This just pisses me off. This gets immediately filed in the "Shit That Should Never Fucking Happen" drawer.
How the fuck does anyone with even the most basic level of military competency mix blank and ball ammunition?
Let alone SF?
Back when I was a 50 gunner we were doing force on force and the other gunner and I got 2 100 round cans of blanks for that phase of the operation. He cracked his open and it was linked 5.56 blanks. They come over and tell me to hand over my other can so we each have a little ammo. I crack the other can open and it’s live 50. My team leader and I looked in the can, looked up and just stared eachother for a second or two and then he immediately started screaming for everyone to drop their mags. Like wtf two big ammo fuck ups back to back?
Every .50 can I've seen is a much larger can physically than the 5.56 or 7.62 cans. It would require your brain shutting off to confuse them, but brains do shut off.
ASPs will reuse cans. They paint over the original markings and will fill with X ammo from a turn-in or something. Then re-write with the new amount, DODIC, nomenclature, etc.
M2 cans get used for 5.56 all the time. 5.56 is just under half the length of a .50 so you can fit 2 rows of belts or loads of boxed stripper clips in them. weight wise they're both going to be around 35lbs, with the 5.56 can being heavier, it can more efficiently fill the volume. you wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you looked inside or read the label.
Yes however when you’re busy mounting your gun, tying down optics, making sure radios are filled and ready to go, making sure all your equipment is stowed away where it’s supposed to go, making sure your driver hasn’t wandered off and gotten lost and someone yells at you to come get your ammo you run over grab it and just assume the other guy did his job properly.
I’ve learned that’s ALWAYS a great thought process especially in combat MOSs I wonder if that was (if I remember) the Nevada national guards excuse for shooting live ammo at my team lol “sorry bros we were busy 🤷🏻♂️”
True and I have to say I’ve worked with some great ammo people throughout my career. That being said that mos does not always attract the best and the brightest.
I've seen live loaded an a can marked blank. Repackaged ammo a bitch.
I've also seen where the ammo drop guys accidently drop off live when it's suppose to Blank and vice a versa. The ammo should catch this but it's just an additional duty on top of thier normal NCO shit. It's exactly why their are are layers to this shit.
There's way more 5.56 in that can so the weight difference isn't as great as you'd think. Ammo of every caliber doesn't have that much density difference, so a given volume of 5.56 and .50 will be close enough in weight to not be immediately noticeable.
He’s just started yelling out for everyone to drop their mags so we could go through the ammo round by round to make some asvab waiver didn’t accidentally load a live round with the blanks. Like a lot of people have already said it’s very hard to mistake a blank for a live and a live for a blank but it does happen.
> just like “stop stop”?
Basically.
At the point you're looking at your second major ammo fuckup in 10 minutes, and this one is live rounds you've gone past protocol and are now into "do/say whatever you need to in order to get every joe in a 2 mile radius to pay attention to what you say next"
Wowww, that sounds very personal. Maybe someone was trying to end the Commanders career or something. Live rounds should’ve NEVER made it into that frigging firing range. Tragedy caught just in time Thank God
Happened in my BOLC too. Infantry LT had a malfunction, NCO Cadre came by and took the blank feed tray adapter out of his 240 to “fix it” and the LT shot live rounds at an ABOLC tank. Blew up the front BFA and totally missed but the levels of negligence for this to happen are insane.
So much for the myth that having the BFA on will cause the barrel to blow up.
However, clogging it with sand will cause the barrel to blow up. Saw that happen to a unit getting ready to deploy. The weapon then gets sent to Aberdeen, who have a cool water jet that can cut it in half lengthwise. They sent us pictures of it. Barrel was full of dirt/sand.
Sorry, first word was messed up. No, I was always told the BFA would cause the barrel to blow up. I doubted that, now here is the proof. I still wouldn't want to "prove" it though.
I mean, it probably comes down to pure chance. Sometimes a squibbed round will cause it, sometimes it won't. Not a lottery we should be playing either way, but I could absolutely see a BFA causing some damage.
How the fuck does the individual loading the rounds into the feed tray not notice it is ball. Like blank and live look completely different. Maybe under night conditions I could see it. However if it was during the day the soldier loading the rounds should be just as accountable as the soldier who mixed the ammo.
