What goes through your mind

[{HoD}Ferocious 0]

LMAO Wiggum.

But on topic, it all depends. Training has a lot to do with it. Firing a weapon is one thing but being able to think under fire is another...Trick statement. You can't think under fire. I haven't been in a fire fight...here in Canada its pretty tight on guns. But i did grow up learning how to fight before i could talk.

When your in a fight your full of crazy emotions. Mostly anxiety and fear. Anyone who tells u they aren't scred in a fight is either too dumb to realize the consequences or is a seriously skilled fighter. Training helps your mind recognize that situation so when it happens your ready. I have been studying martial arts for quite some time and most streets fight i have gotten into have gone tot he ground requiring me to grapple. Many time i caught myslef saying in my head. Its just training don't give up.

Ever been on a long Hike with a pack almost 3/4 yout weight? You know that feeling whenu want to give up? If u pass that feeling your mind will coincided with your body and you'll go till u literally fall down.

Same can be said for Gun Fights. Holding your position much like how the streetfighter doesn't flinch when punched at requires much dicipline.

Training must become 2nd nature to the fighter. Much like your reference to Black Hawk Down- when the Delta Op. says Politics and all that shit go right out the window. Its not that its not important its just everything is happening so fast u don't have time in your mind to handle more than one task at a time.

All said, no training can ever match that of actual combat. Which is why the fighter must make a choice. Is this for better health and just the thirst for knowledge or Am i gonna learn how to fight.

So...it all depends. Each person will take their training accordingly and each person will handle things differently. Prolly the reason there's only 2500 SEALS at any given time. ONly a slect few and i don mean few are physically, mentally fit for the job.

Grizzly

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 21 2002,19:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Fourth time I shot myself in the leg (also in Kosovo) with a 9mm CZ-99 . It hurt.<span id='postcolor'>

i'm happy that i'm not the only one ....

[SantaC 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,17:43)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 21 2002,19:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Fourth time I shot myself in the leg (also in Kosovo) with a 9mm CZ-99 . It hurt.<span id='postcolor'>

i'm happy that i'm not the only one ....<span id='postcolor'>

You were in "intelligence" as well?

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tovarish @ Oct. 22 2002,01:31)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jester983 @ Oct. 22 2002,00:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">French APCs seem like bullet magnets<span id='postcolor'>

Just to let ya know all APC are bullet magnets. Especially Hummers.<span id='postcolor'>

I know. I was joking . Just seems funny that the two people here who have been shot at in a combat situation were in a french APC. Especially since they're not both french.<span id='postcolor'>

hehehehe , we did with what we had

but the VAB's and VBL's are the favourite armored vehicles of most of the UN personnel

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (SantaC @ Oct. 22 2002,17:44)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,17:43)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 21 2002,19:42)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Fourth time I shot myself in the leg (also in Kosovo) with a 9mm CZ-99 . It hurt.<span id='postcolor'>

i'm happy that i'm not the only one ....<span id='postcolor'>

You were in "intelligence" as well?<span id='postcolor'>

nah , was in an engineer unit

got lightly injured by a 5.56 munition fired from one of my (ex-) mate's FAMAS

hopefully the munition was a rifle grenade starter

-edit- : edited bullet to munition since it wasn't a real bullet

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

I remember a story of my grandfather that has to do with it. My family has a long industrial history in Germany and there has been a long tradition of hunting within this kind of society. Being hunting was always a good way of doing business talks, meeting new business partners and inviting politicians to familiarise.

One day there was a great hunting occasion which is called Treibjagd (battue/or drive) where a group of noisy people comes from the one side to make the animals run away from them and then from the other side come the hunters to welcome the animals.

During that day the city had received a new governor from the socialist party. And my grandfather apparingly didnt really like those people.

Everyone there held his rifles ready to shoot and moved towards the animals. The governor, being the new one, was allowed to shoot first. After a certain time they saw a deer runing towards them. The governor pulled up his rifle and pointed at the deer...but hesitated for too long. My Grandpa standing right behind him didnt want to wait any longer pulled up his rifle and struck down the deer. He was standing so near to this governor that this dude could hear the bullet flying right next to his ear.

