FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy rushed to the southern city of Carcassonne yesterday after a soldier fired real bullets instead of blanks into an open-day crowd, wounding 17, including 10 adult civilians and five children, in an unprecedented and embarrassing military drill disaster.
Three of the wounded were in a serious condition last night, among them a three-year-old child and an adult shot in the neck by the powerful "Famas" automatic assault rifle during the public exercise.
Mr Sarkozy expressed his "horror" at the injury toll from the bungled drill at the barracks of the 3rd RPIMA regiment of the marine infantry parachutists, one of the most elite units of the French army.
A senior military official said yesterday the incident was almost certainly "unintentional".
The use of the live rounds was "99.9 per cent" likely to be "an unintentional fault", said Colonel Benoit Royal, head of the French army's information service.
Created in 1948, the "3" was led in the 1960s by the decorated hero of Dien Bien Phu, in Vietnam, and the Algerian war, Colonel Marcel Bigeard.
After tours in Indochina, the unit engaged in numerous military conflicts in Chad, Rwanda, Southern Lebanon, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and, most recently, Afghanistan.
The shocking breach of military security at what was supposed to be a festive and smoothly run demonstration of French military skill in the medieval citadel city cast a shadow over Mr Sarkozy's first day as the new rotating president of the European Union.
The soldier who fired the bullets at onlookers, during a drill where parachutist commandos acted out the liberation of hostages, was detained pending an investigation.
Defence Minister Herve Morin said it was unclear if he shot at members of the public in a deliberate act or simply in error.
"Blanks and real bullets have different colours so, with his eight years of experience, the soldier normally could not confuse the two," Mr Morin said. "Army procedures normally should stop this kind of thing.
"He was an experienced soldier ... and considered a man of value and quality. I exclude nothing. He reloaded his gun and the second time unfortunately it had real bullets.
"It is too soon to say (what happened) but what is certain is there were some faults in procedure," Mr Morin said
(Rest of the article in link above)
So can anyone with service time give me a likelyhood factor of this happening by accident? It's a crazy mistake, if it is a mistake.
You've got to question whose bright idea it was to have a weapon pointed at a crowd for a demonstration.
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The shocking breach of military security at what was supposed to be a festive and smoothly run demonstration of French military skill in the medieval citadel city cast a shadow over Mr Sarkozy's first day as the new rotating president of the European Union.
The soldier who fired the bullets at onlookers, during a drill where parachutist commandos acted out the liberation of hostages, was detained pending an investigation.
So part of the "demonstration of French military skill" was aiming a deadly weapon at a crowd? First of all, that was just plain stupid. Second of all, why didn't they have a second person verify that the loaded rounds were blanks? Isn't that what they do on Hollywood sets?
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This sounds rather unbelievable if it was simply an accident. Especially if the soldier in question has so many years of experience. I won't be surprised if they find out it was deliberate.
I would think that even shooting blanks at civilians wouldn't be a good procedure. Even blanks may cause injury.
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When I was down in Australia, there was an ammo FUBAR, and they issued someone real rounds. When they figured it out, they paused the whole excercise to find out what had happened.
Mistakes happen, but you have to be a complete retard to not recognize them when you load them, or to aim them at civilians.
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It takes about 8 seconds to be shown the difference between live ammo and practice rounds. There is no way you should be able to mistake the two. However if you get distracted when filling up the mags and place one in the wrong pile... Once you have done something a thousand times double checking might seem a waste of time.
We had one idiot in my outfit that didn't switch the live ammo barrel back to the practice barrel after a live ammo shooting, fortunately for the op-for that day they decided to go home early.
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Defence Minister Herve Morin said it was unclear if he shot at members of the public in a deliberate act or simply in error.
This is a little vague, but I assume this means he wasn't supposed to be aiming at the crowd? I can't imagine anyone would think that would be a good idea.
How could a guy fire off 17 rounds and not notice the people falling down? It's hard to believe this was just an accident.
You can empty a full 30 round magazine (17 people wounded suggests that’s how much ammo was fired, not perfect accuracy) in under 3 seconds with a typical modern submachine gun. That’s not really enough time to see people falling while your sight pictures is obscured by the muzzle flash. Its possible the demonstration called for a full magazine to be emptied that way, to you know, entertain the crowd, even though it’s a fairly stupid waste of ammo in a gun battle.
I do question this having been an accident, really it cannot be an accident no matter the intent of the action, it was gross criminal negligence. However if the shooters intent was to kill people, then its hard to see how he didn’t kill anyone.
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This happened in Poland once with a police riot unit during a student riot.
They were using rubber bullets fired from shotguns into the crowd, and some idiot responsible for delivering additional ammo issued them flechettes instead of the rubber bullets in the middle of the fight. IIRC one or two people got killed because some cops didn't notice the difference, loaded the rounds and fired them.
I read about one cop commenting afterwards that he could immediately feel the round he was handed was not rubber, because the weight difference was just that extreme. Since practice rounds don't have the bullet in them, I imagine the difference would be quite significant, too. So it's probably routine which led to this mistake: somebody threw the magazine on the wrong pile, and since 99% of the time the soldier loads live rounds for target practice and is used to the weight, he didn't notice anything was wrong. The sheer scale of the incident is fearsome, though.
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I thought it was standard procedure for both the ammo issuer and the soldier to check the rounds before the soldiers accepted the rounds? Either way, there's gross negligence involved.
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Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I thought it was standard procedure for both the ammo issuer and the soldier to check the rounds before the soldiers accepted the rounds? Either way, there's gross negligence involved.
The problem with standard procedures is that they're, well...standard. Do something long enough, and you start taking shortcuts, especially when it's something as boring as loading magazines. All it takes then is for a supervisor to neglect to check one time, and other conditions to fall in place, and voila - FUBAR.
