Indian Army Looks Overseas for Acquiring Variety of Ammunition

[sudhir007]

Indian Army Looks Overseas for Acquiring Variety of Ammunition

The Indian Army is planning to procure a variety of ammunition and assault rifles to the tune of $ 1 billion from the overseas market in order to arm the additional troops along the Sino-Indian border. The procurement includes 122 mm howitzer ammunition, 160mm mortar High Explosive (HE) ammunition, carbines and a variety of ammunition for the carbines.

The tender for the procurement has been issued to Germany’s Heckler and Koch, Israel Weapon Industries Ltd (IWI), Colt Defense of United States, Bushmaster Firearms International and Singapore Technologies Kinetics Limited. The requirement of carbines is 44,000 units along with variety of ammunition.

Besides the carbines and its ammunition, Indian Army will also acquire magazines, bayonets, slings, reflex sights and visible and invisible laser spot designators. The Indian Army has also specified that it is looking for a 5.56 mm calibre system with a rate of fire of 660 rounds a minute as well as a 10,730 light-weight assault rifles for its special forces.

India has also invited bids for acquisition of 5,178 numbers of 160mm Mortar High Explosive ammunition along with Fuze. The 160mm High Explosive (HE) bomb will be used for support of ground troops and armoured units and the High Explosive bomb should be functional with both fragmentation and blast effects. The HE bomb is an aerodynamically shaped, fin-stabilized projectile designed to give maximum stability and accuracy. The total weight of the bomb should be 38.5 kilograms with the shell body weight of 29.15 kilograms and HE filling of 4.85 kilograms. The length should be 870mm. The HE bomb should be provided with the PDM-111-A2 fuze which is a point detonating fuze, incorporating both super quick and delay action.

India has also invited bids for acquiring 122mm Howitzer as well as 33,700 numbers of 122mm Reduce charge are required. The shelf life of the Howitzer ammunition should be 15 years under sheltered conditions during peace time. The ammunition should be compatible with the 122MM howitzer gun.

 

[koushik]

I think apart from these purchases by the army,the police should be equipped with the Kalantak Micro-assault rifle,its a fantastic weapon made by OFB,Ishapore which is just 9km from my home.

 

[blackops]

I think apart from these purchases by the army,the police should be equipped with the Kalantak Micro-assault rifle,its a fantastic weapon made by OFB,Ishapore which is just 9km from my home.

After 26/11 the police in my city has started to use ak 47 though my city has a lot of cant area which is under the army equiped with uzi aks insas and all

 

[SQ8]

Why not local private companies.. if the deadlines are a little lax??
Get entrepreneurship involved in setting up factories.
Army liaisons manage QC..
wont that be cheaper.

 

[Omega007]

Why not local private companies.. if the deadlines are a little lax??
Get entrepreneurship involved in setting up factories.
Army liaisons manage QC..
wont that be cheaper.

Because local replacement for INSAS assault rifles is still in development and not a single factory among the 50 ordnance factories has the facility to produce 160 mm mortar shells.
REGARDS....

 

[xataxsata]

Why not local private companies.. if the deadlines are a little lax??
Get entrepreneurship involved in setting up factories.
Army liaisons manage QC..
wont that be cheaper.

The problem is that according to the Indian law no private companies can produce arms and ammunition. Not even small pistol or revolver. The rules in India are very tough.

India have one of the best companies in terms of professionalism, quality, management but our govt. and bureaucracy sucks.

 

[Abingdonboy]

IA procurement in this area is so confusing. There are so many tenders and RFIs going out for what appear to be similar systems and contradict in numbers and uses. Who are these 44,000 carbines for? It is not enough for all regular unit a in IA but is too much for IA SF. Also it is stated a need for 10,000+ for SF, I assume IA SF (Para Cds) as this is about their number but don't they already operate the IWI TAVOR in good numbers as their standard assault rifle?!! Also isn't the future assault rifle for the IA part of F-INSAS? but then their were reports of a tender for 1,000,000+ (size of IA) rifles not to long ago. What is going on?


Can someone please outline the requirements for IA in terms of rifle/carbines and how many are needed and for whom (SF/Infantry).

 

[angeldemon_007]

^^^
I think its the best way to do. Our country is sitting on a bag of gun powder. Making guns available so easily will worsen the situation. The thing is we can easily keep track of heavy weapons but keeping track of pistols and rifles is way difficult especially considering the population of our country and the resources which our law-enforcement agencies have.

Gun enthusiast can still go to OFB get their guns with license but if private companies are given right to produce weapons it will lead to lots and lots of uncontrolled firearm open in the market.

 

[SQ8]

Selling to a private citizen should be tough.. but selling to your military should not be.
And if all the hardware is properly tagged and bagged.. there should not be cases of weapons ending up in the wrong hands.

 

[nomi007]

local companies don't have abilities to compete with western country's companies
even with Russian

 

[Vibs]

Selling to a private citizen should be tough.. but selling to your military should not be.
And if all the hardware is properly tagged and bagged.. there should not be cases of weapons ending up in the wrong hands.

Indian govt. is a little paranoid when it comes to handing over defence projects to private players. Our economy is still not a pure capitalist economy. It is a mix of capitalism and socialism. I suspect the ammunition being brought in will have to be partly assembled in India. A crude version of ToT. That way India gets the best tech, develop local infrastructure for future manufacture of advanced weapons locally.

 

[angeldemon_007]

IA procurement in this area is so confusing.

Look man nowadays untill the deal is signed same news appear again and again in different forms and this creates confusion and people think these are all new contracts. A couple months back there was a news that IA will spend 1 billion$ on arms and ammunition, this is the same news. There will be RFI and then RFP and every-time this same news will be reported but all this will remain the same. Just take a llok at latest russian news. a couple days back an article came that Russian shipyard asked for 100 million $ for talwar class. Now its not a new news its been coming once every month for the past 3-4 months.

There are so many tenders and RFIs going out for what appear to be similar systems and contradict in numbers and uses. Who are these 44,000 carbines for? It is not enough for all regular unit a in IA but is too much for IA SF.

They are talking about the new units which will come up in NE (around 40000 men). There will be SF in those too.

Also it is stated a need for 10,000+ for SF, I assume IA SF (Para Cds) as this is about their number but don't they already operate the IWI TAVOR in good numbers as their standard assault rifle?!! Also isn't the future assault rifle for the IA part of F-INSAS?

I think they might still be talking about the new forces coming up in NE as i doubt carbines will be their main ammo some of them will be provided with assault rifles also. Also apart from this there are already mountain division situated there in NE which might also be equipped with these new weapons also i think they are including GHatak in SF because these numbers are really confusing.

but then their were reports of a tender for 1,000,000+ (size of IA) rifles not to long ago. What is going on?

Can someone please outline the requirements for IA in terms of rifle/carbines and how many are needed and for whom (SF/Infantry).

I think it is for FINSAS and i think DRDO is free to participate in this tender. Also there can be an alternate explanation that IA might again be interested in foreign weapons as usual instead of looking towards indigenous products. Also we haven't signed this 1,000,000+ rifles deal and 2012 has not yet come. I think this FINSAS program will start inducting after Defexpo 2012 where it will be launched.

Man but as far as inventory of IA is concerned its too hard to tell. Also its true that inorder to fill the gaps IA has placed many small orders of assault rifles and carbines which is confusing.