Bharat Rakshak

The Army is holding a 3 day exhibition at teh Field Maeshal Manekshaw parade ground in Bangalore. I went with my kids this afternoon.


I am particularly pleased to see the Army "opening up". There was a similar exhibition 2 years ago - shortky before Aero India 2003 which I videoed. At that time the IA was still in "paranoia" mode with gun toting guarda all over and junta separated from tanks.

This time - NO toting security guards (almost) and it;s all friendliness. We were allowed to climb ito T 72s and BMPs - fiddle with all weapons including a Dragunov.

I have pictures and will post them along with comments on the show.

This is a thread starter FYI

This is more like it - cant wait for the pictures.

The one in Hyderabad last year was also very people friendly - allowing people to take pictures climb in and out of tanks, try out the weapons.

the only unfriendly part was them not allowing pictures of the Agni TEL.

The pictures are no great shakes - but I have a few.

Theer was a show of stuff like paragliding, malkhamb and other stuff - most of which I missed. There were stalls from various Army organizations, and from HAL, BEL, BEML, ASC. Ther were many small arms simulatprs and everyone was allowed to take potshots at the targets.

People were climbing in and out of the T 72s and the BMPs. Peopel were sitting on the ZSU 23 AA cannon and whirling it about.

The Maratha Light Indfantry regt stall was a big draw. They had a range of small arms - including an INSAS with a telescopic sight which everyone was looking through. There was a Dragunov as well - which we were allowed to hold.

What a fascinating weapon - the Dragunov sniper rifle. It is so light and so well balanced. It feels so comfortable in your hands.

There were automatic granade launchers and 81 mm mortars. Oh yes - the MLIR has laser rangefinders as well. The IA is not only being good at people friendly PR - it is beginning to look far more modern than I recall it loking in earlier years.

The Army is learning PR and had a recruitment info stall as well. The powers that need to be must get out of info paranoia and understand the magic the sight of guns and tanks does to young boys.

Sorry my descriptiuon is incomplete. My visit was hardly complete - given that I just decided to park there as I was passing by and I "happened" to be carrying a camera.

Oh BTW Bangalore folks - tomorrow is the last day. Be sure to go there and show your support for your army.

Shiv i presume the army is following the trend of the IAF. The sudden increase in PR activities of the army has been related to improve the recrutiment standards of the armed forces following the chain of news regarding fall in standards. There was a similar exhibition in Delhi some time back if i remember correctly.

Dragunov is a really nice rifle, the sight is both coupled day and night sight. Good as a support rifle for infantry at extended long range engagement. Dunno if they still import the ammunition or not. By the way the BMP's you saw were standard fit or where they upgraded ones?

Also anyone going down can confirm small tit bits regarding the upgrade of BMP's//T-72 and issue status of the new small arms, sights etc. Usually the personell manning these stalls have information regarding it and if possible the effectiveness of the upgrades..First hand info from the basic soldier using it on ground.

Abhi

And older ones as well

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Awesome close-ups!!

BTW, number 11 gives an error....

67 AR insignia;
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Why this peculiar shape for fuel tanks?
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Below is a picture of Army Day celebrations in Bangalore that Shiv had posted sometime back. Is the gun from the "333" Missile Group?

No No.. that the 333 AD Arty junta. Now based in Bombay. (Their MT Shaktimans act as school-buses, and pick up the bachcha-log from KV IIT).

Very Surprising to hear that the Army shied away from letting the public close to the tanks 2 years back.. I went to an exhibition more than 4 yrs back at Hyd. and they seemed to have no problems whatsoever. Me and my friends handled guns, mines(they showed us how to defuse one), rocket launchers, dragunovs, night vision equipment.. just abt everything. We even got a ride in a T-72 (reared up and climbed a 4 foot earthern wall). It was the last day of the show and they may have cut a little slack..

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Anyhow.. what the devil is the Army Institute of Fashion Technology??

Anyhow.. what the devil is the Army Institute of Fashion Technology??

The Army has in the recent times, opened a very large number of educational institutions - in every field. These are open to the public, with perhaps a quota for defence wards and personnel. An example would be the new army medical college in New Delhi. Unlike AFMC, this is just like any other institute and the passouts dont have to enroll themselves into the armed forces. You remain a civilian when you join these institutes.

the 333 number is an internal number within the formation. the actual unit name will be different. for examples not that the tanks and bmps are always painted either 220 or 221 and we know the tanks came from 67 AR.

Shiv,

Did you shoo away the people from the tanks? Or you must have gone in real early!

