Preparations for the Joint Task

On the first day of the military exercise the Hungarian service members, with the help of the subject matter experts (SMEs) working at the medical centre of the contingent, recalled the basic rules of life saving intervention on the battlefield, and in what follows they practiced international military radio communication with the involvement of the signal specialists of the Austrian nation in lead of the Battalion.

In the next two days the Hungarian peacekeepers practiced crowd and riot control (CRC) then urban fight, in Pazarić near to Butmir camp. In the course of the last program, they updated what to do in case of evacuation and when occupying a building, and also practiced the different motion modes used around the building and in urban territories.

Following this the exercise continued with the skill-level acquisition of the operations performed during the convoy manoeuvres. The members of the contingent, who recently arrived to the area of operation (AO), practiced the forming of marching columns, and the order of responses to the various events.

The training schedule also included live fire exercise (LFX), with the possibility to use all the weapons brought into service at the company. For the duration of the special target practices the goal was not to kill ‘the enemy’, but to make him unfit for fight. The Hungarians, besides all these activities, exercised pair shooting (one of them firing, while the other secures him), and shooting in groups (consisting of two shooting pairs).

All these training activities provided an excellent opportunity for the preparations of the control practice to be arranged on August 12, where the Hungarian company will be able to demonstrate that within the MNBN they can execute the tasks with good results.

In addition to the training programs, the Hungarian troops had other types of duties, too. In the first days of August the Protestant Military Chief Chaplain of the Austrian Armed Forces, Maj. Gen. Oskar Sakrausky visited the EUFOR camp in Sarajevo. The Army Chaplain of the Hungarian contingent Dr. Ervin János Alácsi had the chance to exchange experiences with the Austrian General in an informal discussion, in the course of which Maj. Gen. Sakrausky underlined that the main commission of army chaplains is their permanent and personal presence among the soldiers.

Photo: HDF EUFOR Contingent, ninth rotation

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