Army Exercises - How’s that work?
Discussion
Watched a BBC 2 thing about the Army posting in Croatia last night.
They undertook some exercise with the Croatians and French forces simulating the repel of an attack. Fairly big exercise it appeared with armoured stuff involved.
All the ground forces were running about with the yellow muzzles on the guns and yellow magazines etc
The film showed soldiers moving and firing amongst trees whilst ‘taking fire’ and firing at helis passing over head.
The film cut to a senior bod who declared the combined forces had won the exercise.
So not being in the forces myself I couldn’t quite understand how these situations work in actuality. How does one determine incoming fire from a position when it’s just blanks? How do troops ‘lose’ assets if it’s just pretend? Surely one can just hold a position indefinitely? What stops unrealistic advances if there’s no real threat?
Does a CO walk around marking people as “out” - I suspect not!
I have lots of such questions but I guess I just don’t see how it plays out in the field and would be great if someone could shed light on it.
Cheers!
They undertook some exercise with the Croatians and French forces simulating the repel of an attack. Fairly big exercise it appeared with armoured stuff involved.
All the ground forces were running about with the yellow muzzles on the guns and yellow magazines etc
The film showed soldiers moving and firing amongst trees whilst ‘taking fire’ and firing at helis passing over head.
The film cut to a senior bod who declared the combined forces had won the exercise.
So not being in the forces myself I couldn’t quite understand how these situations work in actuality. How does one determine incoming fire from a position when it’s just blanks? How do troops ‘lose’ assets if it’s just pretend? Surely one can just hold a position indefinitely? What stops unrealistic advances if there’s no real threat?
Does a CO walk around marking people as “out” - I suspect not!
I have lots of such questions but I guess I just don’t see how it plays out in the field and would be great if someone could shed light on it.
Cheers!
The most-cursory of googling gets this from the Wail :
Each soldier has sensors fitted all over their body which can detect whether they have been hit with a fatal blow or if one of their limbs has been injured.
A speaker attached to his uniform tells them when they have been hit and they must rescue one another and deliver first aid under pressure.
When a tank is hit, the crew are told either that the vehicle can no longer move, a member of crew has been killed, the entire crew has been wiped out or its weapons have been disabled.
As well as being equipped with laser guns, troops are also supplied with laser grenades and heavy artillery.
There are even simulated suicide vests which are supplied to the enemy.
Lieutenant Ian Hodgson, 25, from Darlington, is one of the soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment who are taking part.
He said: "If a man is injured or killed in the simulation, the system will tell him that straight away.
"Those around him then have to work out how to protect him while he is treated by a medic or how to recover the body.
"If a medic treats them they are able to re-join the battle.
"It forces them to think quickly and act under pressure and hopefully brings home the reality of dealing with causalities in the field."
Each soldier has sensors fitted all over their body which can detect whether they have been hit with a fatal blow or if one of their limbs has been injured.
A speaker attached to his uniform tells them when they have been hit and they must rescue one another and deliver first aid under pressure.
When a tank is hit, the crew are told either that the vehicle can no longer move, a member of crew has been killed, the entire crew has been wiped out or its weapons have been disabled.
As well as being equipped with laser guns, troops are also supplied with laser grenades and heavy artillery.
There are even simulated suicide vests which are supplied to the enemy.
Lieutenant Ian Hodgson, 25, from Darlington, is one of the soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment who are taking part.
He said: "If a man is injured or killed in the simulation, the system will tell him that straight away.
"Those around him then have to work out how to protect him while he is treated by a medic or how to recover the body.
"If a medic treats them they are able to re-join the battle.
"It forces them to think quickly and act under pressure and hopefully brings home the reality of dealing with causalities in the field."
DoubleSix said:
Fair enough, I dismissed the lasers/sensors thing because I couldn’t see any such hardware at all but perhaps it is more discreet than I had imagined.
Didn’t think the army would have the budget either to be honest...
Read all about it here.Didn’t think the army would have the budget either to be honest...
Sadly, when I was in the TA back in the '90s, there wasn't a '50s hand-me-down version for us to play with.
DoubleSix said:
Watched a BBC 2 thing about the Army posting in Croatia last night.
They undertook some exercise with the Croatians and French forces simulating the repel of an attack. Fairly big exercise it appeared with armoured stuff involved.