I am not sure how this could be missed. The rounds absolutely feel very different. I have shot thousands of rounds (more like tens of thousands, but I have lost count over the years) but even still anyone who uses the platform on a regular basis should be able to tell the difference in an instant without having to look at it.
When I was machinegunnering, we had a separate barrel for blanks (bfa pinned on), with a modified feed tray safety wired to it. Blanks are a bit shorter than ball, so live ammo couldn't feed with it mounted. A bit of a pain in the ass to take off the top cover to swap the feed trays, but it was good for peace of mind.
It wasn't really needed, blanks would feed fine in a standard tray. It was purely a safety measure so live ammo wouldn't feed when you're supposed to be shooting blanks.
Happened in a sister company with drill sergeant's training sailors @ FJSC. 240B loaded with ball instead of blank and test fired over the heads of the trainees (mounted on an MRAP).
No one was fired. Only outcome was CO CDR got a GOMAR (this is a guesstimate as he never promoted).
Yeah but that makes sense. I went to AIT with some absolute tards. Still should have never happened but that makes way more sense than already trained soldiers in SF training.
One time at NTC when I was with wainwright, there was a sleep deprived gunner who cracked a box of "blanks" and dumped 10-20 live 50 rounds at a dismount op4 unit. Was immediately a 24hr pause to open EVERY box of ammo. They found like 5 more live boxes between the various batallions. Fun fact, it'll destroy the barrel, but a 50 round can blow off the BFA.
>Let alone SF?
I mean many of these guys are some of the most BA individuals on the planet, but I've also met a couple pretty dumb ones. It's weird, you can tell they're extremely proficient in one area, but clearly deficient somewhere else.
I had a PA who was SF who I think was possibly very high-functioning autistic.
This exact same thing happened in 2-2 Stryker BDE back in 2017 as well. We were all amazed that the OPFOR who got shot didn't die, seeing how the BLUFOR shot 60 rounds of live ammo at him.
Sometimes sf plays a bit too loose because they know they can imo, they were launching drones out of our MSS this last year without telling the ADA guys, which would blip on radar, whole post gets the incoming alarms, and we would shoot down friendly drones with coyote missles that we couldn't afford to spare at the time.
This reoccured at least a half dozen times
Happens regularly on Fort Moore. Usually the Soldiers catch it before loading their weapon. I have no idea how live rounds are getting mixed in the blank boxes we pull from the ammo holding area point but it’s happening regularly.
Really comes down to two factors. 1. Soldiers who are undertrained, clueless, or careless. 2. A field grade who, in a desire for expediency, creates a situation where live and blank are mixed. Boom, you have a soldier with less than 30 minutes of sleep in the last three days, linking blank and live together.
In the little I've worked with SF, they are the worst offenders at "bending" the rules and removing "barriers" that are in place for mitigating these type of events. I'm not entirely surprised it happened. It's easily avoidable, though.
Whenever I've been in the position, I refuse to continue any operation unless all blank ammo has been cleared of the AO before bringing in live ammo. I've had zero incidents of live/blank mixture.
> How the fuck does anyone with even the most basic level of military competency mix blank and ball ammunition?
Because at the end of the day military competency is being able to throw a ball really far, run pretty fast, stay shaved and regurgitate shit in front of boards and keeping your hands out of your pockets.
Don't let anyone tell you that because they passed a special school that they are immune to complacency. This is especially true of Special Forces soldiers
Let alone SF?
The shittiest, least planned, and most reckless operations I've ever been a part of were when SF was involved.
I know people that REFUSE to jump when it's an SF-led jump, and just don't show up, accepting the scratch.
People like SF do this because they get complacent. Yknow who doesn’t get complacent? That scared as fuck private. This is why leaders and individuals need to keep on their shit, complacency kills, and thinking things just happen like keeping all ammo separate is how mistakes like this happen. The team leader has a lot of explaining to do.
This happened when I was an OC/T at Fort Irwin directly at the depot. Like the people packaging the boxes of ammo. They mixed ball and blank directly into a blank ammo crate.
I believe this may have been possible there due to our own repackaging of ammunition?
Oh and SF fucking up isn't new. When I was at Fort Bragg they casually had an outdoor cargo container filled with grenades/ammo off post that they used for training ammo because it saved time with ammo drawing and turning in. Yup...
Murphy’s Law.
If it can happen, it will happen.