At the end of the evening when the hunt was over and all were standing together to admire and celebrate what they had hunted the governor publicly complained:

"Sir, you could have shot me, you were standing right behind me..if the deer would have continued runing to the left I would have been in the way. You could have killed me!"

And my grandpa said: "well you see Mr. Governor, an impressive deer like this I might never be able to shoot again...but a socialist governor like you we get all the time!"

[ran 0]

Denoir , how come the civilian person was standing without any cover ? with high buildings around , in bosnia , nobody would have ever risked to go out of his cover without running really fast or being covered by a UN apc ...

-edit- already been in a stituation comparable to yours , but nobody got hurt , only the sniper

i've also done some counter sniper actions and that was great fun actually , i had the kind of sensation you have when you go hunting with your own gun for the first time

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,20:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Denoir , how come the civilian person was standing without any cover ? with high buildings around , in bosnia , nobody would have ever risked to go out of his cover without running really fast or being covered by a UN apc ...<span id='postcolor'>

In 2001 the situation in Kosovo was pretty stable so snipers were very uncommon. The police wrote later off the shooting as a black market crime related homicide. My team was often in contact with black marketeers since they had looted many army barracks and could partially give a picture of Yugoslavias current and former military capabilities.

[Duke_of_Ray 0]

Denoir or Ran did yall get into anymore fights?

[Balschoiw 0]

We had T-Shirts printed in Yugoslavia with the

"Don´t shoot, just loot" slogan on them. Same for Africa where we had to barb-wire our tank cause of the people taking away parts of the tank. These are pretty bad situations , when a lot of people are on the road and suddenly firing starts. Brings back some very bad pictures to my mind.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

I read, that the noise of war, actually slows your body down some.

There was some filmer in WWII, said that he almost got ran over, and almost shot by the same tank(is a freindly tank), and he didnt even know he almost got ran over(untill a friend told him), and he said he was pretty sluggish to, and slow to react.

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 23 2002,01:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,20:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Denoir , how come the civilian person was standing without any cover ? with high buildings around , in bosnia , nobody would have ever risked to go out of his cover without running really fast or being covered by a UN apc ...<span id='postcolor'>

In 2001 the situation in Kosovo was pretty stable so snipers were very uncommon. The police wrote later off the shooting as a black market crime related homicide. My team was often in contact with black marketeers since they had looted many army barracks and could partially give a picture of Yugoslavias current and former military capabilities.<span id='postcolor'>

lucky you ... it wasn't quiet while i was in bosnia .. far from that (ok , maybe in the end of my time in 1996 , that was quiet) , we had sniper incidents almost every days , and in 1993 , the base in which i was stationed was often bombed by mortars

i got too many stories to put them all in here

[DarkLight 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,14:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 23 2002,01:22)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 22 2002,20:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Denoir , how come the civilian person was standing without any cover ? with high buildings around , in bosnia , nobody would have ever risked to go out of his cover without running really fast or being covered by a UN apc ...<span id='postcolor'>

In 2001 the situation in Kosovo was pretty stable so snipers were very uncommon. The police wrote later off the shooting as a black market crime related homicide. My team was often in contact with black marketeers since they had looted many army barracks and could partially give a picture of Yugoslavias current and former military capabilities.<span id='postcolor'>

lucky you ... it wasn't quiet while i was in bosnia .. far from that (ok , maybe in the end of my time in 1996 , that was quiet) , we had sniper incidents almost every days , and in 1993 , the base in which i was stationed was often bombed by mortars

i got too many stories to put them all in here <span id='postcolor'>

Not at all, post them all, i bet a lot of people like them, it's a very nice read. Perhaps you can start a new thread, i'd be glad to read it!

