On a path to self-sufficiency, India’s MoD approved procurement proposals worth $3.5 billion on 27 July.
The list included extended-range guided-rocket ammunition with a 75km range, area denial munitions, infantry combat vehicles, ballistic jackets, 5.56mm close-quarters carbines, surveillance and armed UAV swarms, 1,250kW warship gas turbine generators and 14 fast patrol vessels.
Around a quarter of this budget will be spent on carbines. Years ago, the army tried to fast-track a 93,895 CAR816 carbine order with Caracal.
Five years later, 420,000 close-quarter carbines will now be designed and made in India ‘to combat the current complex paradigm of conventional