A GOOD INDIGENOUS ASSAULT RIFLE STILL A DREAM FOR INDIAN ARMY?

Today India is a nation which is respected all over the world , India is a upcoming superpower and a dominant force of ASIA as well of the world .We have developed our own submarines to nuclear missiles and are in a club elite nation . From our reaching to mars in 1st attempt to making our own GPS , from being one of the oldest civilization of the world to being a nation with indigenous ballistic missile defence system our nation has achieved a lot of things .
 

We have created all weapons indigenously which any modern military requires but when it comes to ASSAULT RIFLES a question arises in mind 

WHY IS INDIA NOT ABLE TO DEVELOP A PROPER ASSAULT RIFLE ?

 Well its a good question but is it really a true? No it isn't .India has developed it's own assault rifle .


The INSAS_rifle which is India's own rifle is an example.Although it is not considered a success as the initial rifle had several issues like it jammed , it was not reliable , had only 2 modes (single shot and 3 burst) but still at times used to change mode automatically and behaved like a full auto weapon and it's polymer magazines used to crack at low temperatures.These problems were criticized heavily even by the army .Even when it is the present standard issue rifle army still does not like this rifle and has issues tenders for replacement of rifle.


REALITY - Although Insas has a bad history and it had its fair share of problems and issues but which rifle was perfect? Even American M4 and M16  had issues and some of these issues still persist even after 2 decades .

US armys-quits-tests-after-competing-rifle-outperform M4A1
&
M16_rifle poor Reliability 


The above two (M4 and M16) even after years of modernization and improvements are vulnerable to stoppages and have issues so how can INSAS 1b model be expected to be like AK 47 ?Even AK  has problems , it does jam and break .

NO OF STOPPAGES GRAPH

Also INSAS 1B1 and 2b version eliminated all issues which INSAS had.

The newer version of Insas faced nearly 2 stoppages after 24000 rounds which is very good compared to M4A1 and even other rifles.


Reasons why INSAS is so infamous ?

 It's because of media as well as army which has heavily criticized the gun. The initial version of gun which is still heavily used still faces lot of problems and due to this the army has consistently given bad feedback about it and media has added fuel to these negative feedback .

The army and Ordnance Factories Board (OFB) are equally to be blamed .

Army while development of INSAS did not provide assistance. they did not pay much attention to the development and also kept changing the requirements. While army blames INSAS for not being as lethal as desired , it was the army who wanted a 5.56 x 45 mm rifle as they wanted it to hurt the enemy instead of killing as a hurt soldier would require 2 to 3 more soldiers to carry him out this way hurting was more efficient to remove enemy soldiers in war scenarios.Had the army assisted DRDO in development properly and drafted  proper requirement at once Insas would have evolved into a better rifle .Army itself is so confused about the desired qualities which it wants that even the global tender it issues in 2011 failed and later it was told that UNREALISTIC QUALITIES were drafted for tender.

OFB did the rest of job in spoiling INSAS . Not only the products which ordnance factory was delivering to army was of poor quality 
and finish but also the rate of delivery was slow and delays in delivery occurred . Also the ammunition supplied by OFB has quality issues which causes guns to jam more frequently and the production rate is very low compared to their capacity .

DRDO IS ALSO WORKING ON SEVERAL OTHER RIFLES LIKE EXCALIBUR BUT ARMY KEEPS AVOIDING THE TRIALS .

CONCLUSION - India is fully capable of making good rifles but for getting the desired rifle DRDO , ARMY & OFB must work together properly . Also after tests and procurement of rifle should be done as fast as possible as army always delays the testing and  procurement of defence equipments . OFB should also improve their production quality and capacity to meet the requirements of forces.