Jagan

Aditya you are wrong. These institutes are meant ONLY for children of ARMY personnel, not even for Navy and Air Force. I think a couple of seats are kept for civillians, but it's not confirmed.
As of now there are about 6 such institutes:

Army Instt of Tech (AIT, Pune)
Army Instt of Law (AIL, Mohali)
Army Instt of Hotel Mgmt (AIHM, Bangalore)
Army Instt of Fashion Tech (AIFT, Bangalore)
Army College of Dental Sciences (ACDS, Secunderabad)
Army Med College (AMC, Delhi)

Out of these, AIT and AIHM are doing really well, the rest are yet to prove their worth. The main aim of these instts are to provide quality edn to wards of Army personnel and to send them out in the civl world, ironically most boys passing out of the AIL, AIHM and some from AIT end up joining the OTA or IMA!!

333 is the Tag No of the regiment under Corps HQ, so is 220 under the respective Div HQ. These Guns belong to 147 AD.

I attended all three days of "KYA". To be honest, though the public loved it, it could have been arranged better by the Sub-Area. I agree with all of you regarding allowing people to actually hold the small arms, check out the AD Guns and Tanks and BMPs. Thats what the public loves, not to forget, the tank rides! Crowd control could have been better, especially today (last day), next to the dias where the officers and their families were sitting. The Tornadoes rocked as usual. Hope the next time, KYA improves.
Anyway, this has nothing to do with the topic but Jagan, do you remember in Sept 2001 i think, when the Navy MARCOS gave a demo at Hussain Sagar?? Where you there? That was good.

Aditya you are wrong. These institutes are meant ONLY for children of ARMY personnel, not even for Navy and Air Force. I think a couple of seats are kept for civillians, but it's not confirmed

Hmm, the Army institute of business admin in Greater Noida is run like any other institute. I can confirm that if any quota for the defence wards exists, its very small.

Force had covered AMC once, again it never said that it is exclusively for Army wards.

I am sure the Army will "learn" like the IAF did.

In Avia India 1993 - it was all paranoia.

In the fisrt Aero india (was it 1995?) it was all love and people had picnics under the parked fighters.

Then things changed.

Sorry to make a prediction like this but some fool will one day pick up a Dragunov on display and drop it telescope down and break something. In the meantime the crowds will get larger and larger and larger as people realise that there is a never dseen before type tamasha going on.

The Army will wise up and replace their attuitude toone of friendship with dignity - rather than the open love shown this time (or the total paranoia last time). Plus - I think the Army MUST sell tickets for crowd control as things get more crowded. Free entry is best for now - when nobody knows much about the Army.

It would be great to have a building mock up and show how soldiers would storm the bulding and take out terrorists. I think there were no horses this time. The army horse team were spectacular last time.

Shiv'ji, thx for the pics.

Shiv, you're absolutely right. It was really heartening to see the public so thrilled and excited about their army. Just imagine what would happen if they gave demos on House storming, Platoon attack with BMPs, Para Jumps and tanks just zipping across would have been enough t get the crowds out of their seats!!
There were Horse Shows for the first two days i think. The crowd will love equestarian and other events related to it like Tent Pegging etc.
One think that i started to like and then ended up hating was the RC flying of the Helicopter by the Aero Modelling Instructor (i think?) of the NCC Air Sqn. No doubt he was good, but then as the crowd cheered him on he took his chopper inside the seating area, below the shamiana, right on top of the crowd. As if that was not enough, he took it over the Officer Seating Area, right over the Sub Area Cdr!! I thought that was gross foolishness and total lack of flight safety. The officers did not look amused at all. Apart from that, it was ok. The Beating of Retreat and "Abide With Me" came as a pleasant surprise.
If you went today, you would have noticed the 67 Armd Regt guys wearing the jet black uniform, once issued to Armd personnel and then discontinued. Its been many years since it was discontinued but most Armd regts still wear it for "style"!

Aditya, the instts i mentioed above are ONLY for children of Army Personnel, i dont know about the others.

First off, sorry shek, I couldn't contact you. I did visit the NCC stall around 2.00 pm and it was nice.

I enjoyed the last day of KYA, although I reached there about 12.00 and today was a very hot day indeed, which really sapped my energy. Soon as I reached there I was pissed off to note that I had only about 4 shots left in my camera so interesting pictures were out :-(

The first thing I noticed when I entered were three BEML Tatra transporters, which carried the T-72s and the BMP-2s from Secunderabad. It must be something pulling 40+ tons on the road! Then I headed to the BMP-2s. There were people climbing all over and the army guys had a tough time keeping people in check, but they were cheerful about it. There were people in the driver's seat and in the gunner's seat. The only place people couldn't get into was the rear compartment which was locked. The same scenario was repeated on the T-72s. People all over.

The small arms section was interesting. The 1 MLI guys were polite, courteous and didn't lose their tempers to some silly and inane questioning by me and tons of other people. I played around a bit with the INSAS LMG, the guys seem to like it because its has greater range and is accurate to boot. Looked at the 30 round plastic magazine and what surprised me was that it loads 15 bullets into 2 columns, not 30 bullets one on top of the other as I had expected (shows you my knowledge of small arms
The INSAS LMG has an optical sight mounted on it, as did the assault rifle version of the INSAS. I also held the Dragunov sniper rifle, nice piece of equipment that. I thing that I didn't know we had was a 6 shot 40 mm grenade launcher that is carried one per section in an infantry batallion. This equipment originates from South Africa. Also on display was the 30 mm AGS-17 Plamya grenade launcher.

