tv to say that the italians were in the loop, plus suggestions that italians are more amenable to buying their way out of these situations rather than no negotiation stance of uk gov. i expect there to be a huge italian public outcry over this death, which the italian gov is preempting by saying they werent informed

more seriously, i think boko haram are far more organised, disciplined and dangerous than the usual bunch of yahoos operating in the hinterland. almost certainly the displaced organisers from the mid east have made their way over here. and there will eventually be a pak connection somewhere
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Aditya G »

Sid wrote:
Singha wrote:their small arms looks like a good mix of colt M4, ak56 and H&K.

what sniper rifle is used here in the chennai test match
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tacks.html

to me it looks like a heavy barrel FN-FAL with bipod and scope. is that unit chennai police ATS ?
That sir.. is good old PSG-1, in use with NSG and other services since 80s.
MSG-90
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

the pakis should gell just fine with this lot, per wiki description:

Boko Haram is an indigenous Salafist group which only turned itself into a Salafist Jihadist group in 2009.[5] It propagates that not only interaction with the Western World is forbidden, but it is also against the Muslim establishment and the government of Nigeria.[17] The group publicly extols its ideology despite the fact that its founder and former leader Muhammad Yusuf was himself a highly educated man who lived a lavish life and drove a Mercedes Benz.[12]
The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population[18] and have carried out assassinations in the past of any one who criticises it, including Muslim clerics.[16]
In a 2009 BBC interview, Muhammad Yusuf, then leader of the group, rejected scientific explanation for natural phenomena, such as the sun evaporating water being the cause of rain, Darwinian evolution, and the Earth being a sphere "f it runs contrary to the teachings of Allah".[12] Before his death, Yusuf reiterated the group's objective of changing the current education system and rejecting democracy.[19]
In the wake of the 2009 crackdown on its members and its subsequent reemergence, the growing frequency and geographical range of attacks attributed to Boko Haram have led some political and religious leaders in the north to the conclusion that the group has now expanded beyond its original religious composition to include not only Islamic militants, but criminal elements and disgruntled politicians as well.

and as predicted, Pakis are already active there :mrgreen:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1662359.stm

Six Pakistani Muslim preachers have been arrested in south-west Nigeria for allegedly inciting religious violence, press reports say.
According to independent Lagos daily newspaper The Guardian, the six men and their Nigerian host were picked up after residents in Sagamu, a suburb of the city of Lagos, tipped off a traditional ruler.

Residents said the preachers had used a public address system to propagate messages which they considered strange and capable of causing violence.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Lalmohan »

nigeria is no stranger to religious rioting and pogroms featuring the ROP'ers
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by ManuT »

India’s secret army of Tibetans without parachutes; kickbacks suspected

http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NEWS/news ... wsid=17356

Saikat Datta / DNA

March 9, 10:30 IST
New Delhi: India’s secret force of Tibetans, the SFF (Special Frontier Force), raised after the 1962 border conflict with China, has been without parachutes for nearly two years on the suspicion that senior officers tried to take kickbacks.

The SFF, sometimes also referred to as Establishment-22, has been a part of India’s external intelligence agency, R&AW, and was originally raised to play a role behind enemy lines in China in the event of a war.

Raised with the help of the CIA post-1962, it is a Special Forces unit almost the size of an army division and headed by a Major General on deputation. At the time of the procurement it was headed by Major General Dalbir Singh who has subsequently moved on to the North-East on promotion to command an army Corps. Parachutes are essential equipment for the SFF and are critical to the constant training and operations that the SFF undertakes on a regular basis.

Last year the SFF began the process to procure new parachutes since the ones in stock had either been used for the mandated 100 jumps or had lived their shelf life of 15 years. By May 2011 the tenders were sent out using the usual procedure that R&AW uses to mask its purchases, by using the front of a public sector undertaking that is under a different Union ministry.

The SFF put in a major criterion to select the parachutes. Any company that was bidding for the tender should have supplied parachutes to its armed forces. They also added another clause mandating that the parachutes must have been used by the military for at least five years to establish a proven track record. The SFF also ensured that the parachutes had to match the aircraft from which they would be deployed. So for any parachutes that were to be used for the Russian IL-76 aircraft, the parachutes had to be from an erstwhile “Warsaw Pact” country.

This ensured that two companies from Ukraine emerged as the front-runners for a supply of 150 parachutes for one batch, while a Spanish company emerged as the front-runner for a western aircraft that is currently used by the SFFF. Both put together, the initial purchase was to be of 300 parachutes followed by larger orders to equip the whole force. Each parachute costs about Rs1.25 lakh.

