It has rejected indigenous one developed by OFB

The Army’s continued efforts to procure a basic assault rifle is all set to start again.

Specifications for a new 7.62mm assault rifle are expected to be finalised in the next few days after which a global tender will be issued. This comes even as the Army has rejected the indigenous rifle developed by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) which is currently undergoing trials.

Request for Proposal

“A collegiate meeting to define the General Service Quality Requirements (GSQR) of a new assault rifle has just begun. Once it is done a Request for Proposal would be issued,” a senior Army source said.

The rifle requirement is tri-service and the Army is the lead agency. The collegiate includes representatives from the Army, DRDO, Director General Quality Assurance (DGQA), Air Force, Navy, Directorate of standardisation and department of defence production.

The Army currently uses the indigenous INSAS (Indian National Small Arms System) which it has been trying to replace for a long time.

In December 2011 a global hunt was launched for interchangeable barrels capable of firing both 5.56mm and 7.62mm calibre bullets which was cancelled in 2015 as none of the companies could meet the over-ambitions GSQRs. After that the Army decided to go for 7.62mm calibre and a new Request for Information (RFI) was issued in September 2016.

Preliminary trials

Rifle Factory Ishapore (RFI), which made the new 7.62 mm assault rifle, has given eight rifles for the preliminary Project Management Team (PMT) trials which began early this month.

Army sources said that four of the eight rifles were not fit for trials as some inconsistencies were found.

A senior source in the Army said that during an internal evaluation, “excessive number of faults and stoppages to the extent of more than 20 times the maximum permissible standards” were observed in the prototype.

Overall, the rifle in its present form leaves “much to be desired, is unsatisfactory and requires comprehensive design analysis, considerable improvement” before it can be considered for further trials at Army’s infantry school, the Army source added.

In response to questions from The Hindu, Ordnance Factory Board spokesperson Dr. Uddipan Mukherjee said that his team had suo motu developed the 7.62 x 51 mm assault rifle in a short span of 6 months and that “global benchmarks of similar variety of the rifle were used as a standard.”