All the ground forces were running about with the yellow muzzles on the guns and yellow magazines etc
The film showed soldiers moving and firing amongst trees whilst ‘taking fire’ and firing at helis passing over head.
The film cut to a senior bod who declared the combined forces had won the exercise.
So not being in the forces myself I couldn’t quite understand how these situations work in actuality. How does one determine incoming fire from a position when it’s just blanks? How do troops ‘lose’ assets if it’s just pretend? Surely one can just hold a position indefinitely? What stops unrealistic advances if there’s no real threat?
Does a CO walk around marking people as “out” - I suspect not!
I have lots of such questions but I guess I just don’t see how it plays out in the field and would be great if someone could shed light on it.
Cheers!
Multiple laser systems such as MILES (USA) or TES (UK) can be used for pretty accurate simulations of various kinds of fire. But as you describe things it sounds like laser systems were not in use. Usually there are Exercise Directing Staff who set parameters and use marshals (unarmed in hi-vis) to determine who has been "killed" or what kind of a casualty they have become. If you're driving an armoured vehicle you usually get told over the radio that you are "dead" or "immobilized". You'd know if TES was in use because it looks like this...They undertook some exercise with the Croatians and French forces simulating the repel of an attack. Fairly big exercise it appeared with armoured stuff involved.
All the ground forces were running about with the yellow muzzles on the guns and yellow magazines etc
The film showed soldiers moving and firing amongst trees whilst ‘taking fire’ and firing at helis passing over head.
The film cut to a senior bod who declared the combined forces had won the exercise.
So not being in the forces myself I couldn’t quite understand how these situations work in actuality. How does one determine incoming fire from a position when it’s just blanks? How do troops ‘lose’ assets if it’s just pretend? Surely one can just hold a position indefinitely? What stops unrealistic advances if there’s no real threat?
Does a CO walk around marking people as “out” - I suspect not!
I have lots of such questions but I guess I just don’t see how it plays out in the field and would be great if someone could shed light on it.
Cheers!
with a laser emitter on the rifle...
Those "yellow muzzles" are Blank firing Adaptors". They are slipped over/into the muzzle of a regular rifle, and tightened up. There's a rod inside that effectively blocks the route out for gases through the muzzle to mimic the effect of a bullet holding back the expanding gases,forcing some of the gas through the gas regulator to drive back the operating piston and thereby chamber another round. Without them the rifles wouldn't "self load" and would effectively need the bolt working after every shot instead of being capable of automatic or semi-automatic fire. A happy side effect is that it stops wadding from the blank rounds getting fired out of the end of the barrel. Handy if you "accidentally forget" the safety distance for engaging with blank rounds.
Old BFA...
New BFA...
The yellow magazines? We didn't have those when I was in, but as I understand it they're not meant to be able to fit a live round in, so it's an additional safety layer if troops are moving between live and blank firing segments on the same long exercise. Checks are carried out whenever there's a switch between live and blanks, but mistakes have been made and soldiers killed/injured by using live rounds through a BFA.
Quite often there are scenarios in exercises like this where you are 'forced' into an outcome whether you win the firefight or not, simply because that's the way the exercise has been scripted. This was especially true in the Royal Engineers, where exercises were written so as to include a specific set of Engineer tasks. So for instance, if you went out on a Recce and came back with the "wrong" solution and wanted to find an alternative route, to avoid building a bridge, then the alternative plan would be made to fail either through a hastily added "enemy attack" on the alternative route, or resources to construct the alternative plan would simply be made "unavailable within the mission timeframe" to force you into building the bridge that the Directing Staff had planned from the start.
I hope that answers at least some of your questions...
Oh, and the 'British' TES system is "Tactical Engagement Simulator".
In addition to the 'MILES' (USA) system linked above, here's some more on it, generically... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_engagement_...
Some stuff on TES on this 2015 PDF... https://saab.com/globalassets/commercial/land/trai...
Short video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCWcGezvdTU
In addition to the 'MILES' (USA) system linked above, here's some more on it, generically... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_engagement_...
Some stuff on TES on this 2015 PDF... https://saab.com/globalassets/commercial/land/trai...
Short video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCWcGezvdTU
Edited by yellowjack on Friday 27th October 15:48
The prog was actually in Estonia where we've got a batt sized battle group on almost perm deployment.
The TES system was visible on all the close ups of the blokes in the field. Back in the day the sensors were much larger & less of them (we used to have 6 i think - limbs, body & head). The new system has multiple locations to allow full on sim of casualties etc. Allows the medics to prioritise casevac of mass casualties & the like.
