[VeluM]

Originally Posted by Alfresco

I got this information when I showed a senior retired EME officer the details of the Safari.
The younger officers are the ones who lead from the front and have always done so.

BTW, staff-cars do not have Jerry can, towing hook, dull OG paint and black-out lights as part of their specifications.
You have the gleaming reflectors of the original headlight and then you have black-out lights on the front bumper?

This is what makes the whole thing suspect.

Good. Now that we've established that you aren't an officer, I know that you wouldn't know what kind of vehicles are used as staff cars. It depends on the location, and I've seen Gypsys and Jongas used in most places other than Delhi. All Gypsys were painted in gloss OG but also had black out lights. The number 1 and number 2 staff vehicles used for senior officers visiting Gwalior were 25+ year old Jongas with dull OG paint, white lace curtains and those old tiny table fan like things for "cooling" - no air conditioning. Most of the Gypsies don't have AC either. Check the summer temperatures in Gwalior, Agra, Kota, Mhow, or any of these other "peace stations" and now let me hear your tone on the staff vehicle not having air conditioning.

As for the younger officers leading from the front, you apparently don't know what age one is at any rank, so FYI the earliest a Colonel can possibly be is after approximately 12 years of service, a Major after 8 years of service, and that is now post 1998. Earlier a Major would need to serve 13 years. These may be young in age but in corporate or civil services they would be quite senior. They're all leading from the front at this rank and in fact continue to do so until they lead a unit and are promoted to general service, or grow older than around 42-46 years of age, which can't be called young.

I am not an officer my self but my father, uncle, grand father, grand uncle, and great grand father all were Infantry officers, and I do have more than a layman's knowledge, so blackout lights together with shiny reflectors is certainly not unusual, and neither is a Jerry can mount nor tow hook on a staff vehicle.

Finally the point I was addressing wasn't the vehicles' suitability for the Army or its intended use. I object strongly to your condescending and seemingly derogatory use of the term "sahab" for any officer of the Indian armed forces. In my view that's reserved for the Civil Services, with contempt.

Apologies again to the mods for going off topic, this is the last one from me.

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by VeluM

Good. Now that we've established that you aren't an officer, I know that you wouldn't know what kind of vehicles are used as staff cars. It depends on the location, and I've seen Gypsys and Jongas used in most places other than Delhi.

As for the younger officers leading from the front, you apparently don't know what age one is at any rank, so FYI the earliest a Colonel can possibly be is after approximately 12 years of service, a Major after 8 years of service, and that is now post 1998. Earlier a Major would need to serve 13 years.

Finally the point I was addressing wasn't the vehicles' suitability for the Army or its intended use. I object strongly to your condescending and seemingly derogatory use of the term "sahab" for any officer of the Indian armed forces. In my view that's reserved for the Civil Services, with contempt.

Apologies again to the mods for going off topic, this is the last one from me.

Well said. Its quite derogatory to address the ones in uniform, who guard your borders with such names. I am likely to go slightly off topic, but will return back to the topic later. Being from a family of defence officers (including my Dad and two brothers, cousins and uncles), I remember the arrival of the first Jongas around 1965, when I was a little kid. The Jongas were exclusively used by Brigadiers and above and the Willys jeeps/ surviving Dodge Power Wagons and the Chevrolet/Ford 1.5 ton mid size trucks (later Nissans), were used by all other officers. When we travelled with huge luggage upon transfers, the 1.5 ton truck would reach the railway station at the designated time to receive us. Or else, for other movements with less luggage, the jeeps and Ambassadors would be on the job.

The AC etc was a myth for senior army officers even till a few years ago. Ambassadors used to be the one and only staff car and Jongas or Gypsies never had AC's at all (unless fitted aftermarket in very rare cases). Now with the entry of the Maruti DZire, SX 4 and Ciaz plus Scorpios, the things have eased a bit.

And back to the Safari and the "sahab" tag (not in good spirit) attached to it, I would like to clarify that once in the field on in the front, enemy firing and bullets hit everybody, including officers and jawans. The Safari is going to be used for inspection visits of the forward areas by the middle and higher ranking officers, who often camp overnight or even for a few days with the troops. That was my logic, while writing about its paltry modifications by the Tatas for defence duties in the forward areas. The Mahindra Armada was also bought for quite a few years in the 1990's and these were though with very minor modifications, but used for field duties by senior officers.