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 23 2002,13:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">lucky you ... it wasn't quiet while i was in bosnia .. far from that (ok , maybe in the end of my time in 1996 , that was quiet) , we had sniper incidents almost every days , and in 1993 , the base in which i was stationed was often bombed by mortars<span id='postcolor'>

Ouch. Yes 92/93 were the worst years in Bosnia. I have never experienced mortar fire and it is one experience I am very glad that I don't have. I can't imagine anything worse, especially if you are out in the open.

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 23 2002,21:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (ran @ Oct. 23 2002,13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">lucky you ... it wasn't quiet while i was in bosnia .. far from that (ok , maybe in the end of my time in 1996 , that was quiet) , we had sniper incidents almost every days , and in 1993 , the base in which i was stationed was often bombed by mortars<span id='postcolor'>

Ouch. Yes 92/93 were the worst years in Bosnia. I have never experienced mortar fire and it is one experience I am very glad that I don't have. I can't imagine anything worse, especially if you are out in the open.<span id='postcolor'>

you can .. you can ..... it's just that you don't want ...

mortar fire wasn't the worst , mortar dispensed landmines , THAT was bad , after every mortar bombings , we were looking really carefully at the ground before any of our step

i'm pretty sure it was one of my officers' divagation , but it scared the hit out of us and forced us to stay "quiet" <!--emo&

about tories darklight .......

we were once having a little APC wander , i was in the backseats of a VAB , no problem during 15 kilometers , we arrive in the middle of sarajevo (wasn't exactly the middle ) , in the "sniper alley"  , we were rolling , but soon we had to stop because of a wrecked wheeled armored vehicle , i think it was an EBL90 sagaie , we got the crew of the tank on the board radio , it appeared that they had an engine failure in the middle of sniper alley and that some clown shot two of their episcopes ,the tank was almost blind (lack of luck , the missing episcopes were the commander's and gunner's front ones) , so they asked us if we couldn't help them a little bit by getting out of our APC and attaching their vehicles to our with a chain , everybody in the apc , including me , went mad and started shouting at the radio that they could call for mor specialised support and that our role wasn't to move wrecked vehicles and that we weren't the cavalry's mum and it was their faut if they wrecked (they were from an RIPMA , marine paratroop armored infantry actually , lucky bastards who got their jumping wings but are in an IFV) , suddenly , somebody else comes on another radio canal ...... one of the superior officer of our regiment ordering us to get out and to get the sagaie out of its shit.

Luckily enough our VAB was a 20mm gun variant (never go out without those little things on your roof).

We hadn't heard any gunshots in our area for like 5 minutes (believe me , that was strange , anormal and really frightening in sniper alley , suddenly , we hear a strange noise , some kind of "pling"(the bullet hitting ud) fastly followed by a "plop"(something else) , the sniper had triggered one of our smoke launchers by firing on the turret , the bullet apparently ricoched in the direction of the smoke launcher , we didn't understand why it triggered it because those smoke launchers afaik are electricaly started , maybe it touched the propulsive charge of a smoke 'nade.

Anyway , we got out profiting of the smoke (which was miraculously in the good zone to protect and avoid any more detection by any other sniper , we had cover for 1 minute or maybe a bit less (the VAB gunner had fired his other smoke ammo , and we first had to find the other tank in that smoke , so , 5 other men and me , we take the huge metal chains , we carry them on our back and search the sagaie for like 15 seconds we finally found it .... but where was the anchor for our cable ? we didn't know shit about how to move a wrecked sagaie , so we tap several times on the tank's armor , the driver's hull .... what we find is some kind of little hysteric threatening us with his PA , he finally seems to understand what we say and understand that we are french just like him , we try to make him undertand that if don't show us where are the anchors for the depannage cables , we'll all be in a deep shit once the smoke will be gone , he goes out , show us the emplacements , one of our guys goes to the VAB and asks the driver to park front of (not front of , but its rear right near the sagaie's nose )the sagaie , he executes , we're like mad with the cables , we ask other people from the inside of sagaie and the vab to come here and put these cables right , we're done fastly , faster that i've ever though , the smoke screen started to dissipate himself , we all ran to our vehicles , the smoke totally dissappeared when the last man closed the rear doors of the vab ...... we then discovered that the other guy's base was in the opposing direction of where we were going , we told them to fuck off and that if they weren't happy we could cut the cable and that they could repair at the place we were going to ...... then insults started fusing between the two vehicles via radio , that was sooooo funny until the moment where an HQ VBL with some colonnel in it joined the discussion and asked us to me more polite and not to pollute radio frequencies in a really polite and calm french way ......

