French anti-terrorist demonstration gone bad -- 17 shot/wounded

[handyrandyrc]

Luckily, nobody was killed. 5.56 for the win?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080630...litaryaccident

I'm sure it was accidental -- someone left their blanks at home. This is why I hate these kinds of exercises, blanks for re-enactment, etc. We should never point a firearm at anyone, unless a life is in imminent danger.

[Echo]

The soldier who did it is deep doo, as is his immediate supervisor, HIS immediate supervisor, and so on up the chain of command to the commander of the caserne, and maybe higher. Ther will be jail time, and careers will come to a screeching halt.

And rightly so. Terrible discipline.

[10-x]

Re-enacted WWII US for over 20 years. Never saw or was part of an event where ANY live rounds were fired.
Seroius re-enactments have STRICT Control of ALL weapons,(including class 3) blanks, grenades, smoke and any device that goes bang.......period.

This happened in france.............nuf sed.

[LAcaster]

these are trained professionals dont try this at home boys and girls

[wills]

"Defence Minister Herve Morin said the shooter had first fired a magazine of blanks and then loaded a fresh magazine but this time with live bullets.

I have always wondered what you feed live bullets.

[rifleshooter]

Inattention like that remindes me of the DEA agent that was in a classroom with kids and shot himself in the foot.

[tom barthel]

We used special weapons. Our weapons were loaded for us. We still inspected the weapons as part of the exercise. No other ammo was permitted to be present. Was this an accident? Could someone have deliberately switched weapons and or ammo to create an incident? I'd like to see what the investigitors find out. It does not look good.

[KYCaster]

I have a couple of questions for you guys who know more about the FAMAS than I do.

Don't most semi or full autos require some sort of blank "adaptor" or gas cutoff device in order to operate with blanks?

If an adaptor was installed or a gas system modification made, wouldn't the rifle then fail to function properly with the real ammo?

In a rifle firing the 7.62X51 NATO cartridge, wouldn't the difference in recoil between the blanks and real ammo be readily apparent?

Do you think that the difference in the weight of a magazine of blanks and a magazine of ball ammo (about half a pound per 20 rounds) would be readily apparent to someone even moderately familiar with the weapon?

I agree with Tom here, there's more to this story than meets the eye.

Jerry

[TexasJeff]

So finally, someone in the French military gets some combat experience . . .

Sorry, but I dealt with the French uniformed back in my day and they were pathetic and useless. Sounds like not much has changed.

Jeff

[bruce drake]

I don't have any experience with the French Army but I do have 19 years with the US Marines and US Army to fall back on to comment how we operate with blanks and real ammunition.

As a former Army Company Commander and Platoon Leader and as a Marine Platoon Sergeant, I have been a part of a large number of blank/live fire exercises and we always conduct a shakedown of the Soldiers/Marines both before and after the exercise.

The senior Leaders (NCOs) shook down (inspected) the Participants in the exercise before we issue ammunition to ensure that none of them are possessing ammunition from previous exercises/ranges. This includes checking all packs/pouches and rifle magazines. Then any blanks are issued for the exercise.

When the rehearsals are completed with the blanks are completed, I have the leaders shake the troops down (I also ensure that all "Leaders" to include NCOs are checked out as well) before actual ammunition is issued for the final drill/range.

After that range is completed, the Soldiers/Marines were shook down one more time to ensure no real ammunition left the range area with them.

I took one extra step whenever I fired live/blank ammunition in training. All Blanks were loaded in magazines that were painted industrial safety yellow. All Yellow mags were swept up after the blank exercises were completed as well. Live Ammo was loaded in the base magazines. The yellow mags are a good means of visually checking the soldiers from a distance if you are a leader observing the movement of 30-90 troops at a time. I had a Marine that loaded his blanks in a regular mag one time and he was easily picked out from all the rest for immediate action by his NCO.

There are ways to safely train with a mix of blank and live ammunition. Unfortunately, sometimes standards fall and someone gets hurt. Fortunately at this time, there were no deaths although the report of a 3 yr old getting shot three times keeps me concerned about him.

Bruce

[76 WARLOCK]

I also have 30 years of experience with the army, any semi or full auto will not function with blanks unless some modification is made. We always had blank firing adapters to add to the barrel, which if you then fired a live round it would certainly destroy the weapon and possible the shooter.

all of my experience was with m-14 and m-16 I know nothing about the weapon the French use.

[Geraldo]

To get 17 wounded and no kills this almost had to be a shoot through, with observers on the other side of a non-ballistic wall/barrier getting hit by pieces of bullets. Despite its detractors, 5.56mm will put you down in a hurry at room clearing distance. What it won't do, with a couple of exceptions, is penetrate walls or barriers very well.

I could almost list the units I would want coming after me in a hostage rescue on one hand, and obviously these guys don't make the cut.

[4570guy]

A similar accident like this happened in Arlington, TX about 10 years ago or so. The police dept. was holding a training exercise and the instructor, in an effort to demonstrate that the ammo being used was harmless (I think it was the frangible ammo often used for simulated live fire exercises), pointed his pistol at another officers head several feet away and pulled the trigger -- you guessed it -- he had a live round in the chamber and killed the fellow officer.

[TexasJeff]

A similar accident like this happened in Arlington, TX about 10 years ago or so. The police dept. was holding a training exercise and the instructor, in an effort to demonstrate that the ammo being used was harmless (I think it was the frangible ammo often used for simulated live fire exercises), pointed his pistol at another officers head several feet away and pulled the trigger -- you guessed it -- he had a live round in the chamber and killed the fellow officer.

