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Subject: India Capitulates To Infantry Demands
SYSOP    1/27/2015 6:04:53 AM
 
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Yimmy       1/27/2015 12:29:32 PM
Complaining of a disadvantage because their rifle's weren't full-automatic doesn't sound like Indian infantry have maintained marksmanship principles.  If true.
 
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Nate Dog    Judging by what i read about that rifle   1/27/2015 5:54:55 PM
Its not the lack of auto that's been bothering them overly much,
More a case of breeches splitting open. Oil being sprayed in the user face. Magazines seizing up and housing cracking. Barrels splitting and weapons exploding. 
Complaints by both Indian users as well as Nepalease army units. 
 
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tteng       1/28/2015 3:40:28 PM
A proverbial thousand-dollar rifle deserves a well-trained user.
 
But, if they can't afford proper range time and cost, and most likely, have to withstand shoddy rifle maintenance from their soldier, then AK-47 should be a good enough solution. 
 
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joe6pack       1/29/2015 8:38:37 AM
From Nate's comments, seems you would be nuts to pay 50 dollars for this rifle.. those aren't the faults you get with poor maintenance... Training may indeed be another issue, but you have to start with a rifle that is reasonably well designed and manufactured.
 
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Nate Dog    This is what the Indians had to say   1/29/2015 10:38:29 AM
 
What the Napalese had to say was even worse.
 They claim near 100% failure rate in a prolonged 10 hour fire fight which cost them a company of Infantry and a base lost.
Its a very poor weapon system. 
 
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keffler25       1/29/2015 5:17:45 PM
You know what the IRONY is?
 
The United States should teach India something important about 'imagination'.
 
DON'T BE PROUD or if you have to lie to yourself, DO IT, just so long as the troops get the right tools.
 
Story follows: (It's true as far as I know.)
 
When the United States tried to develop a native universal machine gun design in the 1940 emergency, it quickly discovered that there was no intuitive genius aside from Melvin Johnson who knew what the hell he was doing. They were left with the 'obsolete' designs of John Moses Browning who designed his stuff originally on the fly for WW I (9 months) to fight WW II and Korea while they tinkered with 'new' stuff and ideas they stole from the Germans, that the Germans stole from the Poles and Czechs who stole it from 19th century Americans named Browning, Maxim, Thompson Hotchkiss and LEWIS.  
 
That one super-genius Browning designed the Browning Automatic Rifle, which a couple of Belgians turned upside down, made into a belt fed machine gun (20 years they worked on it just in time to lose WW II before they could op-eval it. It is called the MAG and away you go)... wait for the IRONY.
 
But meanwhile...
 
The Johnson Carbine and its companion squad machine gun showed some promise but the war was upon the US and a decade of work would be needed to iron the bugs out. 
 
And even at that when the Israelis tried to do that thing a decade later (desperate times) they could not get the complicated things reliable. So the Israelis went for the Belgian made MAG instead (about 1959?).
 
And the Americans made a belt-fed fiasco out of the Lewis gun derived FG-42 and the ingenious roller-cammed MG-34 (something uniquely German added to the Browning short recoil advancing bullet indexer. It worked/works rather well, now after !@#$%^&*() years of tinkering and improvements.
 
The Danes love it, NOW.
 
 (60 years to get the uprated Lewis gun right, but Americans from US Ordnance were stubborn about it.). And in the mean past time after the Vietnam War earned the poor M-60 the appellation of PIG, the US went shopping urgently for a foreign machine gun because the domestic product was not working at the time and they were afraid they would not have a reliable one when the Russians came across the Fulda GAP.
 
The ordnance people at the time were a bit sour on things that smelled German, (M-60 still rattled them) so the proffered MG-3 (the MG-42 dressed up in NATO livery.) was an ideological  no-go.
 
But Belgian's Fabrique National offered up the MAG. AHA! the Americans recognized it. It was a Browning Automatic Rifle upside down and with a belt feed gas operated cam feed indexer but it was John Moses Browning they argued to themselves. They ignored the FRENCH and the Czech that went into it. It was 'American'. 
 
Ideas and craftmanship (That machine gun takes a LOT of mill work, I've seen them make it in the South Carolina factory.) that goes back a CENTURY they could wrap their trigger fingers around.
 
The US is not that PROUD?
 
British and German artillery.
 
British mortars.
 
Swiss hand grenades.
 
German style helmets.
 
Russian and Polish land mines.
 
Italian and German torpedoes. 
 
Norwegian and Israeli missiles and countermeasures.
 
Somehow these were "American" enough to be bought licensed or stolen?
 
[cont.]     
 


 

What the Napalese had to say was even worse.

 They claim near 100% failure rate in a prolonged 10 hour fire fight which cost them a company of Infantry and a base lost.

Its a very poor weapon system. 



 
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keffler25       1/29/2015 5:24:12 PM
If DRDO isn't able to make native "Indian" designs from actual Russian tech, then practice some American or JAPANESE imagination. 
 
I might add this example: that the Americans screwed up a lot of ideas that they 'borrowed' from 'foreigners' like the French autocannon, the HS 404 that they wanted to put in their fighters. Never did get an auto-cannon out of it ort a cannon at all that worked for a fighter until somebody remembered Richard Gatling. 80 years prior, a freaking Civil War machine gun? Add some Nordenfelt touches (Swedes) and this 'American' autocannon becomes PHALANX? Took 15 years for the planes and 40 for ships..
 
Meanwhile the Japanese with the same EXACT problem at that same exact start (1943) time stole a Browning machine gun (from the British) and turned it into an effective autocannon  (H05) in ONE YEAR. OOPs.
 
 
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trenchsol       2/3/2015 11:51:40 AM
INSAS rifle fires around 600 rounds per minute. It is relatively slow, compared to some other rifles out there. I think it is unusual to limit it to 3 round burst.
 
Creating an AK clone isn't a rocket science. Even a 5.56mm one. Russia made AK-101 and AK-102, Poland made several models, Romania has some, too. Yugoslavia has several models. All those countries have fraction of resources compared to India.
 
 
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keffler25       2/3/2015 12:26:32 PM
 
The countries you mentioned have something the US and India lack/lacked. GUN MAKING geniuses who are allowed to make guns. The Holek brothers for example. Czechs. Czechoslovakia was a small country.
 
Gunsmithing (operating system)  like making a guided missile is an ART form. Much like aircraft and missile design, you have to understand and love the limits you find inside the art. Don't over-pipe the plumbing like the British and the Russians did and do.. Some countries produce people who are good at the art and encourage them. Some countries do not. 
 
I'm sure that there is a Ruger in India, somewhere, but until they find him, the crap they produce will be just that. CRAP.  
Poland made several models, Romania has some, too. Yugoslavia has several models. All those countries have fraction of resources compared to India.

 

 
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trenchsol       2/3/2015 6:01:12 PM


I agree. It is especially true for assault rifles. many conflicting requirements. They want it stopping power and low recoil. Short and accurate. Reliable and lightweight. Many others.
 
MG-42. later modified into MG-3 was, and still is state of the art. Ak-47 isn't. It is a good rifle, but not state of the art.
 
Firearm is an old invention. Not too many patents are still valid. Smart person would use an proven existing design and adapt it without making unnecessary changes. Serbian company, 'Zastava' (meaning literally 'flag'), for example, took AK-47, chambered it for 5.56mm, enclosed it into ergonomic frame with FNC-style shoulder stock, added  picatinny rails, and that's it. Decent, affordable, reliable rifle, even good looking. Made some exports, too.
 
Doesn't take a genius.
 
 
 
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