Arms And Ammunitions Of Indian Army
The perfect way to start this article will be to provide a brief introduction to the history of weaponry system and the long journey of our country from Bolt action rifles to advanced guns such as LMG.
Indian Army has been known for using the traditional Lee Enfield bolt action type rifles. We never had enough technological advancement to provide the armed forces with well equipped weapons, which led to our defeat against Chinese soldiers in 1962. As time passed, we realized the importance of manufacturing indigenous weapons, for this the 41 Ordnance factories under Ordnance Factories Board were given the responsibilty, SLR (Self reloading rifle) was indigenously developed by Rifle Factory Ishapore (RFI), ideas such as The Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) was introduced, but the increasing need to upgrade from action rifle prompted India to purchase AKM from Russia, when INSAS came into existence in 1990, it was planned to release 3 models of INSAS,
- INSAS –Assault rifle
- INSAS Carbine
- INSAS LMG
However the development was completed by ARDE, Pune. This led to the mass production of Assault rifle and LMG but due to the lack of cartridges, it led to the delay in the introduction of Assault rifle in Indian Army. However INSAS rifles were introduced in the Kargil war,1999 .
There are many arms used by our Army, in this Hand Guns can be divided into 6 categories and we will be exploring these categories
- Semi-automatic pistols
- Shotguns
- Assault rifles
- SMG (Sub Machine Gun)
- Sniper rifles
- Machine Guns
Semi-Automatic Pistol
- Pistol Auto 9mm 1A
- Glock17
- SIG Sauer P226
- Beretta 92FS
Given above are the semi automatic pistols owned by Indian Army, their caliber are 9x19mm parabellum, these are manufactured from Ordnance factories board and are used by the special forces in small numbers
Shot Gun
- OFB 12 Bore Pump Action Shotgun
- Franchi SPAS1
SMG
- SAF Carbine 2A1
- IWI Tavor X95 SMG
- SIG MPX
- Heckler & Koch MP5
- Micro UZI
- Brugger &Thommet MP9
SAF Carbine 2A1 are to be replaced by indigenously built close quarter MSMC, these SMG’s caliber are 9x19mm parabellum and are used by the special forces and NSG, in the case of Micro UZI, they are brought from Israel and the special forces use their variant whereas Brugger & Thommet are from Switzerland and are used by the Ghatak Force
Assault Rifle
- AK-103
- FN-SCAR
- M16 Rifle
- M4A1- Carbine
- AR-M1
- AKM
- Vz-F8
- Mpi-Kms-72
- AK-203
- SIG-716 Patrol G2
- 1B1-INSAS
- AK-63
- T91-Assault Rifle
- Steyr-AUG
72,400 units of SIG-716 Patrol G2 model are used in service and a second batch of 72,000 of these were ordered, AK203 is considered as the standard weapon of Indian Army and 75,000 of these rifles were manufactured locally by OFB, and their production had started from December 2020, in the case of AK103 they are currently used by Indian Police, Army, Paramilitary including special forces such as MARCOS, GARUD,GHATAK and NSG, these are brought from various countries such as Russia, USA, Belgium. IMI Tavor TAR-21 is considered as the Standard Special Forces Assault rifle. Most of these rifles are used by special forces including PARA SF, Ghatak SF and MARCOS.
Sniper rifle
- Dragunov-SVD
- Steyr-SSG-69
- Heckler & Koch PSG1
- Mauser-SP66
- IMI Galil 7.62 Sniper
- Barrett M95
- Vidhwansak
- SIG-Sauer SSG 3000
- Sako-TRG
- Barrett Model 98B
- Denel NTW-20
Dragunov SSD is known as the Standard Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR) and they are going to be replaced by 7.62mm NATO DMR under the new Army modernisation plan, the rest are standard bolt-action rifle, their caliber varies from 7.62x54mm to 7.62x51mm. IMI Galil 7.62 Sniper rifle is used by the Indian Army Special Forces snipers, whereas Barrett model 98B are used by special forces including NSG.
Machine Gun
- FN Minimi
- M249
- IMI Negev
- IMI Negev Ng7
- Gun Machine 7.62MM IA
- MG 2A1
- MG5A
- MG6A
- Mk 48 machine gun
- PKM
- Uk vz.59
- M134 Minigun
- M2 Browning
- NSV
- KPV
INSAS LMG were considered as the standard Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) of the Indian Army but they are now being phased out are being replaced by IWI Negev Ng7. Similiar to FN Minimi, M249 are used mainly by NSG. 6000 Ng7 were delivered as of January, 2021 and a total of 16,479 are scheduled to be delivered by March 2021, PK machine guns were used as co-axial in Russian produced T-90S Bhishma, T-27M Ajeya and BMP-2S Sarath and used as general-purpose machine gun. M134 Minigun are used in helicopters , NSV is used as secondary weapon on T-72 and T-90 tanks
Conclusion
In short, even though we are in a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) so as to increase our standards in two-front war, we must also consider that our enemies are also purchasing weapons and drastically improving their arms and ammunition and are modernizing themselves .Over country needs to procure state-of-the-art arms and ammunition to ensure decisive results in the battle fields. As we all know about the condition in LOC and dispute in border areas, so to counter them we must rise in the quality and quantity of our arms and ammunition and equip our soldiers with the best of equipments.
-GOKUL RAJ
Sources
- Wikipedia
- Quick GS
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_Indian_Army#:~:text=Small%20arms%20%20%20%20Name%20%20,%20%20Germany%20%2016%20more%20rows%20