Indians For Guns

Some members of Seal Team 6 apparently carried Daniel Winkler knives into combat (so says Matt Bissonette in his landmark book "no easy day")
Went to the site, interesting, watch the video at the site, link below. Rob a bank to buy one..... Specially at 60 Rs to the $.

Then read the book and watch the movie.....

http://www.winklerknives.com/knifeidx.a ... nives%20II

Interesting piece of information Sir. You've worked with the armed forces of so many countries. Which blade is the most preferred carry, any trend that you see. Also do most active duty soldiers carry fixed blades or prefer folders.

Thanks
Moin.

IMHO, The Indian Army does not have the tradition of carrying knives, we used to have a knife issued by the government patterned on the British Army, see Lanceman's Blades. even that is now defunct. Indian soldiers and officers are poorly equipped personally ie knife, torch and other EDC. some officers carry SAKs and in the IPKF i saw that the SF officers were always well armed and bladed.
In my UN experience I worked with officers of almost 25 nations (1990-1991), my observations then were:
1. the Italians had a knife culture, mostly local brands and very Rambo looking.
2. the Finns almost always carried some type of Pukko, great working knives, I have one made for me by J. Martinni of Finland.
3. all the Yugoslavs (yes it was a country then) carried some local folding knives, excellent working knives, not sure of the steel. I have one given to me by an Yugoslav officer.
4. Many officers carried the SAK.
5. the Americans, as always, made much of their knives and EDCs.

The Iranian soldiers used to make a challenge of everything, including seeing whose knife steel was harder! I remember one soldier asking for my Schrade lock back folder and scraping the back edge of both blades to see which dents first.... I do not remember the outcome. I still have the Schrade.

Lanceman wrote:IMHO, The Indian Army does not have the tradition of carrying knives, we used to have a knife issued by the government patterned on the British Army, see Lanceman's Blades. even that is now defunct. Indian soldiers and officers are poorly equipped personally ie knife, torch and other EDC. some officers carry SAKs and in the IPKF i saw that the SF officers were always well armed and bladed.
In my UN experience I worked with officers of almost 25 nations (1990-1991), my observations then were:
1. the Italians had a knife culture, mostly local brands and very Rambo looking.
2. the Finns almost always carried some type of Pukko, great working knives, I have one made for me by J. Martinni of Finland.
3. all the Yugoslavs (yes it was a country then) carried some local folding knives, excellent working knives, not sure of the steel. I have one given to me by an Yugoslav officer.
4. Many officers carried the SAK.
5. the Americans, as always, made much of their knives and EDCs.

The Iranian soldiers used to make a challenge of everything, including seeing whose knife steel was harder! I remember one soldier asking for my Schrade lock back folder and scraping the back edge of both blades to see which dents first.... I do not remember the outcome. I still have the Schrade.

Thats great piece of information sir. I've read in IPKF ( Operation Pawan) the Marcos were very active. How much action did the Para's see in Operation Pawan. Were the SF very strategically used in taking out High Value Targets and other sensitive Operations or was it a more face to face fire fight. How difficult was it for our boys to combat the LTTE given the fact that our SF was primarily involved in training the guerilla fighters in teh first place and LTTE's familiarity with the terrain( so I've read, you would have the first hand account). Why did Indian Army not like the US use Shock & Awe and pure military might to close the LTTE chapter once in for all. I understand that our troops were sent as a peace keeping force but still !!!!..

Apologies for digressing from the topic.

Regards
Moin.

Hoa, that calls for a five day discourse! But let me try and answer that one by one

I was in a place called Mullaitivu for almost two years, heaviest fighting after Jaffna.
Never saw the Marcos, didn't really hear about them either, I wonder if they were operating ashore?
That time there were three para commando battalions deployed for both strategic but mainly tactical tasks. They were very good due to their superior training and high motivation. The concept of SF came much later. Today we have many SF battalions.
Politically shock and awe was not an option, we never used fixed wing aircraft. IMHO shock and awe is an Amercanism for a load of "b*********t" they have shocked and awed Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age but still have to withdraw. If the adversary goes asymmetric high tech gets nullified. I have written about it, please the link

http://www.gatewayhouse.in/can-a-war-be-limited/

Looking forward to it at one of our meets

Moin,

As you must be aware, Marcos then were called Indian Marine Special Forces and the only publicized job (amongst surely many others) they carried out was the highly successful frogman raid on Jaffna harbour/jetty where several LTTE fast craft were demolished with explosives. A similar raid was carried out in Trincomalee.

