Post by James on Oct 11, 2022 10:21:43 GMT -5
What was the most boneheaded mistake you saw someone make while in the military?
Many moons ago we were doing a live fire section attack on an “enemy” position. On first “contact”, we hit the deck then laid down some suppressing fire while the machine gun crew moved to higher ground on our right flank. Unfortunately, the guy carrying the LMG tripped and the barrel got embedded in the dirt - no spare barrel! We alternated fire to preserve ammo while the gunner cleared the barrel and when he eventually opened up. on we went with the attack.
Throughout the attack we had targets popping up and down before we got to the main enemy position where there was a higher concentration of targets.
When we were fighting through the main enemy position my mate, who was just ahead of me on my left, decided to bayonet one of the figure 11 targets that was still upright - a strange thing to do given we didn’t have bayonets fixed!
The wood caught onto his front sights and the “bonehead” went arse over tit and fired a couple of shots as he went. One of the Royal Marine safety team (we where being taken through by them on one of their training areas) grabbed him by his webbing pulling him upright while chewing him a new one and giving him a damn good smack on his helmet all in one smooth movement - it was impressive to see such multitasking.
Having fought through the position, set up a defence and sent a team back to search the “dead” and check for wounded the whistle went to signify endex and to gather in for an after-action debrief.
I thought we were going to get a right bollocking but we actually got kudos for how we handled the LMG incident, as they said, shit happens, it’s how you deal with it that counts and overall they reckoned it was a pretty textbook example of a successful section attack especially as we weren’t infantry. They didn’t even give us much grief for the “bayonet charge” other than pointing out how dangerous the “mistake” was and try not to let the adrenaline take over. When we finished up and started heading back, the lead Marine called out “By the way, if you ever find yourself in a real situation, shoot that twat (pointing to my mate) before he tries the same shit again, next time he might kill one of you!”.
Many moons ago we were doing a live fire section attack on an “enemy” position. On first “contact”, we hit the deck then laid down some suppressing fire while the machine gun crew moved to higher ground on our right flank. Unfortunately, the guy carrying the LMG tripped and the barrel got embedded in the dirt - no spare barrel! We alternated fire to preserve ammo while the gunner cleared the barrel and when he eventually opened up. on we went with the attack.
Throughout the attack we had targets popping up and down before we got to the main enemy position where there was a higher concentration of targets.
When we were fighting through the main enemy position my mate, who was just ahead of me on my left, decided to bayonet one of the figure 11 targets that was still upright - a strange thing to do given we didn’t have bayonets fixed!
The wood caught onto his front sights and the “bonehead” went arse over tit and fired a couple of shots as he went. One of the Royal Marine safety team (we where being taken through by them on one of their training areas) grabbed him by his webbing pulling him upright while chewing him a new one and giving him a damn good smack on his helmet all in one smooth movement - it was impressive to see such multitasking.
Having fought through the position, set up a defence and sent a team back to search the “dead” and check for wounded the whistle went to signify endex and to gather in for an after-action debrief.
I thought we were going to get a right bollocking but we actually got kudos for how we handled the LMG incident, as they said, shit happens, it’s how you deal with it that counts and overall they reckoned it was a pretty textbook example of a successful section attack especially as we weren’t infantry. They didn’t even give us much grief for the “bayonet charge” other than pointing out how dangerous the “mistake” was and try not to let the adrenaline take over. When we finished up and started heading back, the lead Marine called out “By the way, if you ever find yourself in a real situation, shoot that twat (pointing to my mate) before he tries the same shit again, next time he might kill one of you!”.