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ks_sachin wrote:
Sir Kalyani had little experience of Arty before they went into it. I wish these guys get the support from a testing and knowledge share perspective. But alas...
I have been looking at their 5.56 carbine. I don't see why that could not come instead of the Caracal for support arms...After all we have the Sig for Frontline inf.
Kalyani bought the Austrian artillery maker Voest lock stock and barrel and moved the line ot India. Besides they make thousands of shell casings which are filled by OFB. So its not the same thing. And Kalyani makes the Top Gun fuze. Please searcch for that image.
BTW Voest gun was the chosen one by IA till Bofors came up with their scam.
This is a very good way of acquiring capabilities. We must encourage private companies for such acquisitions. With our non controversial standing in the international sphere, foreign governments will also not be averse to such takeovers.
Such companies must be rewarded with orders by our government.
Times Now
ew Delhi: With the Ladakh face-off still on and no certainty about when it's likely to end, the Indian Army will get 73,000 Sig Sauer 716 assault rifles from the United States of America. This was today cleared by the Defence Ministry's Services Capital Acquisition Plan Categorisation Higher Committee (SCAPCHC), that includes top military officials and bureaucrats. The total cost for the rifles is about Rs 800 crore.
This is over and above the 72,400 assault rifles already purchased from Sig Sauer. As this Is a repeat order, there will be no need for trials and cost negotiation, which is often time-consuming.
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The OFB/ARDE carbine has been revealed. Would most certainly be visible during Defexpo 2020.
OFB-ARDE carbine.
I wish best of luck to the designers. The carbine is machined instead of stamped sheet metal. My only gripe is that they should have gone for m4 style magazine well and stanag magazines with bolt catch open feature. Hoping to see at least one Indian weapon in IA frontline troops in future.
The SSS Defence P-72 family of weapons looks very very promising. It seems to be built around a universal chassis and can be chambered for 5.56x45, 7.62x39 and 7.62x51 with free floating barrels. Upper receiver is milled steel and bottom receiver is milled aluminium. Bravo !!
We will not buy small arms from the Private Sector for our defense forces. It is good that owners of all the small arms units being set up are all not counting on it and focusing on exports to other countries. They are hopeful though on getting some orders from the central and state police forces.
Vips wrote:We will not buy small arms from the Private Sector for our defense forces. It is good that owners of all the small arms units being set up are all not counting on it and focusing on exports to other countries. They are hopeful though on getting some orders from the central and state police forces.
Vips - why will we not?
If the p-72 outperforms the the OFB CQB you are saying that the IA will choose the OFB product?
Vips wrote:We will not buy small arms from the Private Sector for our defense forces. It is good that owners of all the small arms units being set up are all not counting on it and focusing on exports to other countries. They are hopeful though on getting some orders from the central and state police forces.
Vips - why will we not?
If the p-72 outperforms the the OFB CQB you are saying that the IA will choose the OFB product?
That is rich considering IA's track record and assuming either of them even get invited to trials
ks_sachin wrote:
Vips - why will we not?
If the p-72 outperforms the the OFB CQB you are saying that the IA will choose the OFB product?
That is rich considering IA's track record and assuming either of them even get invited to trials
Sirji I am an eternal optimist....
I actually quite like the p-72 family. Have spent the better part of last week trying to get more information on the family it definitely has better usability features than the OFB CQB which I fear is a rehash of the INSAS design.
I wish they could get the CQB more aesthetic looking....(I know I am shallow!!)
IA has its sights set on the SIG-716 and the AK-203. The current border situation has even resulted in the order for the SIGs getting doubled it seems. These are straight imports, not even license manufacture. And I have seen no reports of SSS Defence weapons being tested by the Army, the publicity they have received notwithstanding.
If the government is serious about Atmanirbhar Bharat especially in the Defence arena, someone in the MoD needs to keep pace with what developments are occurring with private companies looking to invest in defence manufacturing, what are their challenges and how they can be helped by the government (providing testing facilities etc.) and getting them in for trials with the IA. None of this is happening or even being thought of. Are we actually any better today in this respect than the time when MoD refused Baba Kalyani permission to test his artillery gun on the IA's artillery range? I sincerely hope so.
Some laws and regulations will need to be changed to enable the MoD to help private companies out. Otherwise you end up in ridiculous situations like in the case of the APC procurement where since the Kestrel/WhAP is being built by a private company - Tata (even though it is in collaboration with the DRDO) we need a multi-vendor procurement with the American Stryker et al. involved instead of a straight up order for the WhAP. I am sure issues like these plague public-private cooperation in other areas of the defence industry as well and eventually result in our dream of self-reliance in defence remaining a dream.
No, what I meant was US style batallion wholly for Training and Doctrinal changes.
From hearsay, many of the Officers are US Ranger qualified, and some instructors are SEAL qualified, or have cross trained with SAS/ SEALS and Israel/ Russian/ French units .
So creation of a Red team/ opfor type unit , with rest of the paras rotated in for exercises with them to improve effectiveness.
This type of system is in the US Army, apparently enabled armoured units to perform exceedingly well in combat.
amar_p wrote:Looks like IA wants to have as much variety in its stores as Walmart !
May be they want to get into the business of posting youtube review videos and make some money for the nation instead of wasting it.
Really ? Why is good equipment a heresy ? From all accounts these are all good equipment, being procured through g2g FMS deal. Indian SF is thoroughly lacking equipment wise. A few thousand tavors, a few thousand jacked up AKMs and a few thousand m4s are all that differentiate them from ordinary troops. We just have a few hundred PKMs in inventory. This is the status of our Special Forces.