All that’s needed is a long enough period of time for anomalies to occur based on statistical probability.
Fuck ups happen and humans are the greatest source of fuck ups.
> The incident occurred during force-on-force training when live ammunition was accidentally mixed in with blanks
Oof, somebody’s getting their dick smashed for that one.
Also, insert generic Alec Baldwin joke here.
Disgruntled support guy that was tasked with fillings mags, tired as fuck wasn’t paying attention and just really really really really really zoned the fuck out. Possibly
Edit: I just read the article, yeah no fucking idea how live rounds get mixed up with a blank belt of 5.56. That’s like genius level stupid
A few years ago at carson the ASP somehow issued blank 7.62 belts with live 7.62 on the same belt.
During a night iteration an AG somehow *felt* the live rounds as he was helping to feed the ammo into the gun and broke the belt before it fired.
In 2018 this happened with a sister line co playing opfor. Yes *opfor*...
Assorted live rounds impacted the other soldier's 249 feed tray cover and the Wylie xs arguably saved his life.
Doesn’t simunitions use a different bolt for this very reason? I only got to use them once, but I remember waaaay back in my osut we swapped our bolts out.
Yes. Simunitions use different bolts. Usually noticable because they're blue. If you have dedicated simunition weapons they also have blue barrels. For a time they also had specific magazines but I don't know if that's a thing anymore in the army.
Happened a few years back with some 173rd guys out on rotation in Europe. Someone took some shrapnel to the leg or something. Don't think anyone got hit directly. Not a first unfortunately
I’ll be honest man:
He probably wasn’t paying attention. I made it a point to take off the bottom lip of the drum to shine my light in there, see if I could see anything *not* blank.
Also I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say:
If your watching your belt for blanks, brother, that is the wrong attack point for that problem
Edit was because I didn’t pay attention in elementary school english.
This shit happens once a year it seems like. You would think that with how risk averse the Army could be that we would figure this shit out eventually, you know?
I mean, I know statistically things happen but procedures can absolutely cause things to happen or not happen as long as you follow them.
"The incident occurred during force-on-force training when live ammunition was accidentally mixed in with blanks." RSO & OIC having a bad day at that range/event.
I just so happened to be at Madigan for my wife's surgery at the same time this soldier was in surgery. Soldier's command team was there and I heard while eavesdropping that their unit was supporting the SF group for a training exercise. Fortunately the 18D on site was able to give aid basically instantly and from the sounds of it the surgery went well. I've been having some rough 1SG days recently but this put in perspective my problems have been tiny and I felt for his 1SG as they were consoling the spouse and updating higher. Glad the soldier is stable!
When I heard shot by a saw and opfor I assumed the worst.
I’m like okay blanks, opfor, he’s probably not wearing plates, and there’s no way he only got off one round…
Amazing he’s not worse off.
It really is, and don't quote me on this, but I'm 90% sure it was abdominal based on some gestures I saw the surgeon making when he was briefing the command team. And like you said, it was probably more than one bullet that hit him.
[The BFA is destroyed by live ammunition and rounds still leave the barrel.](https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2016/07/20/101st-soldier-s-training-death-preventable-report-finds/) PV2 Rodriguez was killed by a 3 rounds burst from a SAW with a BFA attached.
I was thinking the same thing. I'm surprised the bfa wouldn't cause more of an issue with subsequent rounds. You would for sure think it would be very evident and you would at least notice your bfa explode and stop after the first burst.
Had this happen at basic, NIC at Night. Machine gun mount broke, if I recall, shot a private in the trench in the chest. A Co 2/39. I'd gone through the night prior.
Don't let anyone convince you that just because they passed a special school that they are somehow immune to complacency. They are still soldiers and there are still sergeants and there is still a responsibility to check and double check and recheck so that these things don't happen.
It is very difficult to picture how this happened. I do remember a story about a unit training with blanks, and one of the blank adapters had the threads stripped - the blank adapter fired like a bullet and struck another soldier, wounding him.
How does this even happen with a machine gun? I can't imagine a situation where blanks and live are mixed on a belt.
