Samar was kind enough to send me the following pics. Thanks! A couple of things caught my eye. The Tavor and Beretta CX4 Carbine are used for self defense. I was surprised at the lack of body armor but it is a rather large patrol...and the fences bring into focus exactly how dangerous that area is. Good stuff.
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| anyone know what sight that is? |
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| interesting mix of weapons here. a Tavor, AK variant and CX4. |
When you have a population of 1.2 Billion+ why equip your cannon fodder with expensive body armor?
ReplyDeletei hope you're saying that in jest. because no soldier is cannon fodder.
DeleteNot to be rude, but let's be honest here, soldiers are used as cannon fodder on all the time. Maybe not the American variety, but as noted above, we don't have 1.2 billion comrades either.
Deletewell to be actual and factual, every army in the world is modernizing and getting smaller. even China is cutting the number of soldiers in its army and it has the world's largest population. all that comes with having a professional military. India is no exception. when you have professional militaries it doesn't matter how large your population base, a soldier is a national asset not to be wasted.
ReplyDeleteso to answer your question, no. no soldier in any army except perhaps N. Korea can be properly labeled cannon fodder today.
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ReplyDeleteThe volunteers in India's army are overwhelmingly from the abjectly poor segment of society. They are regarded as disposable human tripwires; human life in generally is not valued in India or in many eastern societies for that matter.
ReplyDeleteThe Western way of warfare does value the individual professional soldier's life in particular and human life in general.
*But* we absolutely must keep these important distinctions as to the relative valuation of human life n mind when we contemplate potential military conflicts with non-Western societies
Deletethe volunteers in the US military are overwhelmingly from the lower and middle class of society.
i don't knkow how India views them and to be honest you don't know. what i do know is that any man that has the courage to put on his country's uniform in a society that gives choices has my respect and is not cannon fodder.
HE IS A PATRIOT that loves his country just like i love mine. if he is an enemy then he is to be respected and not under estimated...if he is an ally then he is to be respected. quite honestly keep talking about soldiers being cannon fodder and i'm gonna start erasing comments.
He does have a point about soldiers being used as cannon fodder. Politicians don't give a fuck about grunts or G.I.s. The best way to destroy your enemy is to bomb them to the stone age with minimum causalities like in 1991 Gulf war. Most people who join ground forces don't do it for country. I sure as hell ain't joining the Army because I want to serve this worthless communist country.
Deletewhich is why you'll never have the title Marine, or Soldier, or Airmen, or Sailor or Coast Guardsman.
Deletewhich is why you will never know the special comraderie that comes from service...no matter what service.
which is why you'll be one of those timid souls that plays video games and has the audacity to think that they know what its really all about.
you blame it on our country being worthless? tell the truth. you're too scared or self important (both sides of the same coin) to commit yourself.
that's fine. just don't think you can criticize those that do have the right stuff. and no. those soldiers weren't cannon fodder. they were poorly led against a technologically superior force.
My first thought was "Gee these poor guys got tapped by public affairs for a photo shoot and the photog only had one lens." Even an Airman knows you don't bunch up like that on patrol.
ReplyDeleteSolomon,
ReplyDeleteMay I set a few things straight?
(1) The Border Security Force is *NOT* a part of the Indian Army. They are two entirely separate and distinct organizations.
(2) Those pictures are *NOT* of an actual patrol. There are too many things wrong in them: Everybody on patrol seems to be carrying a carbine. Actually, only officers and the equivalent of section/squad commanders and the equivalent of platoon commanders carry a carbine. All other ranks, with the exception of the snipers, carry an assault rifle which is the standard issue weapon. The last picture supports my claim. In it, two of the four men on patrol (the first and third) are clearly wearing the insignia of senior NCO equivalents. I can't make out the other two but still it doesn't look like a normal patrol.
Here's a good guess about what happened: The photographer went to a border outpost and requested the officer in charge to arrange a photo-op. He then most likely took his staff and a few others present at the post on a walk along the fence for a photo-op.
(3) If you want to see an actual BSF patrol, take a look at the night time pictures here:
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&family=editorial&p=bsf&assetType=image&ep=1#
You can see everybody wearing helmets and body armour. Also note that everybody is carrying assault rifles and not carbines.