Again, things are not this straight...there are always nuances in everything. Asking for a bayonet on a rifle is an extremely wierd idea but even more is name calling people in top leadership without having an iota of understanding on how things work.
> What gun was the Indian Army aware of as a "sniper rifle"? SVD
> How exactly was a SVD issued in its deployment kit? Like this
View attachment 25896
> What's that small pokie thing near the muzzle? Yup; a bayonet.
I hope folks here now have an idea of from where exactly it's coming.
So it's not like they're pulling out random requirements from their rears or are intentionally putting these out to favour a certain OEM. Nope, the root cause is extremely simple...they don't have the exposure of things happening around them and are stuck in kind of an informational black-box with only outdated knowledge at their disposal to base their future forecast on. So they're still stuck with a feature from 1960s.
A very common thing you'll here in IA, from a Maj in SF to a Sepoy is AK;
AK is best rifle, AK is reliable, AK is atom bomb proof, other rifles are girlfriend but AK is wife...so from where exactly are all these coming from? From lack of exposure. The only thing they've used is either an INSAS or an AK or in technical terms; a turd and a polished turd, so it's obvious for them to get conditioned like this. Jawans love AK; yup they do, but only because they've not even heard the names of SCAR/ACR/Grot/Bren let alone using them.
Also the people pointing out that it's dumb because why'd you need a bayonet on a long range rifle...no, it's not dumb because of this. It's always good to have a capability and never need it than to not have one but need it someday. It's dumb because the most important part in a sniper rifle is its barrel and is so sensitive that even the pressure from the handguard can severely degrade its accuracy; hence you always keep hearing the term free-floated. By mounting a bayonet and thrusting the barrel (even just once in maybe training) you can permanently ruin the accuracy. Something similiar had happened with the initial ARs sent to Vietnam where Grunts where using the barrel as a pry bar to open crates and the blame fell on Armalite that there design is inaccurate
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