Some details here....

http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?271657

As for the IA SF missions, the most famous is the Jaffna University mission (There were surely others but cannot be discussed for obvious reasons). Details here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffna_University_Helidrop

As for knives used by our SF units, In the last Navy exibition some months ago, we were shown a Spanish blade by a Marco. He would not even let junior touch it saying it was very sharp and had himself been cut by it a few minutes ago !!!!! Sorry did not catch the name.

M.

Lanceman wrote:Hoa, that calls for a five day discourse! But let me try and answer that one by one

I was in a place called Mullaitivu for almost two years, heaviest fighting after Jaffna.
Never saw the Marcos, didn't really hear about them either, I wonder if they were operating ashore?
That time there were three para commando battalions deployed for both strategic but mainly tactical tasks. They were very good due to their superior training and high motivation. The concept of SF came much later. Today we have many SF battalions.
Politically shock and awe was not an option, we never used fixed wing aircraft. IMHO shock and awe is an Amercanism for a load of "b*********t" they have shocked and awed Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age but still have to withdraw. If the adversary goes asymmetric high tech gets nullified. I have written about it, please the link

http://www.gatewayhouse.in/can-a-war-be-limited/

You know this thread about knives makes me want to have a Fairbairn Sykes commando knife !!!!!!!
Have always loved its shape. Blame it all on those Commando comics.......

http://www.fairbairnsykesfightingknives ... sions.html

M.

Fantum, I knew the officers who took part in the Jaffna Univ heli-drop. It was a heliborne landing that went absolutely haywire. Could give you a discourse on that one and some other ops, good and bad. But not on a public forum.

Lanceman wrote:Hoa, that calls for a five day discourse! But let me try and answer that one by one

I was in a place called Mullaitivu for almost two years, heaviest fighting after Jaffna.
Never saw the Marcos, didn't really hear about them either, I wonder if they were operating ashore?
That time there were three para commando battalions deployed for both strategic but mainly tactical tasks. They were very good due to their superior training and high motivation. The concept of SF came much later. Today we have many SF battalions.
Politically shock and awe was not an option, we never used fixed wing aircraft. IMHO shock and awe is an Amercanism for a load of "b*********t" they have shocked and awed Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age but still have to withdraw. If the adversary goes asymmetric high tech gets nullified. I have written about it, please the link

http://www.gatewayhouse.in/can-a-war-be-limited/

Sir, an excellent read and a very mature perspective given your decades of service with the Indian Army. I'm sure every Indian citizen would have had the same response of retaliation surgical strikes, limited war et all without thinking of possible reprecussions.

Sir why do you think Iraq and Afghanistan were failures. May be yes young soldiers came back home in coffins, billions and billions of honest american tax payers money may have gone down tje drain but was not strategic presence near what the US considers as rogue nation Iran was achieved. Yes the country has been bombed back to the stone age but has not the tremendous amounts of oil come under easy access. Will US firms not get billion dollars worth of contracts in rebuilding the country.

Has poppy seed production ceased in afghanistan, Karzai brother of the biggest drug lords in Afghanistan and puppet president once provided security detail by the very seal team 6 still in power. Have terror camps cease in swat valley.

Sir these may have been military failures inspite of the sheeer might and technology that the US has but what those in power wanted was it not acheived ?

I'm digressing from this thread again but want to hear your expert opinion on this.

Thanks Again
Moin.

Moin, the answer to that one goes way beyond an illiterate soldiers ken.....!

Yes you are right in much of what you say..... Depends on who wants what. I'll stay off the politics, that is too grey for me.
So then military opinion.
Both Iran and Iraq were military failures , they started out as 'surgical strikes' through shock and awe, awesome results in a few days (pun intended) but resulted in the two longest conflicts the US has taken part in. They dismembered the political system of a nation but are unable to supplant a viable alternative. They have been dragged into an asymmetrical conflict where all their tech has been largely negated.
Then there is a conspiracy theory that the US has to be at war all the time as their economy is very dependent on the arms industry (two of the top 10 are arms manufacturers). The US has fought some war continuously since WW 2. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, the drug wars in South America, gulf war 1, GW 2, Afghanistan. America's def budget is 5 times more than the next five nations combined and about 18 times ours see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures

BTW, read a book called "War" by an author Sebastian Junger..... You will enjoy it.

Lanceman wrote:Moin, the answer to that one goes way beyond an illiterate soldiers ken.....!

