The link has some great photos of the F90.

https://www.militarytimes.com/...Early%20Bird%20Brief

Australia wants to sell India its next CQB rifle — here’s what they’re offering

Since 1989, the Australian Army has used a domestically produced version of Steyr Arms’ Armee-Universal-Gewehr (Universal Army Rifle, or AUG), officially known as the F88 Austeyr, as its standard-issue service weapon.

A joint partnership between Thales Australia and the Kalyani Group now plans on offering the Indian military an export version of the F88 for the country’s new carbine requirement.

India is currently in the midst of a massive rearmament program that will see its army phase out older weaponry in favor of a combination of newer westernized hardware, popular with NATO member states, as well as Indian-designed and produced guns and kit.

Gear Scout earlier reported that India would be buying 72,400 SIG716 battle rifles and an unknown number of Caracal CAR816 carbines as part of a $503 million contract. Later on, The Firearms Blog reported that the expected tally of CAR816s was just around 95,000.

The F88 export variant, dubbed the F90, was originally offered as a competitor to the CAR816, but will now be entered into a separated competition geared towards supplying the Indian Army with a new closer quarters battle (CQB) carbine.

According to the solicitation posted by the Indian Ministry of Defence, the CQB carbine needs to be chambered in 5.56x45 mm NATO, must possess a minimum effective range of 200 meters (218 yards), and has a 5 Minute Of Angle accuracy or better, out of the box.

Thales Australia and the Kalyani Group hope that the F90 will be exactly what the Indian military is looking for. Built under license from Steyr by Lithgow Arms, the F90 is designed to be highly modular and can field a 40 mm SL40 under-barrel grenade launcher as well as a slew of other accessories and optics on its Picatinny rails.

The F90 comes with three barrel lengths -- 360 mm, 407 mm and 508 mm. Thanks to its bullpup layout, the maximum length of the gun with its longest barrel is 802 mm. For a comparison, the M4 carbine comes in at 840 mm with its standard 370 mm barrel. A two-stage trigger gives the operator the ability to fire in either a semi-automatic mode with the first stage of the pull, or a 3-round burst with the second stage.

A considerable part of the Australian decision to buy and field the original Steyr AUG as the F88 was the fact that it’s a bullpup rifle, meaning that the receiver, firing mechanism and magazine were located behind the pistol grip and trigger. This allows for a longer barrel to be used on a more compact frame, making the gun far more maneuverable and accurate.

As revolutionary as the F88 may have been at the time of its adoption by the Australian Army, it hasn’t exactly gone without criticism, especially from Australian special operations units.

In fact, the rifle was so poorly received by the country’s elite Special Air Service Regiment, modeled after the UK’s top-tier SAS, that the unit opted to buy more M4 carbines and limit their usage of the F88.

Special operators found themselves tangling with a rifle that wasn’t ergonomically suited towards being comfortably wielded by an end user kitted out with body armor, thanks to the F88′s oversized butt stock.

Additionally, magazine changes often pried away the user’s eyes from the fight due to the awkward positioning of the mag well.

These issues could potentially pose a threat to the F90′s candidacy. However, should the F90 be successful, the Indian government plans to buy over 360,000 rifles, all of which would hypothetically be produced in Indian factories.

Hmm.

- Ten inches at 200 yards - surely the Indian grunts would be within their rights to expect more?

- The SIG and Caracal are both more or less laid out like the M16 - why not get something with the same layout if all you want is a 200-meter weapon?

- Screw Thales. They have a neat design (as far as it goes) but promised us semiauto F90s for years only to decide that it would be un-PC to follow through on that promise.

quote:

Originally posted by Il Cattivo:
Hmm.

- Ten inches at 200 yards - surely the Indian grunts would be within their rights to expect more?

Not necessarily. Service rifles don't necessarily have to be competition target rifles. "Minute of man" at reasonable engagement distances is sufficient.

The WW2/Korea-era USGI accuracy requirement for newly produced M1 Garands was 8 shots in 5" or less at 100 yards. That's 5 MOA, which is the same as India's requirement, and the same as 10" or less at 200 meters.

Also keep in mind that this is with bulk-produced standard issue FMJ ammo, not precision-made match ammo.

Plus, 5 MOA is the maximum spread. Most rifles will be capable of better than 5 MOA.

I had no idea what the Indian Army used for a service rifle and it was interesting to see they currently have a homegrown design based off several other proven designs:



From Wikipedia:

quote:

INSAS (an abbreviation of INdian Small Arms System)[5] is a family of infantry arms consisting of an assault rifle and a light machine gun (LMG). It is manufactured by the Ordnance Factories Board at Ordnance Factory Tiruchirappalli, Small Arms Factory Kanpur and Ishapore Arsenal.

Since the late 1950s, the Indian armed forces had been equipped with a locally produced unlicensed copy [11] of the L1A1 self-loading rifles.[6] In mid-1980s, the decision was taken to develop a 5.56 mm calibre rifle to replace the obsolete rifles. Trials on various prototypes based on the AKM were carried out by the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune. On the completion of the trial, The Indian Small Arms System (INSAS) was adopted in 1990. However, to phase out the still in use bolt-action Lee–Enfield rifles as quickly as possible, India had to acquire 100,000 7.62×39mm AKM-type rifles from Russia, Hungary, Romania and Israel in 1990–92.[12]

Originally, three variants were planned in the INSAS system, a rifle, a carbine and a squad automatic weapon (SAW) or Light machine gun (LMG). In 1997, the rifle and the LMG went into mass production.[6] In 1998, the first INSAS rifles were displayed at the republic day parade.[1] The introduction of the rifle was delayed due to the lack of 5.56×45mm ammunition, large quantities of the same were bought from Israel Military Industries.[6]

