Posted on 12/02/2008 9:12:13 PM PST by PotatoHeadMick
Indian police who bore the brunt of last week’s attacks on Mumbai had defective bulletproof vests, First World War-era firearms and insufficient weapons training, police sources have told The Times.
Many wore plastic helmets and body protectors designed for sticks and stones, rather than bullets, as they fought highly trained militants armed with AK47 rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives.
The contrast between them was vividly illustrated yesterday by CCTV footage of two militants attacking Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Mumbai’s main railway station, last Wednesday.
It shows the gunmen spraying automatic fire while two constables cower behind pillars, one armed with a .303 rifle similar to the Lee-Enfield weapons used by British troops in the First World War.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Is that Big Five or Oshman’s
Anyone remember what Sergeant York did with one bolt-action rifle and a pistol?
Editorial from Yers Trooly?
Contrast and compare Mumbai with Sergeant York:
We may never fully understand how ten armed men were able to terrorize a city of 19 million, but this is at least part of the explanation:
In the first wave of the attacks, two young gunmen armed with assault rifles blithely ignored more than 60 police officers patrolling the city's main train station and sprayed bullets into the crowd. Bapu Thombre, assistant commissioner with the Mumbai railway police, said the police were armed mainly with batons or World War I-era rifles and spread out across the station.
"They are not trained to respond to major attacks," he said.
The gunmen continued their rampage outside the station. They eventually ambushed a police van, killed five officers inside - including the city's counterterrorism chief - and hijacked the vehicle as two wounded officers lay bleeding in the back seat.
"The way Mumbai police handled the situation, they were not combat ready," said Jimmy Katrak, a security consultant. "You don't need the Indian army to neutralize eight to nine people."
Constable Arun Jadhav, one of the wounded policemen, said the men laughed when they noticed the dead officers wore bulletproof vests.
With no SWAT team in this city of 18 million, authorities called in the only unit in the country trained to deal with such crises. But the National Security Guards, which largely devotes its resources to protecting top officials, is based outside of New Delhi and it took the commandos nearly 10 hours to reach the scene. ...
Even the commandos lacked the proper equipment, including night vision goggles and thermal sensors that would have allowed them to locate the hostages and gunmen inside the buildings, [Ajai Sahni, head of the New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management] said.
At the Jewish center, commandos rappelled from a helicopter onto the roof and slowly descended the narrow, five-story building in a 10-hour shooting and grenade battle with the two gunmen inside.
From his home in Israel, Assaf Hefetz, a former Israeli police commissioner who created the country's police anti-terror unit three decades ago, watched the slow-motion operation in disbelief. The commandos should have swarmed the building in a massive, coordinated attack that would have overwhelmed the gunmen and ended the standoff in seconds, he said.
"You have to come from the roof and all the windows and all the doors and create other entrances by demolition charges," he said.
The slow pace of the operations made it appear that the commandos' main goal was to stay safe, Hefetz said.
In view of the number of terrorist attacks India has suffered, its failure to be more prepared is puzzling.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_York
Alvin Cullum York (December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964) was a United States soldier, famous as a World War I hero. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking 32 machine guns, killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 others...
“At over 100 yards, the 47 is a piece of crap compared to the 7.62 NATO Enfield,...”
At close quarters the AK47 assault rifle is designed to win. The 7.62 and the 303 were both designed for longer range fire by trained riflemen. I fired both. The 7.62 is obviously an improvement, but it is still not designed to be an assault rifle.
I noticed that too, not from the beginning of the twentieth century but certainly the helmets reminded me of what UK firemen used to use up until about the mid-eighties.
Those old black Bakelite helmets, the big heavy “donkey jacket” style tunics and rubber wellington boots were certainly reminiscent of old British firemen’s uniforms, no doubt the Brits sold off all their old stock to the Indians along with the old tin helmets that most of the soldiers seemed to be wearing.
“The only pictures of police I saw had them armed with the FN/FAL, but those were not the “commandos” who actually went in and dug the terrorists out of the hotel. Those probably were armed with the local clone of the Israeli micro Tavor(sic), which comes in three different chamberings, 5.56x45, 5.56x30 (Indian catridge) and 9mm.”
I’m no expert but I thought some of the commandos (I think that’s what they were, there was such a profusion of different troops and cops it was hard to make out who was who) were using what looked like FNC assault rifles with perspex see-through magazines.
I think you are being very hard on the Indian policemen in the station, they were basically railway cops who as the article makes clear have not been trained how to use the rifles nor in all probability even had any ammunition, kinda difficult to shoot someone if you’ve no bullets.
You go in the killfile.
I think it all comes down to training and tactics.
Eh?
You mean you have not heard of it? It is all the rage.
You are correct. India has the most anti gun culture you can imagine. Not only the populace, but law enforcement is almost completely disarmed.
Boo hoo, you don’t like anyone debating with you and then you go crying to the mods when someone points out your immaturity.
So infantile, tell me, why do you post here?
The design is, but they are still being made. It is an inherently reliable, simple design. If I could have only one weapon in the world it would be an AK
That is the correct one; unfullered blade.
10 round box magazine, recharged from 5 round stripper clips through the opened bolt.
Plus a very fast bolt action
In the Brit military the minimum qualifying standard was 15 hits on a sillouette target in 1 minute. A experienced soldier was expected to make more than 20
The record for bolt action aimed fire was set by Sergeant-Instructor Snoxall in 1914 using a Lee-Enfield: 38 hits on a 12" target at 300 yards in one minute.
A bolt-action Lee-Enfield will kill you just as dead as an AK=47. The problem in India was that the untrained and inexperienced police refused to return fire. Whether that lack was training or simple cowardice is debatable.
The Ishapore Arsenal was already set up to manufacture the Enfield rifles; it was a relatively small matter to modify them to accept the newer cartridge. It was a gap-filling measure as India tooled-up for their version of the FN-FAL.
Those were SIG-551s in the hands of the Indian NSG forces. I was looking for a picture of an NSG commando with one, but couldn't find one quickly.
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