Enacted on the opening day of the ongoing Eurosatory defence near Paris, this could have been a slice of action in Iraq, Afghanistan or the Kashmir Valley. Defence experts, military bosses and government officials from around the world, watching the scene from a raised platform, held their breath for the reallife proximity to the mock-battle.
    As top officials of the war industry say, stealthy insurgents in faraway Baghdad, Lebanon and Waziristan have hovered over the minds of the arms manufacturers in Europe in recent years. Almost every important innovation has been prompted by the terror footprint in those turbulent zones. The most prominent features of these war tools are personnel protection, navigability across hostile terrain and a savage ferocity matching the unpredictability of the invisible enemy.
    Protection is one of the essential requirements of the armed forces, highlighted by the experience acquired in Iraq and Afghanistan, says an official of arms manufacturer Nexter, which showcased the multi-mission vehicle Aravis. The 12-tonne armoured vehicle is mine-proof and can be transported by aircraft.
    Senior officials from the ministry of defence and the Indian army, who attended the show, were informed of the effectiveness of such newly-developed vehicles in the Kashmir Valley. As security experts agree, insurgency, anti-terror operations and urban warfare have occupied the designers and makers of arms more than any possibility of a conventional, full-scale war.

India-France joint plan for missiles    

India and France may soon join hands to produce the latest variants of surface-to-air missiles, on the lines of the highly successful Indo-Russian BrahMos missile. The name of the new series of missile has been proposed as ‘maitri’ and the joint venture aims to fulfil the demand of the Indian army, navy and air force for procuring missiles to cover up the “yawning” gap in country’s air defence. <<back