The first combat use of the rifle was during the Kargil War in 1999.[1][6]

The INSAS is primarily based on the AKM but incorporates features from other rifles. It has a chrome-plated bore. The barrel has a six-groove rifling. The basic gas operated long stroke piston and the rotating bolt are similar to the AKM/AK-47.[6]

It has a manual gas regulator, similar to that of FN FAL, and a gas cutoff for launching grenades. The charging handle is on the left instead of on the bolt carrier, similar in operation to the HK33.[6] There is a change lever on the left side of the receiver above the pistol grip. It can fire a three-round burst or in semi-automatic mode. The cyclic rate averages at 650 rpm. The transparent plastic magazine was adapted from the Steyr AUG. The rear sight lies on one end of the breech cover and is calibrated to 400 meters. The furniture is either made for wood or polymer.[6] The polymer butt and forend assemblies differ from the AKM and are more similar to that of IMI Galil. Some variants have a folding butt. A bayonet can also be attached to it.[12] The guns take 20- or 30-round polymer magazines. The 30-round magazine is made for the LMG version, but can be also used in the rifle. The flash suppressor also accepts NATO-specification rifle grenades.[6]

Link

I don't normally stick my nose in these kind of threads, but now that I've seen what is currently being fielded by India...what's wrong with that?

Seems pretty ideal to me.

A little game of connect-the-dots:

If the Caracal816 looks familiar, it probably is.

Robert Burns, who I wrote about in my MPX article, left SIG for Caracal shortly after the article was written. He did a lot of the design behind the SIG 516 and 716 (and the MPX).

Why didn't India just spec a short-barreled 816, or buy 10" 516 uppers from SIG?

I'm thinking this is bone to domestic manufacturing. The move to buy 716s and Caracal 816s might have been seen as a slap in the face to domestic arms manufacturing (although, from what I've read, the INSAS was not well received) and this joint venture between Thales and Kaylyani is a way to spread the wealth around, particularly to a domestic manufacturer.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
I don't normally stick my nose in these kind of threads, but now that I've seen what is currently being fielded by India...what's wrong with that?

Seems pretty ideal to me.

Major, even endemic, reliability problems across the design (think feeding, cycling and magazines) due to lousy manufacturing and the rifle being a hodgepodge of design features slapped together from a half dozen other rifles rather than being designed as a coherent whole from a blank sheet of paper.

much has been written about how bad they are

https://medium.com/war-is-bori...t-rifle-3fcafa392aaa

------------------------------

I thought I read some time back that they had selected some variant of AKM. Are they no longer friends with Russia?

Hey, that's right - they were supposed to be opening a factory in India for them. 7.62x39 for some, 5.56 for others, maybe?

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
much has been written about how bad they are

https://medium.com/war-is-bori...t-rifle-3fcafa392aaa

------------------------------

WOW, what a piece of shit! All because the Indians wanted to keep their rifle in house and they had no clue about building a rifle that actually works.

Mini14s would be better than that schlock. Must be a lot of palms needing to be greased in India. A decent, functional 556 carbine is not a difficult thing to come by nowadays. I mean PSA uppers on Anderson lowers would even be a vast improvement.

So if they have a customer service issue in India - do they phone a call center in Topeka?

The fit & finish and quality control on these current Indian INSAS rifles is so bad that the lettering appears to have been done by hand or with one of those crappy vibrating engraver things.

Maybe the guys who call from area code 1-9917 from "Microsoft" several times weekly could offer some sort of guidance regarding a new weapon

Yeah, the close-up certainly reveals the crappiness.

Sounded good in the above description.
Should have known better.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The fit & finish and quality control on these current Indian INSAS rifles is so bad that the lettering appears to have been done by hand or with one of those crappy vibrating engraver things.

Probably the same worn out panto-graph machine they used to engrave firearms since 1950...

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by Sig209:
much has been written about how bad they are

https://medium.com/war-is-bori...t-rifle-3fcafa392aaa

------------------------------

WOW, what a piece of shit! All because the Indians wanted to keep their rifle in house and they had no clue about building a rifle that actually works.

The Indian Army has been screaming for a reliable rifle for a very long time now. The reason that they are stuck with the INSAS is political.
All the ordinance factories are owned by the government. Civilian firms are not allowed to make firearms.
Since there is no competition in that industry and like all government run corporations, the Ordinance factories are (to be polite), incompetent.
Most of the ammunition supplied to the Indian Armed forces is also made by Ordinance factories and has probably worse QC than the guns. Even if the guns worked, the ammo would probably cause them to fail.

The rifles themselves are very poorly made, with the plastic furniture being so fraglie, that if your gun tips over, you'll probably crack or outright break the furniture. The magazines are also prone to cracking or disintegrating when used at high altitudes or in cold temperatures.
It's a sad state of affairs.
A few years ago, some Indian Ordinance Factory 9mm pistols (a copy of the Inglis Browning) came into the US. One reviewer said that they looked like they had been "machined by drunken monkeys".
Many special forces units use Tavors or other foreign weapons and will have nothing to do with the INSAS
The SLR (reverse engineered copies of the British L1A1 SLR) was the last decent rifle that they had. It is a sad state of affairs.
The SIG and Caracal rifles will, at least, work and are probably the best things to happen to the Indian Army in a long time.
TheIndian Army has been forced to buy the bulk of their small arms from Indian Ordinance factories as the government wants to keep them open. While private industry in India is pretty capable, no one would buy anything from the Ordinance Factories by choice.