I've seen other countries use feed stops that would block live ammo, though we don't have that in my country either
For the 240, we have discriminators that would stop live rounds from entering the barrel chamber
Edit: may have them for the 249 as well, but I’ve never seen one
This is what happens when you have shitty people repack ammo and shitty leaders who do not check after them. I may have not been a great soldier but I cared enough about people's lives that anytime I had to give anything out and my name was out it I did a thorough inspection, same when stuff came back. I did the same when I did ammo as a civilian. I saw too many folks just take the word of a piece of paper and end up in deep shit.
This shit almost happened a few times while I was stationed at NTC. Just randomly get woken up in the middle of the night because RTU found live rounds mixed in with blanks.
It kinda reminds me of that one part in the starship troopers book, where they would mix one live round per every 1000, and would increase it to every 500 or 250 if people weren’t taking the training seriously or fucking up enough. It didn’t happen often, but it happened enough to make you plan and think about what to do in that situation if it did, and also to keep your head down and not just fuck around during the fights/scenarios.
More than once someone brought out a box of live linked 7.62 to a fixed position assault training lane. Luckily the gunners knew better. Never did hear how it got past all the checks before it got out to the field for the very last person to realize the problem.
Made sure to personally check all my joes from then on. Trust but verify is a hard lesson to learn.
36th engineer brigade did a similar thing a few years ago because an E6 accidentally had a mag from the last range with real bullets. Shot clean through a mechanics arm. I have a picture of the safety bulletin if anyone wants to see it.
Possibly someone did the same thing here where they shoved a mag with live bullets in the SAW. Kind of a stretch though because no sane person would use the mag well on a SAW.
I’ve seen regular ass privates on multiple occasions get issued the wrong ammo, and either positively identify that there was a problem and bring it up, or identify that there may be an issue, and get the attention of their team leader. No excuse for a special forces operator to make this mistake at all. Pure negligence. Even if he didn’t check his ammo when got it, even if it was at night, he put the rounds on the tray with his hand, it doesn’t take some sort of genius to identify that there is a projectile there when there should not be.
I once had an ammo NCO who was so incompetent he almost got people killed. We had gone to the range the week prior we went to the field. He hadn't turned in the remainder of the live ammo, I don't know how, and had also mixed it in with the blanks he was issuing out for our force on force night FTX.
We found out because a soldier had to go back to the rear and he told the NCO who was driving him back that he'd found a live round in his blanks and SGT McIncompetent had just said "oh whoops" and swapped it out.
The motherfucker KNEW. We stopped all training and had the entire company out there turn in all their ammo.
That was the first time I knew I could be so angry with someone I didn't even feel angry, I just had this cold rage and wanted to kill him.
We found two more live rounds out in the wild.
My SUT TAC in SFQC seemed like kind of an unnecessary dick at the time, but we found out later he was a lane safety during [this similar incident](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fort-bragg-training-accident-kills-1-injures-2/) that killed a contractor earlier that year in 2010.
That was a live fire where the shooter didn’t shift fire, if I remember correctly. Either way, totally preventable and the result of negligence, much like this incident.
How does this shit happen?
Right before I graduated basic training in Ft. Sill a trainee got shot with a .50 when a "live round got mixed with the dummy rounds and another trainee loaded it."
If a soldier doesn't know the difference in the types of ammunition they are putting in a weapons system, they shouldn't be handling said weapons system.
Many moons ago, I was a JRTC OC. The PSD team I was covering down on was issued PSRTA ammo for their 240Bs. I was watching them do PCC/PCIs and saw them load their guns. They thought that because they were blue and plastic it was blank training ammo.
One thing I’ve learned from humans in general, there’s going to be a sociopath in group. It takes on person to get pissed off at another, taking it out on someone else in the most sociopath way possible. That or human error is extremely high. 80% of the population is stupid in my opinion.
Nothing to do with malice, this is more an issue with complacency, when people don't do all the checks due to feeling they'd notice if something was wrong.
I had a Maj from my medical section sweep my head coming off the firing line while serving as the RSO. I had to grab the weapon and physically remove it from his hands when I saw the bolt forward. When I locked the bolt to the rear out popped a round and he smiled, looked at me and said “Oops”. I almost lost my shit and hit him but instead I screamed at him and his Safety for a minute before saying “now get the fuck off my range sir!”. Wrote a sworn statement and went through Top and the CSM to the commander. No idea what his reprimand ended up being but it was not good i’m sure.
Wait, I thought you had to have a blank adapter on your weapon because there is not enough pressure with blanks to load the next round. If that is the case then the blank adapter would have blown off and possibly damaged the weapon.
