The Indian Army is in the process of spending major dough, to the tune of USD $503 million, on a new service rifle for its frontline infantry troops.

And a pair of AR-style carbines have emerged as the top choices for the highly lucrative contract.

In a bid to partially replace the problematic and incredibly controversial 1B1 INSAS, the Indian Army's current standard-issue assault rifle, the Indian Ministry of Defence will soon enter a three-month negotiation period with US-based arms giant SIG Sauer Inc. to procure over 72,000 SIG 716 battle rifles.

Marking a shift from 5.56 NATO with the 1B1 to the larger-caliber 7.62 NATO with the 716, the Indian Army hopes to give its troops a more reliable weapon which it currently sorely lacks. Complaints of untimely stoppages and mechanism failures have marred what the Indian MoD had originally hoped would be a long and storied career for its (at-the-time) next-generation gun.

SIG's 716 uses a short stroke piston-driven operating system with a heavier pushrod than its smaller brother, the 516 (chambered for 5.56 NATO), and a 16 inch hammer-forged free floating barrel. An ambidextrous mag release, tons of rail space for electronics and optics, plus a telescoping Magpul stock round out the features on the rifle.

The Sig Sauer 716. (Photo from Sig Sauer)

The second part of the multi-million dollar contract will ultimately go towards Caracal International LLC, a UAE-based defense contractor offering their CAR816, a carbine analogous to the M4, firing the 5.56 NATO round. Similar to the SIG 516 and the 716, the CAR816 uses a short-stroke pushrod gas piston design, and comes with a 16 inch barrel.

The CAR816 will be used as a close quarters battle (CQB) weapon, replacing the substantially smaller caliber 9 mm Sterling... a side-loaded submachine gun which traces its origins back to the 1940s.

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(The Caracal CAR816. Photo from Caracal)

Both the 716 and the CAR816 are manufactured in the United States.

Indian soldiers will also be armed, in the not-so-distant future, with newer homegrown indigenously-manufactured gun, and a license-built derivative of the Russian AK-103 assault rifle.