Yes you are right in much of what you say..... Depends on who wants what. I'll stay off the politics, that is too grey for me.
So then military opinion.
Both Iran and Iraq were military failures , they started out as 'surgical strikes' through shock and awe, awesome results in a few days (pun intended) but resulted in the two longest conflicts the US has taken part in. They dismembered the political system of a nation but are unable to supplant a viable alternative. They have been dragged into an asymmetrical conflict where all their tech has been largely negated.
Then there is a conspiracy theory that the US has to be at war all the time as their economy is very dependent on the arms industry (two of the top 10 are arms manufacturers). The US has fought some war continuously since WW 2. Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, the drug wars in South America, gulf war 1, GW 2, Afghanistan. America's def budget is 5 times more than the next five nations combined and about 18 times ours see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures

BTW, read a book called "War" by an author Sebastian Junger..... You will enjoy it.

Thank you Sir. I will look it up. If not from a politics perspective, from a military perspective how can such a big machinery of war fail against such opponents. What exactly is assyemtric warfare. The case of Operations in Tora Bora under Gen. Tommy Franks which had teams from 1st SFOD Delta, Devgru, german ksk and british SBS with all their superior training, equipemnt tecnology, bombers drones, satellite survellince fail or take the case of operation anaconda in Shah kot. What causes such military failures for such invincible might.

fantumfan2003 wrote:Looking forward to it at one of our meets

Moin,

As you must be aware, Marcos then were called Indian Marine Special Forces and the only publicized job (amongst surely many others) they carried out was the highly successful frogman raid on Jaffna harbour/jetty where several LTTE fast craft were demolished with explosives. A similar raid was carried out in Trincomalee.

Some details here....

http://www.outlookindia.com/printarticle.aspx?271657

As for the IA SF missions, the most famous is the Jaffna University mission (There were surely others but cannot be discussed for obvious reasons). Details here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaffna_University_Helidrop

As for knives used by our SF units, In the last Navy exibition some months ago, we were shown a Spanish blade by a Marco. He would not even let junior touch it saying it was very sharp and had himself been cut by it a few minutes ago !!!!! Sorry did not catch the name.

M.

Lanceman wrote:Hoa, that calls for a five day discourse! But let me try and answer that one by one

I was in a place called Mullaitivu for almost two years, heaviest fighting after Jaffna.
Never saw the Marcos, didn't really hear about them either, I wonder if they were operating ashore?
That time there were three para commando battalions deployed for both strategic but mainly tactical tasks. They were very good due to their superior training and high motivation. The concept of SF came much later. Today we have many SF battalions.
Politically shock and awe was not an option, we never used fixed wing aircraft. IMHO shock and awe is an Amercanism for a load of "b*********t" they have shocked and awed Iraq and Afghanistan into the Stone Age but still have to withdraw. If the adversary goes asymmetric high tech gets nullified. I have written about it, please the link

http://www.gatewayhouse.in/can-a-war-be-limited/

Thanks for the links M. We will pick Brigadearsaabs brains with our questions when we meet

Sir, do you think from a soldiers perspective, is a soldier in afghanistan or Iraq fighting terrorist or people defending themselves against an invading army. What were your thoughts fighting the LTTE in Srilanka, what goes on in a soldiers head when one starts questioning is this my war ?

Secondly to my earlier question as a military strategy what makes spartans take on the might of the persian empire or alexander take on the mighty king of takshila Porus or Shivaji tkae on the might of the powerful mughal empire.do numbers and military might dont count when it comes to winning a war. Where has the US and allied forces failed in their strategy against a much weaker force.

Sir what will be the outcome of US being in Aghanistan. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of empires right from Alexander the great to the mighty russians. Do you think the Afghans were capable to defeating the Russians without the CIA and stinger equation turning the tide?

Moin. wrote:Sir, do you think from a soldiers perspective, is a soldier in afghanistan or Iraq fighting terrorist or people defending themselves against an invading army. What were your thoughts fighting the LTTE in Srilanka, what goes on in a soldiers head when one starts questioning is this my war ?

Secondly to my earlier question as a military strategy what makes spartans take on the might of the persian empire or alexander take on the mighty king of takshila Porus or Shivaji tkae on the might of the powerful mughal empire.do numbers and military might dont count when it comes to winning a war. Where has the US and allied forces failed in their strategy against a much weaker force.

in art of polictics and war. winning a battle is not all. one has to look behind the motive of going to war. as the Elitist always come out wining.

feel sorry for the civic.
regards
dr.jk