But it is a travesty of facts to suggest that commandos from Special Action Groups 51 and 52 of the Indian Army, the combat wing of the National Security Guards were ill equipped or untrained.

If only Jan had observed rather than looked at the videos, he would have known that commandos were armed with sophisticated weapons.

If Jan is being so critical of the Indian Army then he only need recall Besalan. The Russian military Spetsnaz, which is known to be ruthlessly effective, killed hundreds of innocent school children along with a few dozen Chechen terrorists. Do we then assume that Spetsnaz is incompetent or incapable.

It is not just a question of 10 terrorists holding up thousands of policemen. What would your Delta force, SAS or the SEALS have done when the Taj has 600 rooms on several floors and they were holding hundreds of hostages, locals and foreigners. They would have acted in the much same way as the Indian commandos had done. There was no other choice.

The comparison with China is pointless and odious. It has never faced such depredations and has no experience of dealing with terrorists. Controlling the Uighurs and Han Chinese is no big deal. Indian policemen have been doing it daily for 60 years.

Do you know what happened in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Major Dhan Singh Thapa, who commanded a platoon of Indian infantrymen at Sri Jap in Ladakh, in sub-zero temperatures, beat the hell out of an entire Chinese battalion of 600. Thapa and his armed only with yes Lee Enfield rifles, a few carbines, a light machine gun and a single two inch mortars.

On the other hand, the Chinese were armed with modern weapons, including mounted machine guns, artillery support, mortars and tanks. But do you know the outcome. Major Thapa and his 34 men, although vastly outnumbered and outgunned, killed more than 400 of the Chinese on October 20, 1962. The three Indian survivors were overrun and taken prisoners. It is a question of exemplary leadership and motivation, which Thapa displayed in abundance on thoese bleak heights, which I must admit was missing among the policemen in Mumbai on that fateful day.

The British forces eliminated 90 percent of the opium drugs lords in a pitched gun battle with the help of the Lee Enfield. Most of these thugs thought they could defeat guns by the virtue of being experts in Kung Fu. It is a different matter in Hollywood where five-foot-nothing imports from the Middle Kingdom beat the hell out of 20 white guys with thier Kung Fu styles.

Shudip

Some of the comments are fairly well informed. Others are frivolous, dismissive or resort to villification. Still many others are openly contemptuous of the Indian Army, undoubtedly one of the finest militaries in the world and easily the most battle hardened.

Tell me if the Indian Army were so bad, why would US, British and Israeli Army special forces come knocking at its doors to learn the basics of fighting terrorists and insurgents in an urban environment and in close combat, at their Counter insurgency and Warfare School in Mizoram in India–the only institution in the world that imparts such training.

These militaries know that the Indian Army has built up an unrivalled expertise and experience over 50 years of fighting such terrorists, insurgents and jihadi psychopaths in urban, jungle and mountain terrains.

If you may recall, it was the same Indian Army which overran and liberated the then East Pakistan in 1971, in only 14 days, a military feat which remains unparalleled to this day, freeing the soil of the clutches of the Pakistani Army, fully supported by the likes of ‘Tricky Dick’ President Nixon, (of Watergate infamy), which had butchered three million innocents in the worst ever genocide against its Bengali populace.

The territory conquered by Indian forces was one and a half times the size of France, which took Hitler’s Blitzkrieg 40 days to overrun!!! One should be mindful of history and facts when attacking the Indian Army.

Incidentally, the black cats from the National Security Guards (NSG) who killed Jihadi terrorists in the Mumbai mayhem last November, were not pulled off ’security guard duties’ as one Erde misleadingly mentions in his comments. They were from Special Action Group (SAG) 51 and 52 of the Indian Army, which forms the actual combat wing of the NSG. You must have noticed them interacting freely with their Army counterparts in combat fatigues and battle dress, deployed at the Taj in live TV news, but not communicating with policemen.

Those bloack cats guarding so called VIPs are from Special Rangers Group (SRG), drawn from police organisations. The latter are never engaged in operations like Mumbai, which is solely the prerogative of the military wing of the NSG. But both of them are trained by the Indian Army.

Blame the Indian political establishment, which has shamed the nation and its army with its cowardly show in Mumbai, delaying army action and permitting terrorists to regroup and murder civillians at will. It was also an intelligence failure of colossal magnitude.