And regarding the comments about "jerry cans", very rarely were the Jongas or the Armadas sighted with such an appendage outside its body. The Safaris now too won't carry outside fitted jerrycans.

[zzzehar]

Whoa! The above two posts force me to ask the question stated in one of the stand-up comics, "would you still be this patriotic if Pakistan hadn't existed?"

You need to tone it down a bit and stop your rant on patriotism or the due respect for the armed forces. The country otherwise is in shambles with clearly a biased focus towards the army and the internal state of affairs is actually fairly lousy there as well. And yes, there are more like you have more family than yours in the armed forces.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by Alfresco

The problem arises if they decide to use Safari in place of Gypsy, as the reports are suggesting. My whole point has been about effectiveness in the field.
For the field, performance should be the sole criterion for making a choice.
The people in the field are the ones that have to suffer due to wrong choices of their superiors.
The Gypsy is not the best and there is a lot that is wrong with it, but when it comes to Safari vs Gypsy in the field, it is the Gypsy that scores.

If you make any decisions or changes based on operational feedback then it should not be challenged.

I am quite sure the Army would have done more than a TD on a highway to choose their vehicle. If the Safari has been chosen and the Scorpio was the next best option, then surely these vehicles have met the requirements where Army is going to deploy them.

Safari might not be able to beat the Gypsy in the extreme conditions but will work fine everywhere else.

[itwasntme]

The Safari is clearly meant to be for staff and light troop carrier duties. Why even compare to mountain goats like the Gypsy? For that, the Army has already chosen the LSV.
https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.r...-12246427.html

[locusjag]

A rumor has been doing the rounds that Indian Army officers charged with evaluating the MBT Arjun in 2008 forced the operator to conduct 1000 Km of trials in reverse gear in order to strain the engine and kick it out of the trials. The objective was to have the T-90 imported for kickbacks. I do not make this accusation lightly, while conceding that you or I won't find concrete evidence of this anywhere online. I think there is some truth to it.

Ours is a country seemingly stuck forever in a rut of purchasing foreign equipment; I would be naive to think that our defence personnel have never connived with netas, babus and middlemen to ensure that indigenous equipment are not favored, or acquired without a mercenary mindset.

I also remember an Indian Navy officer involved in the expensive Admiral Gorshkov refurbishment deal who was in a honeytrap. He helped the Russians inflate the costs of INS Vikramaditya. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...honeytrap.html)

My point being - all's not well with all of our defence personnel. There always exists a possibility that 'other' considerations came into play with certain personnel who were involved while selecting the Safari over its competitors.

I wouldn't disrespect all of them straight off the bat either.

Why so serious anyway? At least the Safari is home-grown and can carry our men in comfort as others have reiterated. They deserve the comfort.

Lastly, here's a humorous take by Americans on all things military and the halo that they seem to enjoy in their society. With their first amendment, no one is above reproach nor beyond the clutches of sarcasm!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvpnjYEO0gc

[V.Narayan]

Did not quite understand what you are trying to say or imply or what these points have to do with a debate on this vehicle. First I would hesitate to quote rumours on a national web site read by a few millions each month without firm evidence of some kind at least.

Originally Posted by locusjag

A rumor has been doing the rounds that Indian Army officers charged with evaluating the MBT Arjun in 2008 forced the operator to conduct 1000 Km of trials in reverse gear in order to strain the engine and kick it out of the trials.

The objective was to have the T-90 imported for kickbacks. I do not make this accusation lightly, while conceding that you or I won't find concrete evidence of this anywhere online.

Decisions like these are not taken in 90 days by a closed team of 4 people who could get into cohorts. It is taken over several months and usually years of evaluation and trials and negotiations. The negotiations are handled by people from the civil services not the Army. So who all did the makers of the T-90 bribe - state it.

I think there is some truth to it.

Be a man and state it then, Sir.

Ours is a country seemingly stuck forever in a rut of purchasing foreign equipment; I would be naive to think that our defence personnel have never connived with netas, babus and middlemen to ensure that indigenous equipment are not favored, or acquired without a mercenary mindset.

