Shoot to Kill

Aditya Kakkar

According to the United States Marine Corps’ Rifleman’s Creed, “My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.”

BATTLE-HARDENED Indian Army soldiers during an encounter in Bemina, Kashmir

The Indian Army has been struggling to acquire basic modern infantry weapons, ranging from assault rifles and sniper guns to light machine guns and close-quarter battle carbines, after a string of failed attempts during the past decade. Not the one to easily give up, the Indian Army readied one of its largest procurement plans for infantry modernisation at the end of October this year. The idea is to acquire about 7 lakh rifles, 54,000 light machine guns and nearly 44,600 carbines for a projected expenditure of Rs 40,000 crores. According to media reports, the General Service Quality Requirements (GSQR) for the new assault rifle (with an effective range of 500 metres) have been finalised and the procurement plan will soon be placed before the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) under the 'Buy & Make (Indian) model before the Request for Proposal (RFP) is formally issued.

The problems that have plagued the acquisition process have been unreliable indigenous small arms and their lacklustre evolution with time, unrealistic technical requirements and frequent change in calibre of the desired guns. For instance, the army had tried procuring new generation 7.62 x 51mm assault rifles in 2016 because of th