“Even OFB is now pushing for comparative trials between the Excalibur and foreign 5.56mm rifles”
I don’t really see much of a diff between a plain jane insas and Excalibur, I don’t see it beating any of machined receiver, short stroke systems in the near future. We need to understand that Insas family was a cost effective mix and match platform for the late eighties and early nineties, there is no point in investing on Insas anymore.
“Importantly DRDO's ARDE laboratory is currently developing an indigenous 7.62 x 51 mm light machine gun”
This is good news, lets see what the outcome will be, hopefully it wont be an ultralight like the Insas LMG, but a full blown dedicated LMG platform.
“The Indian Coast Guard has emerged as a major buyer of the Amogh 5.56 x 30 mm carbine.”
It’s just perplexing why anyone would come up with a 5.56 x 30… 5.56 x 45 itself has poor terminal ballistics, not when you cut it down to 30mm, you loose 33% of ballistic performance, so now the round poor in short range as well as long range. This is loco-engineering.
“BTW the Beretta MX-4s with the BSF are giving a huge amount of trouble”
9mm carbine for spec –ops close combat is understandable, but BSF ordering 9mm carbine was always a ridiculous idea to me and I have been yelling about this for quit a long time. Over that Mp5 has been a proven 9mm carbine and has been in use for ages, why would anyone choose a MX4 is beyond my comprehension, especially when your engagement ranges have always exceeded 100-200 yards. A 7.62 x39 or a .300 AAC Blackout would have served the purpose much better.