we continued our road and finally arrived to the place we were going to (i don't remember exactly , i think it was an infantry regiment hq , or the local operations command post ...) and , that's all i can remember of this episod

-edit-

it's ERC , not EBL

here's an ERC :

[Guest]

Ran, you were with UN in '92 and with IFOR (Joint Endeavour) in '96, right? What were your rules of engagement? If I remember correctly the UN had a very crappy deal since the role you had was not a military one.

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (denoir @ Oct. 24 2002,00:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Ran, you were with UN in '92 and with IFOR (Joint Endeavour) in '96, right? What were your rules of engagement? If I remember correctly the UN had a very crappy deal since the role you had was not a military one.<span id='postcolor'>

in 1993 actually

simplificating but :

1993 : DO NOT SHOOT AT ANY COST , except if directly engaged and as ripost to a previous attack

1996 : you can shoot at almost whatever carries a weapon , local colors and seems menacing

i'm just kidding , but that's how we used to work ... i don't remember the real ROE we had here and i don't want to , it caused too many deceptions and civilians to die

[ran 0]

the genocide continued , even when we were there (at least the first time i came)

we went there , we had guns and ammo .... but UN heads didn't have the guts to use them ..... and i'm sure that somewhere , somebody of the council in that time had interests to let the ethnical cleaning going well there

how many burned villages did i see ? how many local people i knew dissappeared in "strange" circumstances ? how many mass graves did we find back ? how many mass graves i've seen myself .... too many , that's why i only talk about the "military aspect" .... i won't say anything anymore about politics and ethnical stuff there ... the .. let' say two years , i spent there were enough for me to doubt of the humanity for the rest of my life

i simply hope that if one day , our "wannabe soldiers" forum members actually become soldier , they don't go in something like bosnia or central africa ..... it's too hard , too harsh and too disgusting for a young man going in his 20's

[Balschoiw 0]

did you have that funny red pocket card also, where the ROE´s were written on ? Hehe it was the first thing i got rid of wherever I went

"Anida unada jogso. Ama wa togan !"

translation:

"United Nations. Stop or i fire !"

Most of the time I didnt finish the sentence

First *ping* on the hull or a decent sand flag coming up, ever was assumed as an attack by us.

[ran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Balschoiw @ Oct. 24 2002,00:50)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">did you have that funny red pocket card also, where the ROE´s were written on ? Hehe it was the first thing i got rid of wherever I went  

"Anida unada jogso. Ama wa togan !"

translation:

"United Nations. Stop or i fire !"

Most of the time I didnt finish the sentence  

First *ping* on the hull or a decent sand flag coming up, ever was assumed as an attack by us.<span id='postcolor'>

heheh , somalia was something ele than bosnia

yes i had a little red card ... but i don't remember it, actually all i remember is that we all made fun of what was written on it , i think it's somewhere at home in all the mess i took back from here

in bosnia , you almost never could identify your oponent and you had the choice between loads of different factions and you'd better have had avoided any mistake otherwise there would have been a diplomatic incident (or a stoping of some negociation)

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

Ran, I dont want to give that topic a political taste, but France was in fact the major country preventing military actions agaisnt Milosevic. But we discussed that already...was it this year? or the year before?

