Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Coast Guard and the Burning Boat, A Non-existing Controversy Blown-up

A non existing controversy has been blown up by The Indian Express using some talk, at a CG function, of a CG DIG, about this boat. I am getting convinced that there is a axe being grinded some where by some one, may not be IE itself.

I was listening to The Indian Express correspondence speaking to channel News X. He stated that the CG ship was 2 km away, why would terrorists blow themselves up. May be he thinks that CG ship is a foot patrolmen of the police who was two Km away and the thief has all the time to escape. Only in that case his comment has some weight, else this statement is laughable. First of all two km for a warship is hardly any distance to cover. Also two km looks to put the boat into well within the capability of the ship's weapons.
It looks to me that he has never sailed on a warship and experienced the fire power of a warship, even if only of CG.

I am given to understand OTO Malera 76 mm is the main gun on CG Ships. I checked up wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTO_Melara_76_mm. The gun is fully automatic, fires 120 rounds per minutes (two rounds per second) and has a effective range of 8 km (max range 16 km). With 8 km effective range, is a boat at 2 km required to be scared or not? Let us imagine standing at the other end within the effective range of this gun and imagine it firing at us. Any one would be scared. The IE correspondent stated that why would the terrorists blow themselves, they would put up a fight. Fight with a warship of CG with only the kind of arms terrorists seem to carry?  It is like a street urchin fighting a WWF wrestler. It can happen only in fantasy.

At two km, the CG ship, even if doing a speed of 10 knot (18 km per hr), would cover that two km in less then 10 min. That is yet another reason to get scared and I hope CG ships have better speed. Finally, if what the CG officer has claimed is true, the nation should be extra proud that our forces are not only on guard, they are also very accurate in using their weapons.

How is there so much of doubt being inducted in a perfect interception case based on firmed up intelligence inputs? I guess dreaming of a boat with its name and shape when she is leaving a foreign port and not an Indian port is impossible for anyone without having mystical powers. Only if someone on the foreign shores, having a score to settle with the owner of this boat, ends up giving intentionally wrong input, then a Innocent boat will be caught up in the action but we still can't blame CG for it.

The media is gaga over why there is not more transparency in defense matters. This is an operational matter, do we want transparency and what do the media intends to do with the inputs it gets, if transparency does com-in in operational matters. I can only say that the defence of the nation is not an issue similar to funding of political parties where transparency is desired.

I have pasted link to  my  blog on this matter when similar issues were raised earlier. To me it still looks relevant:-

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5304719112013667984#editor/target=post;postID=5052141184469818725;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=10;src=postname 

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