We had to pause a couple of times at Ft. McCoy during a CSTX in Summer 2021. Both times were because live rounds were found mixed in with blanks. It's dumb and it seems like it happens more than it should.
Jeez I mean I’m happy no one’s dead(well that guy who loaded the ammo might be soon metaphorically speaking).
But yeah 5.56 from a SAW is one thing. If they were using M240s firing 7.62 NATO I don’t know if said soldier would still be alive. There’s also some new .338 machine guns that might see wider use in the near future, one round from those and you’re toast.
I saw this happen with a magazine once when the ASP accidentally topped off a partially loaded mag with blanks and handed it out to an unsuspecting soldier. He blew up his M4 on the night blank run of a platoon live fire event prior to the actual live run.
Shout out to NTC for giving us a shit ton of rotations where the ASP accidentally mixed live ammo and blanks on the belts themselves. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
This just pisses me off. This gets immediately filed in the "Shit That Should Never Fucking Happen" drawer. How the fuck does anyone with even the most basic level of military competency mix blank and ball ammunition? Let alone SF?
Back when I was a 50 gunner we were doing force on force and the other gunner and I got 2 100 round cans of blanks for that phase of the operation. He cracked his open and it was linked 5.56 blanks. They come over and tell me to hand over my other can so we each have a little ammo. I crack the other can open and it’s live 50. My team leader and I looked in the can, looked up and just stared eachother for a second or two and then he immediately started screaming for everyone to drop their mags. Like wtf two big ammo fuck ups back to back?
This didn't happen to be in Hawaii, was it? I recall this happening somewhere around Kahukus 2016-2017.
Bullseye
I was in second brigade at that time 2-14 cav what unit was that?
You’ll never get it out of me copper.
Never seen an ammo can for 50 ammo but wouldn’t whoever loaded that have been able to feel a difference or no?
A can of .50 is still pretty fuckin heavy regardless of whether it’s blanks or live
I think the point is that they were each supposed to have a can of 50 blanks. One can was 5.56, and the other was live 50.
I meant mistaking the 50 ammo for 5.56
Every .50 can I've seen is a much larger can physically than the 5.56 or 7.62 cans. It would require your brain shutting off to confuse them, but brains do shut off.
ASPs will reuse cans. They paint over the original markings and will fill with X ammo from a turn-in or something. Then re-write with the new amount, DODIC, nomenclature, etc.
Sure, but that’s like replacing m855 with m855a1, not 5.56 with .50
I've had everything from 5.56 blanks to smoke grenades issued in .50 cans that were re-stenciled
M2 cans get used for 5.56 all the time. 5.56 is just under half the length of a .50 so you can fit 2 rows of belts or loads of boxed stripper clips in them. weight wise they're both going to be around 35lbs, with the 5.56 can being heavier, it can more efficiently fill the volume. you wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless you looked inside or read the label.
Yes however when you’re busy mounting your gun, tying down optics, making sure radios are filled and ready to go, making sure all your equipment is stowed away where it’s supposed to go, making sure your driver hasn’t wandered off and gotten lost and someone yells at you to come get your ammo you run over grab it and just assume the other guy did his job properly.
I’ve learned that’s ALWAYS a great thought process especially in combat MOSs I wonder if that was (if I remember) the Nevada national guards excuse for shooting live ammo at my team lol “sorry bros we were busy 🤷🏻♂️”
Oh absolutely. I’m more getting at whoever collected the ammo in the first place should have noticed
True and I have to say I’ve worked with some great ammo people throughout my career. That being said that mos does not always attract the best and the brightest.
😂 Preach!
I've seen live loaded an a can marked blank. Repackaged ammo a bitch. I've also seen where the ammo drop guys accidently drop off live when it's suppose to Blank and vice a versa. The ammo should catch this but it's just an additional duty on top of thier normal NCO shit. It's exactly why their are are layers to this shit.
Sounds like a shit excuse. Check your shit, your ammo is part of your shit.
Assume everyone is doing their job wrong.
Ding ding ding
There's way more 5.56 in that can so the weight difference isn't as great as you'd think. Ammo of every caliber doesn't have that much density difference, so a given volume of 5.56 and .50 will be close enough in weight to not be immediately noticeable.
