Why's it easier to build a Mars orbiter than an assault rifle for India? | Hacker News Reader

Why's it easier to build a Mars orbiter than an assault rifle for India?

quoradiary.blogspot.com

> However, INSAS was a field weapon and its 5.56mm ammo (designed to injure, not kill) was not suited for CQB

This is so wrong it hurts.

It's worse with the full sentence.:

> However, INSAS was a field weapon and its 5.56mm ammo (designed to injure, not kill) was not suited for CQB, very much like the any 5.56mm weapon with NATO ( e.g. M16) ,is not suited for CQB

The author doesn't seem to understand their weapons nor rounds very well.

Right in the article:

>4. As per new NATO doctrine in the late 80s it was analyzed that injuring a soldier is more lethal to the enemy than killing one, as you have to expend other soldiers to carry the injured soldier. As per this doctrine, NATO moved to 5.56mm ammo, which have higher chances of injuring someone than killing. Indian Army, wanted to follow the same doctrine hence it asked INSAS to be a 5.56mm weapon, unlike AK 47 or FN FAL which are 7.62 mm weapons. Chances of survival from a 7.62mm ammo, especially at close range are low or nil.

Edit: No idea why the multitudes of weapons experts on HN are downvoting me for quoting the article.

The article isn't completely true.

The 5.56 was selected because it's significantly lighter and smaller (soldier can carry more ammunition), produces less recoil (soldier can be less trained but still effective, especially when in full-auto mode... which pertains to CQB), and is effective within the average engagement range (<600m). Most 5.56 weapons also have higher rates of fire when compared to their 7.62 brethren, which also plays a significant role in CQB effectiveness.

Regarding "stopping power"... a round from either will incapacitate most humans, and the latest generations of 5.56 can penetrate light to medium armors very effectively.

Since NATO adheres to the Geneva Conventions, firing upon medical troops is forbidden, as is deliberately wounding but not killing enemy combatants, making the author's claim even more dubious.

Yes, it's in the article; it's also a (impressively durable) myth, not an actual fact. The 5.56mm was adopted by NATO as a standard for logistical reasons, not because wounding is better than killing. (The initial US use of the round was spurred by a doctrinal shift in favor of full auto fire, but that shift was rapidly reversed...for both effectiveness and logistical reasons.)

> unlike AK 47 or FN FAL which are 7.62 mm weapons. Chances of survival from a 7.62mm ammo, especially at close range are low or nil.

True (at least compared to the 5.56 round at issue) of the 7.62×51 round used by the FAL, less true of the 7.62×39 round used by the AK; from everything I've seen the 5.56×45 round used by the M-16 and similar assault weapons is at least as lethal as the (slower) AK round overall, and moreso when body armor or other material is penetrated before reaching the target.

Indeed, the Russians also moved from AK 47 with 7.62mm to AK 74 at 5.45mm for the same reasons as Nato. The Nato reasons included other considerations such as weight and rate of fire too.

However, Nato and everyone else uses the modern smaller rounds for CQB too.

It's true that it is less lethal, but that isn't the purpose. NATO uses it because you can carry more rounds because they are smaller.

Intentionally wounding is considered to be a war crime.

  Intentionally wounding is considered to be a war crime.

To clarify, inflicting wounds with the specific intent of avoiding fatal wounds violates international pacts to which the vast majority of nations are signatory.

Also, bear in mind that not every major potential combatant is a signatory to all military-related pacts. For example, the USA is not a signatory to any of the Declaration IV subsections of the Hague Conventions.

> Another problem cited for INSAS was that it performs badly in Close Quarter Battles (CQBs) for which the forces preferred AK47. However, INSAS was a field weapon and its 5.56mm ammo (designed to injure, not kill) was not suited for CQB, very much like the any 5.56mm weapon with NATO ( e.g. M16) ,is not suited for CQB.

I know very little about the INSAS. but I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. Why does the author not believe that 5.56mm is suitable for CQB? It may not have the momentum of other calibers, but it's most certainty not a less-than-lethal system...

Did you read the whole article?

Yes, and frankly it is bad history. Development of intermediate cartridges and their adoption by NATO forces had nothing to do with purposefully limiting lethality. It's about finding a better balance between controllability at increased fire rates, combat loading, and range suitable for conflicts emerging in the 20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_cartridge

My sympathies to India, although it's strangely comforting to know that the United States isn't the only country where military procurement is a complete clusterfuck.

In other news, the F-35 is still useless garbage: https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/breaking-news-the-f-35-is-... and the lifetime cost of the program is now projected to be $1.5 trillion, up from 1.3.

If you go over to /r/credibledefense and read up on the F-35 discussions sometime it'll probably change your mind about the program. It gets a tremendous amount of unjustified hatred from people who don't realize what an impossible balancing act it is to build cutting-edge defense aerospace products, especially one that's such a huge paradigm shift.

Trillion man. Nothing on earth is worth that. Nothing can justify that. The amount of good you could do with such resources compare to what is been done ? Hell even if it was a success it would still be mind boggling. No entity should be allowed to spend that much on a single project except if this project is a infinite energy reactor or world peace in a can.

I believe they already sell world peace in a can.

a huge paradigm shift that can't fly in the rain

Thanks for joining HN 5 minutes ago and congrats on your first post. How did you find us?

defense contractor doesn't want to use the account where they post about flight control software

n-gate has been getting pretty popular, maybe through there?

> It gets a tremendous amount of unjustified hatred from people who don't realize what an impossible balancing act it is to build

It's only an impossible balancing act due to the absurd requirements imposed by civilians in Congress with little-to-zero understanding of the roles current-day aircraft fulfill and why we have role-specialized vehicles in the first place.

And then they let the Marines dictate requirement after requirement in an attempt to replace the Harrier... no other service wanted VTOL, yet VTOL dominated the design considerations (causing all sorts of design trade-offs), leading to the turkey known as the F-35 project.

A one-size-fits-all jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none aircraft was, is, and will remain a bad idea.

Not to mention there's now 2 variants of the F-35 platform (the Navy version is larger and removed the VTOL capabilities), so it's not even meeting that original design goal anyway!

I find it interesting that India's INSAS is widely considered to be a failure as a weapons platform, while Japan's Type 89 is by all appearances an excellent rifle. Both weapons were designed and produced indigenously, and both weapons followed a similar government acquisition process.

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