I believe the REAL HERO of Mumbai was INSPECTOR UMBLE of the Mumbai police, who had pinned down a blood thirsty murderer like Kasab with his bare hands, even taking seven or eight AK-47 rounds in his belly and ensuring his capture. Tell me, how many in the US or British special forces are capable of such feats without their weapons. But nobody in the highly politicised electronic or print media in India ever had a word of praise for the Unsung HERO. Is it because of his lower middle class origins???

Significantly, the NSG is headed by a member of the Indian Police Service, a non combatant, thanks to a policy of pathological distrust of military men, that our ministers, bureaucrats and the police have inherited from a Fabian socialist like Nehru, India’s first prime minister. Incidentally, Nehru will go down in history as the man solely responsible for the most ignominious defeat ever inflicted on India by Chinese hordes in 1962.

What is more, they are dressing up policemen like soldiers. But can these faux soldiers ever battle insurgents. Never.

In the United States, any number of admirals and generals have headed the CIA, whose undercover wars are always fought by US Army special forces in East Europe, Afghanistan or elsewhere. In Russia and United Kingdom too, the military plays a vital role in their intelligence agences. But not so in India, where such outfits are always headed by police wallahs, who are non combatants and have no experience in undercover work. No wonder they are always making a mess of intelligence gathering.

Indian spy outfits, basically a police turf, are governed by 100-year-old British procedures, which is why the MUMBAI MAYHEM took place and why terrorists can invade India at will, a problem compounded by a really weak prime minister.

No wonder these khakied outfits are beaten hands down by their ISI counterparts, which is a Pakistani Army establishment, manned by battle hardened career officers–also the sponsors of terrorist groups and the Taliban.

Shudip

And what would you expect, with these blood thirsty mass murderers taking hundreds of hostages from Europe, the US and Israel, holed up in a few of the 600 rooms at the Taj, on several floors. I am sure your SEALs and Deltas would have had a very tough time, though they are world class in their own right.

Indian Army has unmatched expertise in battling insurgency and terrorism for 50 years, in jungles, deserts and mountains. Why else would US Green Berets, British, Russian and Israeli ’special forces’ land up at its Counter-Insurgency School in Mizoram (India), for training, especially after your 9/11.

Most of these comments are missing the wood for the trees. I agree that although the police disgraced itself thoroughly at the CST railway station, but then it is not simply a question of 16,308 against 16 fanatical terrorists.

The question is what did the 20 or 30 armed police constables who were present there do, except running away like cowards, blaming their vintage bolt action Lee Enfield rifles. If you have watched those video clips being aired on news channels, you would have heard a terrorist like Kasab firing single rounds from his AK-47, discharging two every second, like a bolt action gun.

I am sure some of these constables were armed with 9mm carbines and self loading rifles. Had even half-a-dozen armed with Lee Enfields fired in unision, they would have felled the two terrorists. After all an Enfield packs in a tremendous wallop, with a range of one mile or 1,760 yards.

Do you know what happened in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Major Dhan Singh Thapa, who commanded a platoon of Indian infantrymen on those bleak Himalayan heights at Sri Jap in Ladakh, with temperatures 20 degrees below Zero, took on the might of a entire Chinese battalion, armed only with yes Lee Enfield rifles, a few carbines, a light machine gun and two inch mortars.

On the other hand, the Chinese were armed with modern weapons, including mounted machine guns, artillery support and also tanks. But do you know the outcome. Major Thapa and his men, although vastly outnumbered and outgunned, decimated two thirds of the Chinese on October 20, 1962. How? They were a highly motivated bunch of soldiers, not cowards in Khaki who ran away on November 26, 2008 in Mumbai.

Will the Indian mainstream media ever highlight this act of bravery beyond the call of duty. How could these poorly armed soldiers fight with antiquated .303 (Enfields), except for their sense of duty.

I think we Indians and especially our filthy politicians should hang their heads in shame.

The Indian media also disgraced itself by making martrys of three police officers who died without firing a shot, while shamelessly ignoring the courage of a lone police inspector who had gripped Kasab in a wrestling tackle, even after taking an eight or nine round burst into his abdomen, fired by the terrorist’s weapon, sacrificing his life, but not before ensuring the mass murderer’s arrest.

Another women journalist from a TV channel, owned by a daily that never tires of boasting about being the world’s largest selling English newspaper, identifed a grenade launcher (being fired by an armyman at a door at The Taj) as a ‘rocket launcher.’ The media completely obscured the role of the army, without whose exterminating those terrorist was not possible.