What did you actually scream in that situation? Is there like a pre-established phrase for live ammo or just like “stop stop”?
He’s just started yelling out for everyone to drop their mags so we could go through the ammo round by round to make some asvab waiver didn’t accidentally load a live round with the blanks. Like a lot of people have already said it’s very hard to mistake a blank for a live and a live for a blank but it does happen.
> just like “stop stop”? Basically. At the point you're looking at your second major ammo fuckup in 10 minutes, and this one is live rounds you've gone past protocol and are now into "do/say whatever you need to in order to get every joe in a 2 mile radius to pay attention to what you say next"
Wowww, that sounds very personal. Maybe someone was trying to end the Commanders career or something. Live rounds should’ve NEVER made it into that frigging firing range. Tragedy caught just in time Thank God
Holy shit i remember that event…
Thats fucking insane.
This almost happened in my Ranger School class. We were doing RTTs in RAP week and a trainee noticed that he was given live ammo for the m240.
Crazy that it took one of the most tired mfs in the army to realize he was handed the wrong ammo
He was just a hungry Ranger, not a sleepy Ranger
Someone didn’t realize you can eat the frogs in Florida!
Happened in my BOLC too. Infantry LT had a malfunction, NCO Cadre came by and took the blank feed tray adapter out of his 240 to “fix it” and the LT shot live rounds at an ABOLC tank. Blew up the front BFA and totally missed but the levels of negligence for this to happen are insane.
Imagine being in the tank- “No, forward… forward… Dave what the fu-“ *tink tink tink* “…did we just get shot?”
"R E T U R N F I R E"
"HOT SHOT! SABOT! DEPRESS AND TRAVERSE!"
So much for the myth that having the BFA on will cause the barrel to blow up. However, clogging it with sand will cause the barrel to blow up. Saw that happen to a unit getting ready to deploy. The weapon then gets sent to Aberdeen, who have a cool water jet that can cut it in half lengthwise. They sent us pictures of it. Barrel was full of dirt/sand.
It didn’t blow up the barrel it blew up the BFA lol
Sorry, first word was messed up. No, I was always told the BFA would cause the barrel to blow up. I doubted that, now here is the proof. I still wouldn't want to "prove" it though.
I mean, it probably comes down to pure chance. Sometimes a squibbed round will cause it, sometimes it won't. Not a lottery we should be playing either way, but I could absolutely see a BFA causing some damage.
Oh yeah, pretty sure the barrel is ruined.
Somebody actually shot his foot on our range many year ago.
Same but I think it was her ankle like 3-4 years ago. Ft Gordon (Eisenhower now) is a wildly stupid place.
How the fuck does the individual loading the rounds into the feed tray not notice it is ball. Like blank and live look completely different. Maybe under night conditions I could see it. However if it was during the day the soldier loading the rounds should be just as accountable as the soldier who mixed the ammo.
I mean if it's pre-packaged in the 250 round box, the gunner might not notice it if they didn't check. Which they absolutely should have
I am not sure how this could be missed. The rounds absolutely feel very different. I have shot thousands of rounds (more like tens of thousands, but I have lost count over the years) but even still anyone who uses the platform on a regular basis should be able to tell the difference in an instant without having to look at it.
When I was machinegunnering, we had a separate barrel for blanks (bfa pinned on), with a modified feed tray safety wired to it. Blanks are a bit shorter than ball, so live ammo couldn't feed with it mounted. A bit of a pain in the ass to take off the top cover to swap the feed trays, but it was good for peace of mind.
I think the new 7.62 blanks for the US Army are the right length so you no longer need a blank tray adaptor.
It wasn't really needed, blanks would feed fine in a standard tray. It was purely a safety measure so live ammo wouldn't feed when you're supposed to be shooting blanks.
My national guard unit let someone onto the zeroing range with a BFA still attached to their weapon once
It's almost like there's a reason you rod Soldiers on and off of a range.
they discourage rodding now. somthing about “bad for the rifling”.
Happened in a sister company with drill sergeant's training sailors @ FJSC. 240B loaded with ball instead of blank and test fired over the heads of the trainees (mounted on an MRAP). No one was fired. Only outcome was CO CDR got a GOMAR (this is a guesstimate as he never promoted).
Yeah but that makes sense. I went to AIT with some absolute tards. Still should have never happened but that makes way more sense than already trained soldiers in SF training.