Our SFs need to be tip of the spear. Currently our tier 1 forces, barring the NSG, are worse equipped than second rung forces from other major militaries. Even when equipment is available, it is throughly dated (previous general monocular NVGs compared to quad tube nvgs which are now commonplace in other tier 1 forces). One might ruminate that the SCAR is only marginally better than a modded AKM or that quad tube nvg is overkill, but we don't have enough equipment to equip all SF battalions, let alone Ghatak platoons. Any equipment purchase is good, no argument on that front. From the looks of it, this is just the first batch of equipment, hopefully more will follow as AFSOD gains momentum.
Austrian artillery maker Voest was purchased by Kalyani's sometime in 2009 or 2010. They picked up the entire plant and shipped it to India. Took till about 2012-13 for it to be completely modernized from what I recollect.
k prasad wrote:Based on the distance, and the speed of shots, suggests a dragunov. You don't really hear the click-pull-reload-click of a bolt action rifle.
I suspect the same. Volume of fire suggests 2 shooters. Could be accurate fire from Fn-Mag in semi auto too.
Insas production is not entirely dead. Latest INSAS Excalibur Mk1 with rails. If only they had introduced it back in early 2000s instead of late 2010s.
Insas are now good only (and that is the government plan) for replacing all the .303 with our ordinary policemen. The sooner it happens the better. It is a disgrace that the soldiers who put their lives on the line for the country have to wait for a replacement for more then 18 years after pointing out the glitches in this rifle.
Vips wrote:Insas are now good only (and that is the government plan) for replacing all the .303 with our ordinary policemen. The sooner it happens the better. It is a disgrace that the soldiers who put their lives on the line for the country have to wait for a replacement for more then 18 years after pointing out the glitches in this rifle.
Police depts. received a lot of 1A1 SLR's which the IA retired and which they used to replace many of the Lee-Enfields. All they have to do now is wait for the SIG's and AK's to start coming in and they will be able to mop up the IA's old stocks of the INSAS as they get replaced.
New build INSAS Excaliburs might be a good option for Paramilitary fores though. You already see some of them using those.
Thakur_B wrote:The SSS Defence P-72 family of weapons looks very very promising. It seems to be built around a universal chassis and can be chambered for 5.56x45, 7.62x39 and 7.62x51 with free floating barrels. Upper receiver is milled steel and bottom receiver is milled aluminium. Bravo !!
I hope these guys get a fair trial and proper consideration. This actually meets the famous RFP that no one bid for. Anyways I hope they export instead of waiting for domestic orders
Too little, max two Battalions. Not sure what benefits 5.56 SCAR-L brings over Tavor.
Marginal. But Scar-L will not replace Tavors, not right now. Having a conventional layout with similar ergonomics as M4, Scar-H, Sig-716 will marginally help in training.
tsarkar wrote:
Too little, max two Battalions. Not sure what benefits 5.56 SCAR-L brings over Tavor.
Marginal. But Scar-L will not replace Tavors, not right now. Having a conventional layout with similar ergonomics as M4, Scar-H, Sig-716 will marginally help in training.
Thakur sahab,
Thakur Sahab could it be that AFSOD core group of personnel drawn from SF / Marcos / Garuds others will standardise on this equipment while part of the AFSOD set up.
Which means that SF bns itself will not have an equipment change i.e. will continue with Tavors etc.
IF AFSOD is meant to be 3000 strong then I take it that there will be people on deputation here?
Sorry don't know enough so shooting in the dark...
There has to be a signing ceremony/acquisition to add substance to Putin's visit to India in the last quarter of this Year. If not AK 203 then we will sign up for import of some other armaments from Russia.
At this point, I actually feel bad for ARDE/OFB. Just when they started innovating, they are being showed the door. the 7.62x51 AR-2 ws pretty decent attempt. The prototypes were shunned for high recoil issues. Looking at SiG716 and the old AR-2 videos, the recoil seems not that bad.
Thakur_B wrote:At this point, I actually feel bad for ARDE/OFB. Just when they started innovating, they are being showed the door. the 7.62x51 AR-2 ws pretty decent attempt. The prototypes were shunned for high recoil issues. Looking at SiG716 and the old AR-2 videos, the recoil seems not that bad.
I also feel sad for SSSDefence. Their products are unlikely to see service in the IA too. We haven't heard of them even being tested out.
Thakur_B wrote:At this point, I actually feel bad for ARDE/OFB. Just when they started innovating, they are being showed the door. the 7.62x51 AR-2 ws pretty decent attempt. The prototypes were shunned for high recoil issues. Looking at SiG716 and the old AR-2 videos, the recoil seems not that bad.
I also feel sad for SSSDefence. Their products are unlikely to see service in the IA too. We haven't heard of them even being tested out.
There is a recent stroy from THe Wire, which i am not linking here because I do not want to support their class of journalism, which informs that the Russians are asking for around $200 royalty for each AK203 rifle produced in India. ALso, the cost of AK203 manufactured in India is likely to be much higher than import from an already set up factory line in Russia.
ALso, it's been 2 years since Caracal downselect. 2 years was a sufficient enough timeline for IA to conduct round of procurement for remaining requirements of carbines. Now everybody in IA brass and MoD is running helter skelter because of cut off date of Dec 2021 for imprt of rifles/carbines.