My guess is that a bunch of departments not directly involved in the altercation are trying to grab more equipment when the idea is fresh in people’s minds. I think they should get lever action .44 mags.

This debacle was the result of a force that believed their weapons and themselves to be inferior to their adversaries and they were not sufficiently motivated to put their lives at risk to stop an attack upon their fellow citizens. They cowered, broke and ran, leaving unarmed, helpless people to die. Not the finest hour for Indian Law Enforcement or Military.

Let marines fight a comparable opponent who uses full auto in a surprise contact at 30m, no grenade weapons. That would give a somewhat meaningful anecdote.

A fight that included one-sided air support, one-sided level IV vest advantage, very uneven training levels, different guns, different munitions (grenades), different leadership and different sights is simply irrelevant for the semi vs. full auto matter.

I’m petty sure our troops will disagree with you about not capable of aiming properly under stress.

Tell that to the 40 Marines that got ambushed by 250 Taliban with automatic weapons and RPG. The end result IIRC was 200 dead Talibans and no Marines deaths. I believe they fought less then 50 yards because the NCO lead the charge to break the insurgent’s line.

In the first and second battle of Falluja, US Marine went house to house killing insurgents (that had fully automatic weapons) with their A4. Scores of dead insurgents fell to the A4 in the second battle of Falluja which basically was the turning point of Iraqi insurgency. The Marines wasn’t out gunned and they know how to aim in those fights under stress.

Full automatic weapon are good for suppression, tho.

The death toll would have been a lot worst if those terrorists went with semi auto and understand how to aim.

It works for terrorists, too.

The combination of lousy pay + lousy training + confusion + next to no knowledge about OPFOR weapons is a pretty good explanation for the Indian police performance. Maybe it’s even the correct one.

Semi-auto FALs with small ammunition load (I don’t expect many magazines for policemen) are inside buildings inferior to AKs with plenty ammunition.

@jdun1911; fully automatic rifle/carbine fire is extremely useful at less than 50m distance. Most men aren’t capable to aim properly under stress (there are some ridiculous statistics about use of firearms by policemen), and sometimes you want to spray through a cover (like a thin wall) to hit.

Rapid semi-auto fire is good for 50 to about 150, at most 200m.

Soft targets beyond 200m are imho best dealt with with either heavier weapons (machine gun on pod or scoped rifle) or slow aimed fire from an excellent (camouflage/cover) position.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_re_as/as_india_shooting :

“The British Broadcasting Corp. cited unconfirmed reports from airport officials as saying late Thursday that up to six gunmen had been shot and killed at New Delhi’s international airport. But Indian officials told the AP there was a minor incident and no deaths.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BAD9181E9%2DB9C6%2D495A%2D87EC%2D432578FCD9CE%7D

Fully automatic weapon are overrated. They are best use for suppression.

That’s not to say the Indian cops shouldn’t have modern firearms, but what good is a SCAR or a Tavor if it won’t be fired? Training is more important than equipment and training is more than putting rounds into paper.

According tothis article according to the official records the Mumbai police had only 577 rifles of all types. And no range to practice.

That doesn’t stop them from training every week at the range.

It also doesn’t stop them from carrying modern pistols as backups.

DoubleTapper
DoubleTapper@gmail.com
DoubleTapper, blogging on Guns Politics Defense from Israel

“It also illustrates how ill-prepared India’s 2.2 million-strong police force is to tackle another such attack.”

After I wrote it, it sounded quite high. I have recalculated the figure based on the fact that India has a ratio of 126:1 of police per 100,000 population: 16,380

The India’s police doesn’t have the mentality to fight effectively like US police officers. If this have happen in the USA those terrorists would have been either killed by polices or armed civilians in matter of minutes and not days.

Soft body armors and helmets won’t protect you from rifle caliber rounds. So it is a moot point for a excuse.

A trained police officer could probably take those terrorists out with an Enfield. All you need is one shot and one second to do it from cover, but you have to be well trained. Unfortunately, the India’s police are not train in the use of firearms and tactics.

In the USA there are many many firearms training schools. Maybe the Indian police should send some of their officers to the USA for training. At the very least they should order training videos like Kelly McCann’s Tactical Carbine or Magpul’s The Art of The Tactical Carbine. Both give you the basic fundamental and tactics. Most of it can be applied to any rifles and not just the AR.

Anyway are you sure the Mumbai police force number in the millions?