I remember that well. And I still use it to this day when the sheep among us whine and bleat that "only trained law enforcement personnel should be able to carry handguns."

Jeff

[C1PNR]

A similar accident like this happened in Arlington, TX about 10 years ago or so. The police dept. was holding a training exercise and the instructor, in an effort to demonstrate that the ammo being used was harmless (I think it was the frangible ammo often used for simulated live fire exercises), pointed his pistol at another officers head several feet away and pulled the trigger -- you guessed it -- he had a live round in the chamber and killed the fellow officer.

I remember a very similar incident with LEO units in California, I believe it was a training day on a "light rail" train car. Dead officer because one of the participants didn't comply with "blue" training equipment standards and somehow had a magazine loaded with "Live Ammo." (I think they feed it Pb, or something like that)

We left in '04 so this probably dates to '00 or thereabouts.

[bobk]

TexasJeff,
The French have quite a bit of military experience. In WW1, They suffered the second highest casualties (second to the Russian Empire). They suffered 1,357,800 dead, 4,266,000 wounded, 537,000 prisoner or missing in action. These figures total 73% of their army, or putting it another way, 6 in 10 of the whole population of their men between the ages of 18 and 28 died or were permanently maimed. WW2 wasn't a picnic for them, either. They didn't manage to hold Paris, as they did in WW1, but as I recall, defending Paris in WW1 cost them 400,000 casualties.

We should also recall that they helped us throw off the British yoke, in spite of our rather shabby treatment of them when they arrived to help us. They later gave us the Statue of Liberty.

The French have been an important part of our history, from before the time when we were actually a nation. Instead of denigrating them, we should be extending our heartfelt thanks to them for all that they have done for us.
Bob K

[uncle joe]

To get 17 wounded and no kills this almost had to be a shoot through, with observers on the other side of a non-ballistic wall/barrier getting hit by pieces of bullets. Despite its detractors, 5.56mm will put you down in a hurry at room clearing distance. What it won't do, with a couple of exceptions, is penetrate walls or barriers very well.

.

I beg to differ somewhat on the penetration of the 5.56
I have a friend that's a part time deputy, they somehow wound up with an "extra"
bullet proof vest and decided to test it out. They put it up and fired various 40 cal rounds at it to see the damage to the piece of 3/4 inch plywood it was over with various results. Then bubba wanted to try his ar. his partner got behind a barrier and watched the shots from the side from well over 100 yards the .223 zipped through both sides of the vest so fast it hardly moved.

[Geraldo]

I beg to differ somewhat on the penetration of the 5.56
I have a friend that's a part time deputy, they somehow wound up with an "extra"
bullet proof vest and decided to test it out. They put it up and fired various 40 cal rounds at it to see the damage to the piece of 3/4 inch plywood it was over with various results. Then bubba wanted to try his ar. his partner got behind a barrier and watched the shots from the side from well over 100 yards the .223 zipped through both sides of the vest so fast it hardly moved.

Uncle Joe,

When I worked with SWAT we did a lot of testing, and kept up with a lot of team and manufacturer testing. You're bringing up up apples and oranges. Shooting a vest that isn't rated to stop rifle rounds with a rifle doesn't prove anything except that the manufacturer rated it correctly. Similarly, shooting outdated body armor with anything and having a penetration is hardly surprising.

Our concerns with penetration were related to:
-Shooting through building materials after shooting through a felon or on a miss.
-The need for a sniper to shoot through glass in a building.
-The need to penetrate a car or other material shielding a suspect.

On the first item, it has been found that 5.56mm, especially JHP, penetrates less building material than do handgun rounds because it is A) lighter and B) moving at high speed. There was a lot of information on this in NTOA's publication as well as others.

The other two situations require a specialized round to do the job well and consistently.

Note that I am not saying a standard wall will uniformly defeat 5.56mm, just that the tendancy is for the bullet to get torn up more if it passes through than some other bullets commonly in use by LE and military. Nor am I saying that every handgun round will completely penetrate building materials and kill bystanders (although I've seen 9mm JHP do just that).

My point was that having been through a lot of shoot houses, I can't see how this soldier could have mistaken them for targets and A) not killed anyone and B) continued shooting after he blasted the first victim.

[TexasJeff]

The French have been an important part of our history, from before the time when we were actually a nation. Instead of denigrating them, we should be extending our heartfelt thanks to them for all that they have done for us.

At one point, the French were vital allies, but that was a long, long time ago.

My military and interpol experience with them, spanning from the 70's through the 90's, in the is the foundation for my opinion.

Jeff

[bobk]

TexasJeff,
Perhaps it is because they do not consider us to be vital allies. When they were invaded by Germany in WW1, it took us almost three years to respond, and this was after the French had been enjoying some military success at regaining territory from the Germans. In Ww2, they had German troops on their soil for over FOUR YEARS when we finally decided to come to their aid. In both cases, we were hailed as liberators, but it wouldn't have been any great surprise if they had spit on us. What we did in both cases had little to do with specifically aiding the French. Our actions in the 20th century have given them little reason to call us friends. Instead, our current best buddies are the Brits, who are militarily about helpless, and were the ones who wanted to prevent us from becoming a country (They also invaded and burned our Capital in 1814, but we started it).

I hope that someday we will be able to reestablish the strong ties that we formerly had with them.
Bob k