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USMCR 1980-Present. Will retire shortly as a Master Sergeant, unless I pick up Master Guns, I might do the full thirty.

Missed Desert Storm, made OIF, good luck to all those presently or going to the sandbox. I know now why war is a young man's calling - When I see the young men under arms I see my own sons.

Emerged from OIF unscathed, but back in the early 80's I did get a wicked wood shampoo from an overeager MP at Twentynine Palms.

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A cold winter night in 1989 our Lt woke us up at 0400 yelling that the russians hade started the invasion, in panic we grabbed our gear as we heard the Mortars firing in the distance. Two AJ-37:s screamed over us at just about sonic speed when we ran for our prepared defensive line. Tracers lit the forest in a scary ghost-white color and the silouettes of russian infantry advancing where seen everywhere. Desperately firing all we had in their general direction we awaited the first sun light. Suddenly everything went silent and we started to advance through the beat up forest...

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Victory was ours! All the enemies where defeated!

i15_1.jpg

Swedish Army 1989-90 - I'm the one with the raised G3... The observant viewer will notice one of the guys having an AT4, which is a swedish weapon sold to the US.

/Mazex

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In 1991, while I was attending university, I received the postcard that meant the call in the Italian Army (they were sending me to the Corpo dei Bersaglieri). :eek: Actually it resulted it was a wrong call, since all the requests for delaying military service made by people born in 1969 had not been processed by mistake. :D

In 1996, after getting my university degree, I was waiting to be called in the Army (this time there wouldn't be errors!) for my 1-year service. But instead of the postcard, they sent me the letter of discharge.

It seems that the Army didn't want me! :D

So I've never been in the Army and likely I will never be.

And I don't know if it's been better this way...

You know, many think 1 year of military service is lost time, and, in some ways, it is. But for other aspects, it can be an useful experience, because it teaches people discipline, a thing that is rarely found! :( And I think you can find also many new friends.

Actually, I would have been in the Alpini Corps (Mountain Troops). In Italy, Alpini are one of the most famous corps. They made the history of my Country from the late 1800. They have a very strong feeling of membership and each year they organise a meeting in one town where each Alpino (present and past) is invited.

Ok, I stop here. Don't want to bore you any further! ;)

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Originally posted by Sergei:

You Swedes train to shoot unarmed men? Tsk tsk, how unmanly. Paint at least sticks to their hands to make them look more menacing - or would that scare the recruits away? ;)tongue.gif:D <font size="1">djävlar...</font>

Ahh, we excel at shooting unarmed paper dummies - thats about the only thing we've shot at for 200 years since loosing Finland to Russia ;)

To be a bit serious, from what I've heard the swedish troops that where volonteers in the finnish winter war against russia did fight as good as their finnish brothers, and thats not a bad judgement! About 3 percent of the finnish troops in the winter war where swedish volonteers so they where not just a few brave men that went over the baltic sea...

Besides, Sweden is the only country accept France and Germany that has been seriously trying to capture Moscow... Yes, i know it's almost 300 years ago smile.gif

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Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

The Mongols captured Moscow. Poofy Europeans. tongue.gif

You're so right, but do not forget that the swedes baptized Russia (the name comes from the swedish word Rus, which was the name the swedish Vikings called the people in Russia), so let's walk all the way back ;)

Besides, mark my words - I said "tried to conquer" - the mongols succeded ) smile.gif

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Originally posted by SSgt Viljuri:

mazex wrote: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Ahh, we excel at shooting unarmed paper dummies - thats about the only thing we've shot at for 200 years since loosing Finland to Russia

Not to mention those dummies are way to big, even for basic training. </font>
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I must be stupid, cause I don't understand what you mean. For me the size of the dummies should naturally be as real as possible, and they where fired at from distances between 50 and 400 meters, hidden behind trees etc... I guess that none of the fresh hits can be seen as a 7.62 holes should hardly be visible on a grainy scanned bw picture like that. The dots you see on them are for certain old "fixed" hits. A small green sticker sized 1x1 cm is applied to be able to reuse them a few times. I can however not guarantee that the guy with Carl-Gustaf anti-tank grenade launcher (not on picture) did not fire his 20mm practice ammunition on the infantry... He did that now and then after taking out his primary targets as the Tank silouettes where too easy to hit... The face hit on the rightmost dummy could be that or a sticker... A 7.62 hit would never be that visible after going through paper, unless from very short distance before the bullet has stabilized.

On another exercice a moose got out on the live exercise area and him beeing a devoted hunter could not resist the shot. That time the ammunition used was a ballast loaded (concrete filled) 84 mm AT-round. He hit the running moose dead in the middle from 300 meters and it was ripped apart and the two parts ended up 10 meters apart... Out Lt tried to be pissed as firing on animals is strictly forbidden on excercises but he could not keep the smile away ;)

Other than that I agree that the instructions are to aim low... The prefect hit is in the upper belly/lower chest. Or rather in the side to only hurt the enemy and get rid of two more attackers taking care of the wounded...

/Mazex

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Well, the enemy isn't going to run at you so openly without taking cover (not to mention the enemy tends to fire back, you'd spend most of time taking cover yourself).

Also targets used should be a know down type (i.e a revolving target is not good enough), in order to simulate those short dashes the enemy is expected to do while attacking (fire & movement).

A clarification: the enemy = a2 yellow...

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Originally posted by SSgt Viljuri:

Well, the enemy isn't going to run at you so openly without taking cover (not to mention the enemy tends to fire back, you'd spend most of time taking cover yourself).

Also targets used should be a know down type (i.e a revolving target is not good enough), in order to simulate those short dashes the enemy is expected to do while attacking (fire & movement).

A clarification: the enemy = a2 yellow...

OK, now I get what you mean, the use of this type of dummys outside the regular "straight forward 300 meter firing range for fresh recruits" was VERY rare (thats why we took the picture). The situations when they where used was for quick "ambushes" where you fired a magazine or so at these targets and then moved on. The most common tagets for such live ammunition exercises where the so called SAAB-targets which where aluminium silouettes that where initially hidden and then suddenly popped up for a few seconds and "fell" when hit or where hidden again by the officer in charge of the exercise. After that other targets popped up to simulate that the enemy had swiched to alternate firing positions, or advanced in cover. During these exercises the officer regularly yelled take cover heavy enemy fire and took those that still had their heads up out of the exercise. Of course live opponents with light emitting accessories on the guns and vests that register hits where used back then also, and today it's the most common way to practice actual combat in the swedish army. It never removes the need for dummys for live ammunition, but as I said - 95 percent of the time it was done against SAAB-targets...

/Mazex

[ October 22, 2005, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: mazex ]

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Originally posted by mazex:

Of course live opponents with light emitting accessories on the guns and vests that register hits where used back then also, and today it's the most common way to practice actual combat in the swedish army.

Bah, in the Finnish army we use live ammunition for those shootouts. Survival of the fittest!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:
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Originally posted by mazex:

Swedish Army 1989-90 - I'm the one with the raised G3... The observant viewer will notice one of the guys having an AT4, which is a swedish weapon sold to the US.

/Mazex

So does the swedish AT4 have the "this end tword enamy" with the little cartoon man pointing that away from himself. 'Cause I always found that funny.
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Originally posted by SSgt Viljuri:

How about Norwegian Killer Attack Whales? Those could cause some menace, if released into a lake of Mälaren or somefink.

There is the very serious risk of them swimming upstream from Norway to Finnish Lapland. However, I would not be worried unless they had lasers on their heads.
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