Indian officials make more excuses?

[myrockfight]

So I came across this gem on someone blog: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2008/12/04/mumbai-police-now-complaining-about-wwi-rifles-and-wwii-helmets/

I really feel sorry for these people and I don't like to make fun of anyone or speak poorly of them, but come on. I don't know how sound this guy's logic is, but there were some entertaining points made. Such as this little gem:


“The helmets used last week were World War Two-era, not designed for combat,” he said.


Really? Can I quote you on that? I'll bet the guy who said that wishes he would have chosen his words more carefully. You have to admit that was really funny. Or sad. You pick. Maybe a bit of both.


Anywho. I thought it was an interesting take on the Mumbai attacks/response. I wouldn't say that I concur with all the arguments the blogger came up with though. 

Any entertaining/interesting/relavent thoughts on the subject?

[MicroBalrog]

You know, there's so many problems with that sort of thing.

Underequip your police and you have... underequipped cops unable to do their jobs.

OVERequip them and you have an occupying army. Not good either.

Also, these were Enfield rifles. They're not my favorite gun of all guns, but they're devastatingly effective.

[myrockfight]

Right. I agree. But they also noted in the article that the police have access to other weapons, such as the FAL and the AK. Whether they were immediately available to them at the time is another question. Personally, I can't understand how an officer wouldn't try to knock a couple of them off using whatever advantage the could.

With an Enfield, you have the obvious advantage of accuracy and range. I would put that rifle to great use. You could put yourself in an almost impervious position and start attacking them, turning the tables. God help any terrorists that make that kind of opportunity available to me! LOL

Personally, I would think that rifles advatages would take the least amount of courage to take advantage of considering everything. Who knows. I wasn't there and haven't seen any sketches or maps of how it all went down. I thought they had enough time to implement a rough plan against the terrorists though.

"OVERequip them and you have an occupying army. Not good either."

Point very well taken. But they could be like our officers. Most of them have an AR clone within reasonable access - usually in the trunk with at least a few mags.

[RaspberrySurprise]

The helmets used last week were World War Two-era, not designed for combat.

Last I checked a kevlar pot won't stop a 7.62x39 round any better than a steel pot, which is to say that neither will since they're really designed more for keeping shrapnel and the like from killing you.

[Regolith]

Last I checked a kevlar pot won't stop a 7.62x39 round any better than a steel pot, which is to say that neither will since they're really designed more for keeping shrapnel and the like from killing you.

Actually...

Depending on the angle that the bullet strikes, both steel pots (if properly constructed) and the kevlar ones can stop a bullet even from a 7.62x39.  Now, there are some angles that it won't work at, but they're designed so that there's a good chance that the bullet will hit the helmet at a fairly shallow angle to the hard liner rather than a perpendicular angle, which means the bullet is more likely to strike a glancing blow and has to penetrate more armor than it would otherwise. This will cause most intermediate and pistol rounds to fail to penetrate.