Small but Lethal

R.C. Sharma

Personal weapon is the small arm which every combatant is provided with on joining a unit. An infantryman or a Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) soldier or for that matter even a policeman has to be equipped with a personal weapon for his own safety.

Do our policymakers and security experts keep this fact in mind when framing arming policies for equipping forces with small arms? Clearly no. Even 70 years after Independence, our research and development (R&D) has not been able to produce a personal weapon that meets the security needs or a weapon that is universally accepted by the army /CAPFs.

There seems to be no uniform policy for small arms procurement. Each ministry/force works in watertight compartments, which means that all forces across the country procure weapons of different dimensions. For example, the Border Security Force (BSF) is equipped with Beretta, X-95, 7.62mm SLR, Glock as well as 9MM carbine. The same must exist across all other forces too. On the other hand, our adversaries have better weapons, thus placing them at an advantage during operations.

It’s important that universal/common personal weapon system for Infantry, CAPFs and police forces should have the following advantages:

• Uniformity in training
• Reduction in training costs on multiple small arms
• Better synergy between forces
• Enhanced confidence amongst one another
• Reduction in multiple small arm inventory
• Reduction in huge multiple ammunition inventory
• Reduction in ammunition procurement costs

If small arms weapon systems were same across all forces, then it would save long