Historic Live Fire Exercise

The live fire exercise executed by the soldiers of the warship section of the HDF 1st Honvéd EOD and Warship Regiment on Friday at the water shooting range near Titel, Serbia could be best described as “historic". Although this is already the third time that the Hungarian troops have been exercising on the range of the Serbian River Flotilla on River Tisza, the present one is the first occasion when they arrived in Serbia by their own warships. The participation of Hungarian warships in a training event abroad has been unprecedented since the Second World War.

Cooperation between Serbian and Hungarian warship crews started in 2011 when the first Iron Cat exercise was held. The two nations conducted it with the objective of taking cooperation to the next level between their river forces. In the first year, Hungarian warship crews travelled to Serbia to carry out a live fire exercise, but at the time they were shooting at water targets using the vessels of the host nation. In 2012, the Serbian soldiers visited Hungary where they destroyed ground-based targets on the central firing range of the Hungarian Defence Forces using the 20mm PAV-1 and PAV-4 autocannon of the warships. In 2013, the Hungarians travelled to Titel again, and last year the Serbians came to Várpalota, Hungary where they were shooting at aerial targets too. This year, the Hungarian arrived at the range in Serbia by their own warships to fire at ground-based and aerial targets.

The AM-31 DUNAÚJVÁROS (commander: Capt. Dr. Norbert Daruka) and the AM-32 DUNAFÖLDVÁR (commander: 1st Lt. Dániel Cservölgyi) minesweeper patrol boats of the Hungarian Defence Forces left the Újpest military port on September 13. The formation led by Capt. László Danyikó, warship subdivision commander arrived in Novi Sad, a base of the Serbian Flotilla in two days. During the first days, they took theoretical lessons and then started training for the live fire exercise to destroy water-based targets.

“There are no water ranges in Hungary, so unfortunately we cannot conduct live fire exercises there on water with maneuvering under realistic circumstances. This is why we have started cooperating with the Serbians. During a live fire exercise like this, the warship crews have to take into account the wind, the current of the river, the waves and also the fact that the ship alters course upon firing the weapons, Lt.-Col. Zsolt Szilágyi, the deputy commander of the regimental warship section told us. He added that the live fire exercise had been preceded by several months of intensive training in Hungary.

The Hungarian warship crews – and of course, the Serbians who also carried out the live fire exercise – eliminated the targets following a series of previously practiced steps. First they fired the PAV-4 autocannons of the vessels at the target placed in a distance of 1,200 meters, then the PAV-1 autocannons also had a role, as they used one of them to hit the metal plate target built on a floating bridge element placed at a distance of 800 meters, and they used the other to hit the target from a distance of 1,000 meters. The pride of the Serbian River Flotilla, the warship NOVI SAD with two PAV-4 autocannons also took part in the exercise. The training event was closed with a live fire exercise conducted by a four-ship formation of the Serbs.

Almost all Hungarian and Serbian warship crew members have achieved EXCELLENT results during the live fire exercise. The executing personnel were greeted by Brig.-Gen. Žarko Lazarević, Chief of Staff, Serbian Land Forces and Col. Attila Csurgó. The superiors awarded tokens of appreciation to the best shooters, PFC Nadoban Radomir and CPL Tivadar Csörgits.

After the LFX, Col. Csurgó told us that he was very satisfied with what he had seen. Together with the commander of the Serbian flotilla, he inspected the target, a metal plate which, just like the bridge element holding it, “was riddled with bullets shot by the Serbian and Hungarian warship crews". As he noted, according to plans, the exercise series Iron Cat is to be continued next year. In 2016, Hungary will be the host nation again to receive the Serb warship crews. He added that this year’s Iron Cat is running until September 29, and the Hungarian and Serbian warship crews will be firing at aerial targets in the next few days.

Prior to the exercise, the commander of the HDF 1st Honvéd EOD and Warship Regiment met with Gojko Kostić, the mayor of Titel. The two had a short discussion about the live fire exercises conducted with Hungarian participation in recent years and the plans for the years to come.

Photos by the author