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26/11 Memories and Analysis - Part 1


 

Every year, since long 2 life changing and world eyeball attention grabbing events are remembered. One is the 9/11 terrorist attack in USA and the other 26/11 terrorist attack in India. People write various memories of that day and owing to a concatenation of circumstances I had some involvement of the events of 26/11 and share those experiences and my own opinions. I claim no expert knowledge but just share various observations, hearsay comments and with 10 years gone by hopefully this has passed what is called the statute of limitations. Also this is not meant to malign or cast aspersions but to share my opinion based on whatever little knowledge I have in layman terms.

On that fateful evening I was working in a role in the defence industry and so had begun to understand various security issues at a more professional level. One of the products that we sold was the Bullet Proof Jackets (BPJ) to the various security agencies in India.

Firstly, a slightly important educative digression. The BPJ is a misnomer as understood by the layman as a phrase to describe a product. It’s a Jacket, expected to provide protection against bullets. However the word Proof is misleading as commonly understood. This product is not Bullet Proof but in reality Bullet Resistant. This means that one can still get killed easily as will be explained below.

Nextly imagine a security personnel and the likely threats they may face in their daily jobs. This can range from someone who may punch them, to using a stick, knife, sword, pistol, handgun, automatic high power gun or a sniper rifle. Now each of these are as different from each other as chalk and cheese technically. Even within a particular category there can be variations. So whatever is the protection one is supposed to be wearing it will work ONLY against the specific threat for which it is designed.

For example you can be wearing a so called BPJ and get knifed to death easily. Sorry it may not protect you. If a local police force procures a BPJ that protects against the pistols and handguns used by local goons and then uses that against sophisticated guns of terrorists, bullets will go in like a hot knife through butter. One may as well use a newspaper for protection.   

Even within a pistol/handgun depending upon the kind of ammunition used there are huge variations. A product designed to protect against soft nosed bullet will fail against a hardened bullet. A product designed for say a MP5 gun can fail against a AK47 and that which is designed for AK47 soft bullet can fail against a hard bullet. Now how about its performance in water when used by the Navy?

You have protective gear worn by security personnel to handle riots, preplanned commando assaults, unexpected terror attacks, outright war like situations and each of these are so different in design, performance, protection, cost that the fact is that we in India just do not have the money or attitude to plan for this variation. 

 Now how much of a body is it supposed to protect ? Front and back or just front ? The sides ? The neck? The groin ? Upper arms ? Head ? Forehead ? All or just a few ? Based on all this the total weight can vary anywhere between 5 kgs to 13 kgs and costs anywhere between Rs. 25,000 to Rs. 150,000 or more.

Now add to this the fact that a soldier or policeman can be a male/female and is supposed to be fighting an adversary and the whole situation gets even more complex in terms of design, weight, flexibility, when they need to carry other stuff like ammunition etc. To most the knowledge and understanding of such aspects comes from watching a TV show like 24, Law & Order, NYPD Blue or the typical Bruce Willis Die Hard movies. Reality is so far removed from reel in such matters that its not even funny the level of ignorance it breeds. They are fertile ground for WhatsApp university graduation even if they add to the body of knowledge.

Now lets take a ideal, even if impractical situation where one designs a protection that encompasses everything listed and is also lightweight – the cost is likely be so high that it becomes impractical to use because if damaged, you discard it. This apart from the fact that after a certain shelf life also one may need to discard it. In the real world especially where the military is concerned these aspects are well understood and just to provide a theoretical scenario.

Imagine a house, inside which there are armed terrorists and need to be stormed. The first folks who enter are very likely to lose lives, so they get maximum protection so they can shoot first and clear the way. The level of protection as each subsequent member behind comes in reduces so that a larger group has minimum weight, maximum everything else to prevail in a given situation. In short any BPJ for that matter is like the proverbial cat with nine lives. It does not protect you from instant death unless you are using the wrong product, but gives you that extra chance to save yourself in combat. 

The sheer limitations of the experts in the field compounded by limited understanding of the administration, complicated by many a insensitive political class and a jingoistic public together make a deadly combination when it comes to matters defense and security.

The next part in this saga is linked below.

Part 2 of this blog


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