Indian Army’s Northern Command, believed to be one of the most strategic commands of the Indian Army will soon be inducting an ASMI submachine gun for which an order worth crores has already been placed.
Credible Defence sources stated that the Northern Command is all set to induct submachine gun ASMI manufactured by Hyderabad-based Lokesh Machine Limited under ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’.
Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune in collaboration with the Indian Army, ASMI, which stands for ‘Asmita’, means “pride”, will be augmenting the Armed Forces during the combat and counter-insurgency operations in the region.
Having two variants, ASMI weighs about 1.80-kg and is a single unibody 9×19 mm caliber submachine gun.
“Making it 10 to 15 percent lighter than international competitors like the Uzi and Heckler and Koch’s MP5, ASMI has a magazine capacity of 32 rounds while the firing rate is 800 rounds per minute,” they said.
“Induction of ASMI will further strengthen the Udhampur (J&K) based Northern Command—which is one of the strategic commands of the Indian Army and is responsible for operations and security along the country's northern borders, including Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Himachal Pradesh,” sources added.
Northern Command, as per the sources, has placed an order of around 500 ASMI submachine guns worth crores with the developers.