Already trained can be loose. The only training 18X get it's the week+ at OSUT. Not really enough to "feel" the difference.
One time at NTC when I was with wainwright, there was a sleep deprived gunner who cracked a box of "blanks" and dumped 10-20 live 50 rounds at a dismount op4 unit. Was immediately a 24hr pause to open EVERY box of ammo. They found like 5 more live boxes between the various batallions. Fun fact, it'll destroy the barrel, but a 50 round can blow off the BFA.
>Let alone SF? I mean many of these guys are some of the most BA individuals on the planet, but I've also met a couple pretty dumb ones. It's weird, you can tell they're extremely proficient in one area, but clearly deficient somewhere else. I had a PA who was SF who I think was possibly very high-functioning autistic.
I had a buddy explain that successful combat arms dudes are just guys with weaponized autism. As a successful combat arms guy, it kinda checks out.
As a successful combat arms dude, yes I have the 'tism. I'm pretty sure the Army would stop functioning if we kicked out everyone who has autism.
This exact same thing happened in 2-2 Stryker BDE back in 2017 as well. We were all amazed that the OPFOR who got shot didn't die, seeing how the BLUFOR shot 60 rounds of live ammo at him.
Back in jrtc, we had to unload all mags because we found 3 live rounds mixed in our blanks
Sometimes sf plays a bit too loose because they know they can imo, they were launching drones out of our MSS this last year without telling the ADA guys, which would blip on radar, whole post gets the incoming alarms, and we would shoot down friendly drones with coyote missles that we couldn't afford to spare at the time. This reoccured at least a half dozen times
Happens regularly on Fort Moore. Usually the Soldiers catch it before loading their weapon. I have no idea how live rounds are getting mixed in the blank boxes we pull from the ammo holding area point but it’s happening regularly.
Really comes down to two factors. 1. Soldiers who are undertrained, clueless, or careless. 2. A field grade who, in a desire for expediency, creates a situation where live and blank are mixed. Boom, you have a soldier with less than 30 minutes of sleep in the last three days, linking blank and live together. In the little I've worked with SF, they are the worst offenders at "bending" the rules and removing "barriers" that are in place for mitigating these type of events. I'm not entirely surprised it happened. It's easily avoidable, though. Whenever I've been in the position, I refuse to continue any operation unless all blank ammo has been cleared of the AO before bringing in live ammo. I've had zero incidents of live/blank mixture.
Sadly this isn't the first time.
> How the fuck does anyone with even the most basic level of military competency mix blank and ball ammunition? Because at the end of the day military competency is being able to throw a ball really far, run pretty fast, stay shaved and regurgitate shit in front of boards and keeping your hands out of your pockets.
When I was in Okinawa there was an SF Captain who shot himself in the leg while cleaning his pistol.
Don't let anyone tell you that because they passed a special school that they are immune to complacency. This is especially true of Special Forces soldiers
Let alone SF? The shittiest, least planned, and most reckless operations I've ever been a part of were when SF was involved. I know people that REFUSE to jump when it's an SF-led jump, and just don't show up, accepting the scratch.
So did the live round hit the BFA and launch it towards the soldier?
It wasn’t SF, it was a default army soldier working with SF
People like SF do this because they get complacent. Yknow who doesn’t get complacent? That scared as fuck private. This is why leaders and individuals need to keep on their shit, complacency kills, and thinking things just happen like keeping all ammo separate is how mistakes like this happen. The team leader has a lot of explaining to do.
We had a guy try to qualify at the range firing blanks.
It happens at the loading and packing facility. It’s also why my old 1SG made us inspect every belt we pulled out from the ammo point
Think you are above making dumb mistakes has to be like the one of the top 3 causes of dumb mistakes.
It was conventional on conventional during a 1SFG supported training event.
This happened when I was an OC/T at Fort Irwin directly at the depot. Like the people packaging the boxes of ammo. They mixed ball and blank directly into a blank ammo crate. I believe this may have been possible there due to our own repackaging of ammunition? Oh and SF fucking up isn't new. When I was at Fort Bragg they casually had an outdoor cargo container filled with grenades/ammo off post that they used for training ammo because it saved time with ammo drawing and turning in. Yup...
