Apache gunship hit with live rounds during training exercise

[mojaveman]

A large training exercise for Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers in Southern California came to a halt Saturday morning when an infantryman shot an Army Apache helicopter with live rounds.


That would certainly add some realism to the training.


http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...alifornia.html

[miclo18d]

Unit was tasked as OPFOR. Soldier had a mag of live rounds. Soldier thought they were blanks. Fired at AH-64. Blew Blank firing adapter of of rifle and then actually shot hello with live rounds.

I'm sure this kind of thing happens more often than we think. When I was a line squad leader I had a solder from another platoon come to me with a magazine that he borrowed from one of my guys, that was loaded with blanks, that had five live rounds at the bottom. Thankfully he didn't fire the entire mag. My soldier was a good kid that made a mistake. He got smoked and WE (my squad and I) always checked mags (with flashlights if needed) before loading them with different types of ammo.

[cbtengr]

[QUOTE=miclo18d;609014]Unit was tasked as OPFOR. Soldier had a mag of live rounds. Soldier thought they were blanks. Fired at AH-64. Blew Blank firing adapter of of rifle and then actually shot hello with live rounds.

Are today's blank adapters designed to do this ? When I was at Campbell in the 70's we had some idiots who were stuffing .22s' down the barrel of their M16's with a cleaning rod and using the blanks pressure to send the round down range. One of these idiots put the .22 in his barrel forgot to discharge it and put the blank adapter back on. When he fired his M16 later in the day he totally destoyed the receiver, he's lucky he did not seriously hurt himself. The gene pool in the Combat Engineers had a few shallow places at that time.

[Sohei]

Originally Posted by miclo18d

Unit was tasked as OPFOR. Soldier had a mag of live rounds. Soldier thought they were blanks. Fired at AH-64. Blew Blank firing adapter of of rifle and then actually shot hello with live rounds.

I'm sure this kind of thing happens more often than we think. When I was a line squad leader I had a solder from another platoon come to me with a magazine that he borrowed from one of my guys, that was loaded with blanks, that had five live rounds at the bottom. Thankfully he didn't fire the entire mag. My soldier was a good kid that made a mistake. He got smoked and WE (my squad and I) always checked mags (with flashlights if needed) before loading them with different types of ammo.

I would hate to actually know how many people were simply "one shot away" from being wounded or killed from situations just like you explained -- magazines with live rounds beneath the blanks.

[SouthernDZ]

We lost a young TL back in the 80s during the blank fire/live fire transition downrange. You would think blue tape around the mag would be foolproof, it's not.

I remember the guy (CPT Valdez) because I was covering the TMC at MacKall for a few months and he came in as a student with a slight heat injury. One of the remarkably nubile 68Ws in her brown t-shirt that was assisting during the rotation took his BP that ended up being 240/108. I told her I had it covered and she left. I retook it a few minutes later, 122/78. Amazing.

[craigepo]

Hitting a moving helicopter is pretty good marksmanship.

I say, Expert Marksmanship Badge with V device.

I'm negotiable on the V device.

[BKKMAN]

Having been stationed at NTC for a number of years, I will say that blank/live cross-contamination happens far more than most people would think. 90% of the time, the mistake is caught before things go sideways, but the book of safety reports of people/equipment/donkeys/desert tortoises shot or shot at is pretty thick...

[Team Sergeant]

You don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, and you don't shoot at Apaches and A-10's.

That's all common sense, which has gone extinct for 99.9% of the human population.

[ElevenBravo87]

My unit did a rotation at 29 Palms as opfor in the 80s. We were spread out along a high ridge line one evening as the sun was going down. I took the opportunity to relieve myself from atop the fairly high cliff towards the main valley, and of course I brought the 60 with me. Well, along comes two enemy Cobras low and slow right at eye level with me. So I reach down grab the 60 and started running off blanks at them. (Would be hard to mix a belt of blanks and rounds) Since they were within 75 yards of me when their heads all swiveled to me, I could see their smiles below their visors as they see some maniac with BDUs around his boots hip firing at them at effectively point blank range and eye level. Went back to my position, and a little while later a LTC with an observer white band rolls up and chews me and and my lt out for basically being a moron as 7.62 is no real threat to an armored cobra. I told him I knew that, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. He did agree in the end.