JULY 20TH 1969 - The day the entire world was looking up
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small. - NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
PeZook wrote:The problem with standard procedures is that they're, well...standard. Do something long enough, and you start taking shortcuts, especially when it's something as boring as loading magazines. All it takes then is for a supervisor to neglect to check one time, and other conditions to fall in place, and voila - FUBAR.
Oh sure, it happens. Some people need to get a kick in the ass for taking such procedures too lightly.
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Gas operated or delayed blowback automatics to my knowledge require barrel restrictors or blank firing adaptors that plug the barrel in order to let gas pressure and recoil from the blank round build up enough to cycle the weapon.
Either the French FAMAS doesn't require a restricted barrel or BFA (possible), or there's more than they're telling us (also possible).
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Didn't the British have a doublecharge blank round to give enough power to cycle the action?
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loomer wrote:Didn't the British have a doublecharge blank round to give enough power to cycle the action?
I'm not an expert, but I don't think even a double charge blank round would cycle the action as the gas would just escape out of the muzzle without the restriction of a bullet or BFA to keep enough in to work the action.
IIRC, some European countries use wood bullets as a 'restrictor' and the wood shatters on leaving the barrel either on its own or after passing through a muzzle attachment that shredded it.
Maybe that's the style of blank the French used?
It'd explain quite a bit.
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Glocksman wrote:Maybe that's the style of blank the French used?
It'd explain quite a bit.
Wouldn't that also blow the barrel, particulary if you empty an entire mag...
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Glocksman wrote:Maybe that's the style of blank the French used?
It'd explain quite a bit.
Wouldn't that also blow the barrel, particulary if you empty an entire mag...
The restrictor could have been blown off by the first real bullet passing through, which would have damaged the gun, and might explain why there were not more significant injuries when fired into a packed crowd.
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Not if it was an ordinary barrel without a 'shredder' attachment on it.
But like I said, I'm no expert on French small arms and what I've posted is educated guesswork at best.
That said, if this story was about a US Army soldier doing the same thing, my BULLSHIT! detector would be screaming at me because the US uses orange BFA's when using blanks in its M16 variants and you'd be damn lucky not to blow the weapon up in your face when firing live ammo in a BFA equipped AR.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
A few weeks ago and also around the same time last year, I attended a small US Civil War reenactment show. Several times through the weekend there was a simulated battle between Union and Confederate Forces. About 30-40 men on each side lined up and advanced towards each other, stopping to fire and reload their single-shot weapons with blank rounds. It didn't take long to notice that each side wasn't actually aiming at the other (they were separated by at least 200 yards or so at the closest point, and it was probably farther than that). Each man was aiming his weapon slightly upwards and to the side. It wasn't that obvious unless you were paying attention, but it was clear that they were being careful to not actually aim at anyone while pretending to do so.
Cannon firing is also featured during the battle and also demonstrated independently. The weapons are situated to that they are aimed at an angle away from parallel to the crowd. When the cannons are used during the skirmish, they are aimed well away from the line of opposing men.
Likewise, I've been to a local WW2 show many times over the last 10 or so years and in recent years the show has featured a battle between German, US and French Partisan forces in a small "town." The reenactors fire fully automatic weapons at times (Thompson submachine guns, BARs, etc.), but again, the battle area is situated away from parallel to the crowd line and if you watch closely, you can see that none of the shooters are actually aiming at anyone.
And these are just two relatively small local shows. In the latter case, there are dozens of men running around the "town," advancing and firing, but it is all handled in a safe way and no one in the crowd is at risk. It's hard for me to believe that this active duty French solider was supposed to be (let alone permitted) to fire anywhere near a crowd of people).
The shocking breach of military security at what was supposed to be a festive and smoothly run demonstration of French military skill in the medieval citadel city cast a shadow over Mr Sarkozy's first day as the new rotating president of the European Union.
The soldier who fired the bullets at onlookers, during a drill where parachutist commandos acted out the liberation of hostages, was detained pending an investigation.
So part of the "demonstration of French military skill" was aiming a deadly weapon at a crowd? First of all, that was just plain stupid. Second of all, why didn't they have a second person verify that the loaded rounds were blanks? Isn't that what they do on Hollywood sets?
God, I hope so.
Deliberately pointing a gun at someone you don't intend to kill if necessary is risky at best, and can lead to homicide charges at worst.
That said, even blank rounds have enough power to kill if you jam the weapon up against someone's body.
It's anecdotal, but I had a friend who served in the US Army during the late 1980's in Germany and he said when they were bored, they'd use blank rounds to shoot cleaning rods out of their M16's and the rods would go right through standard drywall.
His MOS was Hawk/Patriot missile radar repair, so he wasn't a grunt trained to treat his rifle better than his girlfriend.
IMHO, the best way to use 'real' weapons in training where you actually point it at a live human is to use simunition kits on duty firearms.
By design, you cannot chamber real ammo in such a weapon and the loud color allows the user to immediately determine if the firearm is a 'simunition' weapon or the real thing.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Horseshit. Any soldier who can't tell when he's firing blanks vs. ball doesn't need to be in the military. You not only have a significant weight difference in both individual rounds and the magazine and therefore weapon, but there is a goddamned distinct audible difference (POOT vs. CRACK-KOW). Couple that with the fact that the blank adapter (forget what it's called) would been blasted off.(This is assuming they use them for this weapon) This is pure negligence. The soldier fucked up royal and must be held accountable along with everyone who put their hands on that ammunition, and/or any inspecting NCO's/officers before the exercise.
Plus - why was that soldier NOT firing controlled, 3-round bursts? that first 3 rounds should have alerted him/her to a problem.
Sorry, I have zero sympathy for this guy. Throw the book at him.
