Fire Team’s Target Practice in a Fictitious Situation

“The traffic of Kabul has entirely changed. The traffic has been limited in the Western part of the capital owing to the ‘Loya Jirga’ – the traditional Afghan tribal meeting –, the main items on the agenda of which were the situation after the withdrawal of the NATO and the US forces, and the peace talks with the Taliban. The two all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) transporting the troops had a hard time getting out of the traffic chaos in order to depart for their destination.

Then a vehicle carrying a 40-foot stock-container suddenly took a turn on the road, facing the oncoming traffic, forcing the first ATV to perform emergency manoeuvres. The commander just had enough time to warn the driver coming up behind him: “Gunmen at 3’o clock!" and the explosion occurred. The insurgents began to fire on the exploded vehicle. The damaged ATV – which still slid helplessly on the road – has stopped after a few meters. The four soldiers travelling in the vehicle have survived the blast…"

The mentor contingent led by Col. Attila Král has held the umpteenth skill-level maintaining shooting practice recently, on the Kabul shooting range. After completing the basic, peacekeeping and the fire pair shooting practices on a high standard, the Commander planned a target practice imitating the real-life circumstances.

“There are no two identical situations, but we try to create circumstances approximating reality, taking into consideration that once an action is called for, then everybody shall do what has to be done" – underlined Capt. Tamás Varga, the designated Chief Operations (S3) of the HDF Logistic Mentor Team. Further on Capt. Zoltán Banka and First Lieutenant Miklós Aradi gave assistance to the planning and executing of the shooting practices. The four officers’ experiences gained on missions abroad complemented well the knowledge of the less seasoned mentors.

The live fire exercise was carried out with AMS assault rifles, considered as primary weapons, with PKM machine guns provided for the fire support as infantry support weapons, and with the G17 pistols, regarded as secondary weapons, by using smoke signal cartridges and supporting one another, “through disengagement by shifting firing positions several times".

Text and Photo: HDF LMT