Each vehicle has TES too, feeding back info on the hit locations, type of weapons used against it, although tbh it was far more fun taking the chutes off the shermulies & firing the feckin things horizontal pinging them off the chieftains & old 432's. Made the donkey wallopers duck in their hatches a few times, the raving hemmers.
The TES system was visible on all the close ups of the blokes in the field. Back in the day the sensors were much larger & less of them (we used to have 6 i think - limbs, body & head). The new system has multiple locations to allow full on sim of casualties etc. Allows the medics to prioritise casevac of mass casualties & the like.
Each vehicle has TES too, feeding back info on the hit locations, type of weapons used against it, although tbh it was far more fun taking the chutes off the shermulies & firing the feckin things horizontal pinging them off the chieftains & old 432's. Made the donkey wallopers duck in their hatches a few times, the raving hemmers.
Echo66 said:
The prog was actually in Estonia where we've got a batt sized battle group on almost perm deployment.
The TES system was visible on all the close ups of the blokes in the field. Back in the day the sensors were much larger & less of them (we used to have 6 i think - limbs, body & head). The new system has multiple locations to allow full on sim of casualties etc. Allows the medics to prioritise casevac of mass casualties & the like.
Each vehicle has TES too, feeding back info on the hit locations, type of weapons used against it, although tbh it was far more fun taking the chutes off the shermulies & firing the feckin things horizontal pinging them off the chieftains & old 432's. Made the donkey wallopers duck in their hatches a few times, the raving hemmers.
If you make my loader spill the coffee he's making me then I'll be jolly cross.The TES system was visible on all the close ups of the blokes in the field. Back in the day the sensors were much larger & less of them (we used to have 6 i think - limbs, body & head). The new system has multiple locations to allow full on sim of casualties etc. Allows the medics to prioritise casevac of mass casualties & the like.
Each vehicle has TES too, feeding back info on the hit locations, type of weapons used against it, although tbh it was far more fun taking the chutes off the shermulies & firing the feckin things horizontal pinging them off the chieftains & old 432's. Made the donkey wallopers duck in their hatches a few times, the raving hemmers.
I thought the programme painted quite a depressing picture - 5,000 Estonians ready to defend themselves against 300,000 Russians should Putin decide he needs to further consolidate his power base. No doubt one of our pet Pravdabots will be along shortly to tell us that the Baltic states have always been part of Russia and that it's the natural order of things for them to be so again.
A long, long time ago, in a place far, far away, I was in the CCF. We were armed with somewhat ancient .303 rifles and, on special occasions, Bren guns. Not the later, modified 7.62 LMG, but pukka .303 Brens.
Being bolt-action. the rifles had no need of 'blank firing attachments' like those pictured above.
The blank rounds available for .303 had short, crimped ends, much shorter than the bullet on the live round - and too short to function correctly in the Bren; so instead the Bren used 'bulleted blanks' with balsawood bullets and had a 'shredder' fitted in place of the familiar conical Bren muzzle. The result was a Bren that would fire a magazine of 30 blank rounds quite quickly and in doing so produce an impressive sheet of flame and the balsa bullets were shredded and incinerated.
The potential for 'bulleted blanks' to end up in the hands of cadets with rifles, however, still makes me wince a little. Still, different times, and all that.
Being bolt-action. the rifles had no need of 'blank firing attachments' like those pictured above.
The blank rounds available for .303 had short, crimped ends, much shorter than the bullet on the live round - and too short to function correctly in the Bren; so instead the Bren used 'bulleted blanks' with balsawood bullets and had a 'shredder' fitted in place of the familiar conical Bren muzzle. The result was a Bren that would fire a magazine of 30 blank rounds quite quickly and in doing so produce an impressive sheet of flame and the balsa bullets were shredded and incinerated.
The potential for 'bulleted blanks' to end up in the hands of cadets with rifles, however, still makes me wince a little. Still, different times, and all that.
Echo66 said:
, although tbh it was far more fun taking the chutes off the shermulies & firing the feckin things horizontal pinging them off the chieftains & old 432's. Made the donkey wallopers duck in their hatches a few times, the raving hemmers.
very much thisi wonder if they had a wolfgang in a bratty van, that fecker could find anyone at any time
curry wurst mitt chips bitter
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