So what is the point you are making. I believe Tata is as Indian as it gets

I also remember an Indian Navy officer involved in the expensive Admiral Gorshkov refurbishment deal who was in a honeytrap. He helped the Russians inflate the costs of INS Vikramaditya. (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...honeytrap.html)

Yes this happened. Stupid man, he. Why are we using one incident to paint 1.4 million men and women.

My point being - all's not well with all of our defence personnel.

We are all entitled to our views and you have a right to yours. Any group of 1.4 million people will have a few bad apples just like our forum.

There always exists a possibility that 'other' considerations came into play with certain personnel who were involved while selecting the Safari over its competitors.

Why this unsolicited unproven accusation. Do you have even a drop of evidence. Or are you mis-using T-BHP to hurl unfounded accusations. This is a public forum and what you express here is a written document - a permanent one. Do not think of this as a casual conversation where you can say things without thinking first.

[Jaggu]

Mod note: Please keep the discussion relevant to the vehicle. Do NOT get into personal arguments, and discussions on army evaluation process etc without concrete evidence, first hand or from quotable / reliable sources!

If you wish to, take such discussions "one to one" and offline over PM's.

Thanks for understanding, let us keep this thread clean!

cheers
Jaggu

[AVR]

I was talking to someone working as a vendor to TML and he mentioned that the suspension and drive-train had been suitably modified for the Army order.

Having said that, if we can trust the Army to defend our country, we can surely also give them more credit in selecting what was the best available option given multiple constraints.

Civilian Stormes have also had a reasonably good ownership cycle as you'll see on this forum itself. Judging Tata without providing an alternative yourself or reasonable basis doesn't achieve much except for occupying more storage space on team-bhp servers and adds no particular value.

Let's hope for the best and time will definitely tell how it plays out. Hold your horses till then!

Cheers,
Adi

[Dry Ice]

I think all of us are overlooking a simple thing when passionately debating about whether Storme is the right replacement for Gypsies. That simple thing is the "improving infrastructure". The roads on our fronts are improving each year. They are not what they used to be say 15-20 years back when a Gypsy was the only thing that could scale these places. Sure there still might be inaccessible fronts but a majority of them seem to have good connectivity now (Thanks in no small measure to the stupendous work of the BRO). So on tarred or even broken roads a 4wd Storme is much better than the bouncy Gypsy.

[nainan]

The army needed a vehicle that could take a payload of 800 Kgs which rules out a Gypsy sized alternative. They also required a hard roof and a/c which by the by most of the armored and mechanized infantry already have so no surprise here. There have been suspension and drivetrain modifications as per Tata.

Tata Safari STORME’s into the Indian Army with the initial order for 3192 units

[RavenAvi]

The two-door version of the Tata Safari Storme, made for the Indian Army.

Pics courtesy Pritom Gogoi.

[lazy]

Originally Posted by RavenAvi

The two-door version of the Tata Safari Storme, made for the Indian Army.

Wow, looks butch and purposeful.
This take off a significant amount of kilos which will do wonders for it's performance.

What are the chances TML will offer this to civilians in 4x4 avatar?

Even on its last legs, the Safari is my pick if I am buying a car in 2018. The Indian Army OG is making it an even more desirable car.

cheers
lazy

[vharihar]

Uptaking the Tata vehicle (or Mahindra) over the Gypsy, is also in line with "Be Indian, Buy Indian", so I fully support it. Any flaws, can and should be worked out eventually.

Gypsy is from Maruti Suzuki, which is hardly Indian. It's as Japanese as it gets.

[vkr15]

Originally Posted by Jaggu

Mod note: Please keep the discussion relevant to the vehicle. Do NOT get into personal arguments, and discussions on army evaluation process etc without concrete evidence, first hand or from quotable / reliable sources!

If you wish to, take such discussions "one to one" and offline over PM's.

Thanks for understanding, let us keep this thread clean!

cheers
Jaggu

A big thank you to you Jaggu, though I wish your admonition had come earlier. As an Army officer who served for close to four decades in the Army( and that too in the PBI--poor bloody Infantry), I found the discussion extremely amateurish, totally uninformed and downright childish.
Bless you and all the guys who seem to think they know everything about our defence forces.