However, once the user trials began, senior officers noticed a major anomaly in the samples sent across by the two Ukranian companies. The samples, sources told DNA, were matching sequentially. “We noticed that if the serial number was 514 in one parachute, the other sample was 515. How was that possible if two separate manufacturers had sent us separate random samples? Even the lettering was the same which meant they were sent from the same manufacturer,” a senior officer from R&AW, familiar with the case, told DNA.
Any chance of them being absorbed in the Mountain Strike Corps?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

RAW comes under home ministry and not the army right? imo its high time this force be absorbed into the army and infact form the core of one of the new mountain strike divisions, with every member being uniquely para certified. kind of like the 1st airborne division concept adapted to the mountains.

that would be far better use than sitting under RAW.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by hnair »

It is cabinet secretariat, but rather more directly to PMO. Caution on what we wish. We should not treat the Tibetan friends as our Foreign Legion.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by sum »

^^ Dont we manufacture parachutes in-house nowadays?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

well they to all intents and purposes are indian citizens. all the folks currently in SFF would have been born in India during the 80s and 90s.

parachutes - I thought so too. but perhaps some uber long range parachutes meant to permit silent flights of upto 50km are imported from switzerland onree.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by rohitvats »

True words, hnair sahab....as it is, we use them as and when required from Golden Temple to Siachen to 1971 to Kargil
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by sum »

^^ Didn't a recent article on SFF( cant recall which but read it on BRF, IMO) mention that it is almost entirely Indian now ( staffed with Gurkhas and Paharis) and there are miniscule number of Tibetians left?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by rohitvats »

please to ask suryaullah what thag means and about what?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Marut »

+1 to rohit. let's not go up the beaten path again!
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by ParGha »

self-delete
Last edited by ParGha on 14 Mar 2012 18:21, edited 1 time in total.
Surya
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Surya »

Ok - we should follow what the rest of the army follows

Whether you are a SF hotshot, a Lt General in some part of Army HQ - you do not get to step into SFF, Vikas regmt etc unless cleared by the right folks.

many a publicity loving General has been turned back politely.

so we should apply it to ourselves :)
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Aditya G »

ManuT wrote:...Raised with the help of the CIA post-1962, it is a Special Forces unit almost the size of an army division and headed by a Major General on deputation. At the time of the procurement it was headed by Major General Dalbir Singh who has subsequently moved on to the North-East on promotion to command an army Corps....
Gen Dalbir Singh is next in line after Lt Gen Bikram Singh for COAS
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

I hope there is some meat and heft behind this self-declared secretiveness.

whatever it is , it has to deliver when we need it.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Aditya G »

ManuT wrote:...while a Spanish company emerged as the front-runner for a western aircraft that is currently used by the SFFF. Both put together, the initial purchase was to be of 300 parachutes followed by larger orders to equip the whole force. Each parachute costs about Rs1.25 lakh....
The western aircraft being the C-130?
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Singha »

the price looks right. the kind of parachutes used by SF to fly for tens of km (flying wing really) cost upward of $2000 everyone one looks
http://www.skydivestore.com/getcanopies ... n~Canopies

the round parachutes which are non steerable probably cost less and depend on drop pilots accuracy and speed.
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Surya »

Dalbir Singh would be a very interesting chief
based on his background

Our Friend Vyas had some observations :) :wink:
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Dmurphy »

Surya wrote:Dalbir Singh would be a very interesting chief
based on his background

Our Friend Vyas had some observations :) :wink:
Here: http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewtopic.php?t=321
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Surya »

thanks DMurphy
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by nelson »

Surya wrote:Dalbir Singh would be a very interesting chief
based on his background

Our Friend Vyas had some observations :) :wink:
IC 26279 Maj Gen Dalvir Singh, GOC Kilo Force in 2002, who took part in the IPKF operation as Lt Col Dalvir Singh CO 10 Para SF in 1987-88

http://www.indianparachuteregiment.kar. ... heroes.htm

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/lreleng/lyr2 ... 20022.html

is different from

IC 30351 Lt Gen Dalbir Singh, of Fifth Gorkha Rifles, former IG SFF, presently GOC 3 Corps and presumably in the line to become COAS.

http://www.morungexpress.com/regional/63470.html

http://www.indianarmy.gov.in/Site/FormT ... dsRyEsjw==
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by Surya »

Thanks nelson

the former would be more interesting to watch
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Re: Discussion on Indian Special Forces

Post by rohitvats »

Hmmmm......Gorkhas and SFF (Vikas/Archers) seem to have long relationship which continues to this day.
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