Government admits illicit firearms are better than IOF junk

[Sakobav]

Ranjeet

You do have a point in terms of attracting talent but that?s a Human resources issue. Hats off to guys who join the defense forces, there is always a disparity in pay between civvy and defense services but reasons for being in army are very different. Issue here is how come IOF doesn?t produce decent quality products? This is more of a manufacturing process control and execution issue rather than a Metallurgy one. India has produced a marvelous alloy for Arjun tank ?Kanchan armour? which is considered to be in same league as that of Abrahams or British Challenger tanks armour. Question is why cant IOF produce products consistently within specifications.? This issue transcends into other defense public sector units HAL etc.

Also, Indian Army personnel will never publicly complain or divulge stats on INSAS or any IOF product issue. We only find out after operations such as Kargil whne human lives are put at risk. Sometimes the non chalant attitude of babus reminds me of Japanese army who thought spirit of samurai / honor etc mattered more than the weapons. I remember reading somewhere " 2o bolt action rifles firing at the same time has the same affect as a machine gun!" Maybe it took 62 disastrous war with China to get FAL for us ( not sure ). INSAS related issues were reported from Nepal army recently. IOF produces lot of products including soldier uniforms jackets to boots. In nutshell sooner these products are outsourced to private companies? better it is for defense forces.
A soldier or airmen needs the best country can provide. There was an article somewhere how Indian and Pakistan defense forces purchase high altitude equipment from same vendors in Europe!.

Regards

[Mack The Knife]

IOF produces lot of products including soldier uniforms jackets to boots. In nutshell sooner these products are outsourced to private companies? better it is for defense forces.

Only so long as there is enforced quality control. Private companies can be equally apathetic and dishonest.

The only way to ensure quality control is to have competition between the arms manufacturers. Unfortunately, governments, the world over, usually award a contract to the lowest bidder and/or the one providing the highest bribe.

Mack The Knife

[Grumpy]

"the IOF introducing special 5.56 ammo with reduced velocity to be used in the 5.56 carbine."
So while the Americans have finally figured-out that the .223 is a p**s poor man-stopper and are planning to introduce its` replacement ASAP Indian troops are stuck with the puny .223 at REDUCED velocity ? !!!
- I really, really, fear for your military personnel !

[mehulkamdar]

In an article in Gun Digest a long time ago, the writer (I cannot remember who it was now) asked a very pertinent question - can anyone recall any military product from a dictatorial country that was a failure? The fact is that if you look at Nazi Germany or at the former USSR, they had zero failures as far as their small arms were concerned. The reason for this was simple - any designer or worker who messed up was taken care of fast and brutally. The author of the article had suffered with the poorly performing M 60 machine guns in Vietnam and he was also well aware of the failures of the M16A1 rifles which US soldiers often threw away and replaced with AK 47s from dead Vietcong soldiers.

It would not be difficult for the IOF to license technology from companies that build fine guns and then learn the processes so that they also produce world class firearms. The Israelis did that in the 1950s - their Uzi was a modified Czech submachine gun and the Galil is based on the AK 47 in design. Brazil did that with the FAL rifle and, if you go back long enough, the Fabrique Nationale company licensed Mauser technology from 1871 onwards. Mauser may be history today but FN still makes some of the finest furearms in the world. India produces superb engineers - the IITs have been ranked by the Times Educational Supplement and the New York Times as the second best engineering colleges in the world after MIT and, importantly, these days, many IIT graduates prefer to stay back in India instead of migrating to other countries as was the case when I was a student more than twenty years ago. If there is a concerted effort to improve quality slowly and systematically, it would not be difficult for the OFB to manufacture world class firearms in about 5 to 10 years time.

Do I think that would ever happen? Hope as much as I would that it would happen, I don't think it will. When the OFB makes the bulk of it's profits to justify it's existence from sewing uniforms for the world's armies and from stitching Louis Philippe and Van Heusen shirts, I cannot see them spending time on products that would keep our soldiers alive. It is sad, but the fear of Louis Philippe taking their business elsewhere keeps the OFB on it's toes in the clothes that it stitches. The unfortunate jawan has no choice and he has to take whatever crap the OFB puts out. It is a disaster at every step and an absolutely shameful thing in our country.

[Grumpy]

I can`t understand why some people regard criticism of the IOF as being `anti-Indian`. It seems to me that those of you who love and care for your country are morally bound to expose shoddy workmanship and poor practice. When Indian troops are supplied with inferior weaponry - be it tanks or small arms - their lives are put at risk and your national security is threatened. I agree with you Mehul that to impose inferior, inadequate and dangerous ( to the users ) weaponry upon the Indian armed forces is tantamount to treachery.
Mauser were re-established back in 2003 ( I think ) and are manufacturing a couple of different rifles - including an M98 produced from 1930s drawings.

[shutzen]

HI! read about the GOI move to impose a Rs.500/- per year tax on all tv sets to fund the dodering prasar bharti corpn. Hard to believe that this defunct body was responsible for all the tv programming cleared pre satellite era in India. The retarded goonies got so cought up in their monopoly that now we will have to shell out for paying their salaries

On the other hand the IOFB makes third rate arms and sells em to cicilians at first rate ++ rates ! some of their ammo is okay but again price wise its no good at all. If u chk the ultra cheap price at which the arms and ammo is supplied to the govt. u will get a fair idea of the killer margin they make. The ex soviet bloc countries outbid and outperform them in price as well as performance - I dont think these kind of monopolistic dinosours should be allowed to suck on public money. We have to see how much the "aam admi" can take before he has enough

[cottage cheese]

Well our recruiting system has been distinguishing itself in churning out room-fulls of generalist imbeciles all these years... taken that our recruitment processes and training is better now...we'll have to wait some years for all the old slag to superannuate and make way for brighter souls.

If you watch the excruciatingly inane and boring programming that the prasar bharti keeps assaulting us with...its going to be a long winter.

IOFB.... need I say more? The last time I checked(Before I lost interest), the exchequer was being billed about Rs.23,000 for an RFI 7.62mm SLR1A...at around the same time Romanian MPiKM clones were being imported in lakhs at about Rs.1800 each!! ($ exchange rate back then) - This was some years ago by the way. I don't know the present status.

Also look at the deal you were getting for each piece(I'm speaking from the state police perspective):
1) SLR1A - Rs.23,000 - All you got with the rifle was three magazines no bayonet and nothing else.
2) AKM/AKMS/MPiKM etc - Rs.1800- Three magazines, field maintenance tool kit, Oil bottle, Multi purpose bayonet, cleaning rod, canvas or synthetic sling, canvas magazine pouch!!

I took a look at IOFB literature dating back to the early 90's - They had projected the cost of an INSAS at about Rs.10000- I think now its close to Rs.25,000....

I don't know if the billing for defence services is the same, but looking at the way things are going even the government is being conned into paying more that what is worth.