India Seeks ‘Shoot To Kill’ Hardware In Military Upgrade: Foreign Media

ndia’s armed forces have embarked on a shopping spree for modern assault
rifles, body armor and helmets, providing a potential boost to global
arms suppliers.

The 1.3 million-strong military is abandoning its
two decade-old Indian made rifles and seeking to outfit its infantry
with more up-to-date equipment, scouting for a new model on the global
market for 185,000 assault rifles. The Ministry of Defence also needs to
buy hundreds of thousands of helmets and tens of thousands of bullet
proof vests.

The moves are part of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s $250 billion push to modernize India’s
armed forces, as infantry continue to face the brunt of deadly attacks
in disputed border areas such as Kashmir and the north-east.

Plans
to buy new equipment from overseas, however, have been held back by
bureaucratic delays and the military’s desire to balance the needs of
troops against efforts to have equipment built domestically under Modi’s
” Make in India” program, a key plank in his drive to boost local
manufacturing.

“It’s encouraging that they’re going ahead with
this, but it’s discouraging that it’s not made under ‘Make in India,’ ”
said Anit Mukherjee, a former major in the Indian Army and assistant
professor at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
“The fact that it took 10 years for Indians to go ahead and say, ‘we’re
importing’ means the bureaucracy is still holding back modernization of
the armed forces. That’s problematic.”

Local Rifles

The
army currently uses the INSAS, or Indian Small Arms System, rifle,
introduced in the late 1990s and built by the state-owned Ordnance
Factory. Yet the Indian and Nepalese soldiers issued with the guns
complained the 5.56mm rifles were unreliable, prompting the ministry to
go to the global market for their replacement.

To identify
possible vendors, the ministry last month issued a request for
information. It said it wants a larger, more deadly 7.62mm model that
will “shoot to kill.”

India needs 65,000 rifles within 28 months
of signing the contract and has asked global manufacturers to reply by
November 7, the ministry said. India plans to issue a tender for
procuring rifles in April 2017.

This is India’s second attempt
since 2011 to procure assault rifles for its infantry. The 2011 tenders
were issued to Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC, Italy’s Fabbrica d’Armi
Pietro Beretta S.p.A., Swiss Sig Sauer Inc., the Czech Republic’s Ceska
zbrojovka and Israel Weapons Industry Ltd. But it was canceled in 2015
after the rifles offered up by the global manufacturers did not meet the
multi-caliber requirements of the army.

Procurement Delays

Apart
from assault rifles, the army also sought to buy light automatic rifles
and machine guns, as well as sniper rifles. Initially, it planned to
buy 43,000 carbines off the shelf from international companies and build
120,000 others at ordnance factories in India.

But a tender
issued four years ago to buy the carbines was canceled earlier this
month over procedural issues, according to a senior army officer who
asked not to be identified discussing information that is private.

The
rifle procurement is part of the army’s efforts to modernize personnel
equipment, including body armor and helmets. It needs over 350,000
bullet-proof vests, and earlier this year decided to buy 50,000 units of
body armor to meet emergency requirements. The army has also inched
closer to procuring 150,000 lightweight helmets.

Delays in
procuring basic equipment should concern policy makers as infantry
troops take on the brunt of India’s current operations, according to
Srinath Raghavan, a former infantry officer and senior fellow at New
Delhi’s Centre for Policy Research.

The “Make in India” program,
where foreign firms team up with local ones, is helping to address that,
he said. But there were still tensions between the army’s urgent
requirements for modern equipment and the slow pace of defense sector
joint ventures, meaning at least some equipment must be bought “off the
shelf”.

“The fact that you can’t even design your own small arms
system reflects very poorly on the military ecosystem in India,” he
said. “The military innovation cycle is dysfunctional and broken down
and it should be a matter of huge concern.”

Source: NDTV.com