There was an Israeli thermal imager on display and three 81 mm mortars. 3 men are required to carry one 81 mm mortar (base plate, tube and bipod support, each approximately weighing around 14 kgs.). Interesting to me was the fact that once the barrel heats up, the men are issued gloves to handle it.

There was a 106 mm RCL mounted on a Jonga and a Milan launcher mounted on a Mahindra jeep. And a very light Igla launcher.

BEML Tatra trucks galore. All left hand drive.

There was an AAC Dhruv, kids were being allowed to get in close to the rear clamshell doors and peer into the cockpit. That was nice to see.

The ISRO stalls had scale models of the GSLV-Mk.III and the PSLV. The only brochure I picked up was a list of all Indian satellites launched into space - 39 at last count. Trivia question - which is the only Indian satellite launched into space by the Space Shuttle?

I finally got confirmation that was is under test are directionally solidified turbine blades manufactured by DMRL and not single crystal blades. GTRE guys are the most secretive of any DRDO lab I have ever seen - they must be defensive about not having any engine developed that powers any aircraft that flies, in their entire existence!

ADE - the tow bodies towed by the Lakshya have an RCS of 4 sq.m.

The NCC stall had scale models of ships and aircraft including what I thought was a very nice one of the HS-748 mounting the ASP.

Improvements that could have been made was that the display could have been arranged better and there could have been more regulation of the crowd near the T-72 and BMP display.

Shiv - any more pictures of those paras and any other troopers in combat gear..

THx

Subra

Never mind merlin, maybe some other time. Btw, what do you do? I have just passed out from Christ. Even i landed there around 12 with a friend of mine showing him stuff. He is into the navy and stuff, was motivating him to join the OTA/IMA. Had a quick look and went for lunch to Brigades. Loafed around there and came back by 3 and hung around the NCC stall. My juniors were briefing in the Army section. then by 330 sat down before the janta stormed. Where were you sitting??

While I appreciate the pictures of equipment , we need more picures of the troopers - thats where a lot of tiny changes have come across. Shivs picture of the paras is nice.
It has also captured a bit of the swagger of the paratroopers
ANy picture of the 6 shot grenade launcher.

I have seen pics of 6 shot grenade launchers with troops in kashmir.

Added later
link

link

The interesting part of all the suggestions to have simulated stormings etc., is the fact that the ARmy used to do this way back in the 70s .

WE used to have itin BRaborne stadium , with Infantry charges , smoke etc. I think they called it Military tattoo or something.

Yup...its called "Military Tattoo".

Need to know more about Poonam Dagar. Seems to have survived DDMitis Her report on PSLV was also presise and devoid of either hyperbole or self-flagellation.

what is that? LVM3 stands for what? Launch Vehicle Mark -3 as in GSLV M-3?

I remember a Military Tatoo that i attended as a kid - my earliest memory of the army and all - it was in the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad. This was pre 1978. There were the usual maching gun noise, radio controlled jeeps (atleast thats what i think they were) and tents made out of hay that burned up at the end of the show.

Shek,

I dont remember the dates, but there were two naval displays over the Hussain sagar. The first one was the best, with Sea Kings, Chetaks, Kamovs etc.. the second was an All chetak affair so was a tad dissapointing.

regards

jagan

I have a couple more - will post after I finishing several re-installs of operating system on another computer that has the pictures.

When is the last day of the army show? I read in the newspaper that it concluded on Sunday. Is this correct?

yes it concluded on sunday

Thanks A Sharma for posting that link, yep that's the 6 shot grenade launcher. It has a beautiful finish and isn't heavy at all.

Shek, you must have been the guy in the yellow T-shirt who clambered up the BMP-2 along with another guy. Right?

hey! that was me!, how did u know??
where were u?

He, heh! The moment you said that you were giving gyan to a friend, I just knew it! The earnest young guy in yellow was also giving gyan, which I shamelessly listened in to, until said kid said something incorrect
I had just got off the BMP and was on my way towards the AAC Dhruv.

he he he, u shud have said hi!, btw, what did i say wrong??

At Mumbai KYA, I had managed to speak to one of the guys who flies 1115. He knew about BR.

>>he he he, u shud have said hi!, btw, what did i say wrong??

Sorry I don't exactly recollect what was wrong. And at that time I thought you were some very young guy from the IA what with your short cropped hair etc.

Thanks! thats a compliment. The cut was coz its reqd in the NCC and i like it! but still, you should have met up. anyways, what du do??