Rattle of Firearms in Tata

The students arrived to Tata on 9 April by the coach of ZMNE to observe the open day organised by the Department around the platoon-level sharp shooting training exercise – as stipulated in the syllabus – of senior students of the Military Science Faculty, specialised in sharp shooting. Much to the distress of Lieutenant-Colonel and Deputy Head of Department István Boros, only a dozen uniformed students were interested to see the activity of the seniors, and came to see the brigade. In contrast, many ’civilian’ students majoring in Security Policy arrived and were waiting eagerly for the sharp shooting to begin, since – as they have said – they had never seen anything like that before.

First Brigadier-General András Huszti, the Commander of the Tata Corps greeted the guests and gave a brief on the tasks and peace mission engagements of the brigade. Following that, Lieutenant-Colonel István Boros told in his introduction about the traditional tactical activity of the previous year and on deciding for conducting a sharp shooting drill this year.

Since there are only nine senior sharp shooter students in the University, the organisers have asked for the assistance of the Tata Brigade in the conduction of the platoon-level sharp shooting target practice. The imaginary platoon in charge of the required sharp shooting activities was completed by the soldiers of the Corps’ Rifle Battalion. However, platoon and squad commanders, as well as key arms operators, were selected from the future officers, on the basis of their university exam results.

In his report student Zsolt Tarr, nominated Commander of the Rifle Platoon, listed the activities preceding the sharp shooting target practice, highlighting the fact that the crew executing the drill was given a task which is as close to a real event as possible and is ’embedded’ in a tactical situation.

Following the report of the future officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Tamás Kender, Commander of the Tata Rifle Battalion – bearing in mind the civilian students – gave a concise brief on how a rifle platoon is structured: two soldiers constitute a ’fire pair’, two fire pairs constitute a fire team, and two fire teams make up a rifle squad, headed by a squad commander with a warrant officer rank. A rifle platoon consists of three squads and is commanded by an officer in lieutenant rank. The platoon also includes a platoon warrant officer, who is the deputy of the platoon commander. Therefore a platoon commander is responsible for 28 soldiers altogether.

This is of great relevance – emphasized Lieutenant-Colonel Tamás Kender – because the foundation of the Hungarian Defence Forces is the rifle platoon; the smallest unit that can be deployed independently. Any student graduating as a sharp shooter from ZMNE will be nominated a commander of a rifle platoon as their first officer rank, either with the Tata or the Debrecen Rifle Brigade.

The programme proceeded in the garrison shooting-range of the Tata Corps, in the vicinity of the settlement of Szomód. Visitors had a chance to see some pieces of the regular equipment of the Brigade, for instance T–27 tanks, D–20 cannon-howitzers, a BRDM–2 equipped with ’Konkurs’ armour-piercing rockets, and the BTR–80/a–type military vehicle used for the transportation of sharp shooter teams.

The open day of the Land Operations Department has ended with the platoon-level sharp shooting field training exercise of the senior sharp shooter students and the contracted soldiers of the Tata Rifle Battalion. In the framework of the exercise the participants used regular small arms, RPGs, and the tower weapons of the BTRs to fight the target groups symbolising enemy forces.