[Guest]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Albert Schweizer @ Oct. 24 2002,01:13)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Ran, I dont want to give that topic a political taste, but France was in fact the major country preventing military actions agaisnt Milosevic.<span id='postcolor'>

No, Albert you are wrong there. The major country that prevented any action against Milosevic and the Serbs was Britain. France was also sceptical but nowhere near as obstructing as Britan was. Germany (and traditional allies like Austria) were the ones that took side against Serbia very soon in the conflict. Due to these internal disagreements the EU was entirely impotent throughout the whole war in Croatia and Bosnia.

One of the major problems was that Britain, France and USA were pushing for preserving Yugoslavia as one country in the beginning of the conflict due to the fact that they expected the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) to run over the republics that separated (Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina). This 'civil war' model was used to avoid any involvement.

After it was clear that Yugoslavia wasn't going to be preserved the idea of 'all parties are equally guilty' was enforced and with that negotiations were done on an equal basis although it was very clear from the beginning that this was an agression from Milosevic's side. Because of those negotiations the Serbs were free to continue their genocide on the Muslims.

USA chose not to get involved until 94/95. In 95 the Dayton agreement was reached which meant more or less an end to the war.

[DarkLight 0]

You guys should post some more of these stories, i really like to read them, so please, if you have more, feel free to post them...

[ran 0]

k then ....

during my first trip down in bosnia , during a patrol with some other guys , we were walking in some kind of pine forrest , we were searching for possible mortar teams , after half an hour , we fall on a bunch of brits who were doing the same , we continue our road together .... we meet some dutch who were also seeking for mortars .... we continue our road .... we find some germans who were also seeking for mortars ..... we continue ... we had assembled the equivalent of an entire platoon at the end including all nationalities of the local UN forces .. we all continue our road ... what was originally a patrol was now like some kind of touristic visit , one of our local translators made us visiting a few parts of the forrest , including castle ruins and the site of an old airplane crash from WW2 , our group was really noisy ... we wandered around for something like 3 hoursour respective officers were calling every patrol elements from every nationalities , the answer was always the same , we weren't finding anything , we had a small village insight , we knew it was still occuped and that they had an UN checkpoint there , so , we go down the hill and enter in the town , the UN checkpoint personel says us that they've been bombed in the morning not too long before midday , so we go back to the woods after having drunk a little bit , and the patrol then transformed itelf in an hunting party ..... we were running after local animals , firing with a few hunting weapons we had "borrowed" in the village , we did that for like 1 more hour , the evening was falling , we had killed a few boars and rabbits , our respective HQ's were really becoming impatient ..... , we decided to go back , it was around 7 o'clock in the evening ... and guess who we found on the way back the enemy mortar team ..... , both of the groups were drunk , so we didn't pay attention to each others , then , a brit noticed what the serbs were carrying , we ask them "gently" to stop by firing a few bursts in the air .... , they "surrender" .... the HQ then asks us to take the mortar with us and to disarm the other guys , we execute ..... , and then suddenly , a belgian (if i remember correctly) starts shouting that the boars are theirs , we answer that they are ours ....   the other national groups start joining the discussion .... 5 minutes after . the wood became a real boxing ring , and while we were fighting , the serbs were gone with the mortars and two of our boars .. the night was falling , it was 8 o'clock , we all of a common d"ecision wanted to chase the bastards who stole us our meat and who took back their mortar .. but our HQ's were really wanting to see us back at the bases to admonest us really hardly because of our bad conduct on the field ..... we all seperated and reformed our respective patrol groups and went back to our bases , the result afaik was punitions such as cleaning the WC during an entire week and doing all the stupid and boring stuff you could do ... the "rear logistic personnel" was on "hollyday" for an entire week , and we had to take back the hunting weapons to their respective owners and make public excuses for our bad conduct , we were all like little boys playing outside

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

You forgot a little detail Mr. Denoir, that is the deep friendship of the french and the Jugoslaw of the coalition-war of 1919 of Romania against Hungary in the Banat and the coalition of WW1. France was accused by many sides as being pro-Serb bias. That is of course pure bullxxxx but france didnt realy want to rush into the attack and therefore slightly delayed the intervention. We all know that a slitghly late intervention can cost many Muslims' lifes. But that is not the issue of this topic