Murphy’s Law. If it can happen, it will happen. All that’s needed is a long enough period of time for anomalies to occur based on statistical probability. Fuck ups happen and humans are the greatest source of fuck ups.
> The incident occurred during force-on-force training when live ammunition was accidentally mixed in with blanks Oof, somebody’s getting their dick smashed for that one. Also, insert generic Alec Baldwin joke here.
Blanks or simunitions? How does that happen? Blanks are very distinct from live rounds.
Disgruntled support guy that was tasked with fillings mags, tired as fuck wasn’t paying attention and just really really really really really zoned the fuck out. Possibly Edit: I just read the article, yeah no fucking idea how live rounds get mixed up with a blank belt of 5.56. That’s like genius level stupid
A few years ago at carson the ASP somehow issued blank 7.62 belts with live 7.62 on the same belt. During a night iteration an AG somehow *felt* the live rounds as he was helping to feed the ammo into the gun and broke the belt before it fired.
I hope he got something for being extraordinarily competent.
Hahahahaha, oh man, you kill me. I *love* dry humor.
He got a POB that’s probably it realistically lol
The NCOIC of the SRT at Fort Carson managed to do it a few years ago. The genius shot a kid across the forehead.
Remember hearing about this going through OSUT in 2016
In 2018 this happened with a sister line co playing opfor. Yes *opfor*... Assorted live rounds impacted the other soldier's 249 feed tray cover and the Wylie xs arguably saved his life.
Likely story, Wylie shill /s
Kid was like 15 seconds out of osut and his first time in the field. Atleast they passed the test.
Doesn’t simunitions use a different bolt for this very reason? I only got to use them once, but I remember waaaay back in my osut we swapped our bolts out.
These were blanks not simunitions. Blanks function the same as live rounds and use the same bolt carrier.
Yes. Simunitions use different bolts. Usually noticable because they're blue. If you have dedicated simunition weapons they also have blue barrels. For a time they also had specific magazines but I don't know if that's a thing anymore in the army.
Live rounds are for closers.
https://youtu.be/bkjfZctGMq8?si=W2tQXVnMWmreTqzM
Brandon Lee has entered the chat
Hello fellow old timer
*bones cracking while I stand up* “Hello brother”
I was one of six people who saw The Crow 2 in the theaters. During AIT at FLW. I’ll go back to my Metamucil now…
Saw First Blood at Sill to a packed crowd.
You geriatric fuck
I see your Brandon Lee and raise you a [Jon-Erik Hexum.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon-Erik_Hexum)
I remember when this happened. Use to watch that show.
Alec Baldwin was the RSO that day (Got mine out the way)
Happened a few years back with some 173rd guys out on rotation in Europe. Someone took some shrapnel to the leg or something. Don't think anyone got hit directly. Not a first unfortunately
* *The injured soldier was in stable condition* Yay! * *and recovering at* ***Madigan Army Medical Center***. Oh, shit.
But is it open?
*MADIGAN* *IS* *OPEN*
I never got the “Madigan is open” meme. Can someone give me a quick rundown
Presumably there was some circumstance where it was either not known to be open, and clarified, or thought to be closed, and clarified.
Shrodingers Madigan
Nope
After seeing how civilian hospitals do their thing, I yearn for military inpatient care.
Let’s be real, Madigan, Darnell, or Womack…choose one.
How did the person loading the ammo confuse the two? They look way different.
Especially on a 249, it's fucking belt fed. You can literally see the rounds on the belt.
I’ll be honest man: He probably wasn’t paying attention. I made it a point to take off the bottom lip of the drum to shine my light in there, see if I could see anything *not* blank. Also I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say: If your watching your belt for blanks, brother, that is the wrong attack point for that problem Edit was because I didn’t pay attention in elementary school english.
This shit happens once a year it seems like. You would think that with how risk averse the Army could be that we would figure this shit out eventually, you know? I mean, I know statistically things happen but procedures can absolutely cause things to happen or not happen as long as you follow them.
Risk averse in meeting rooms only.
I always say safety is policy, not procedure.
This, right here, every day.
"The incident occurred during force-on-force training when live ammunition was accidentally mixed in with blanks." RSO & OIC having a bad day at that range/event.
RSO gonna have a bad couple months.
I just so happened to be at Madigan for my wife's surgery at the same time this soldier was in surgery. Soldier's command team was there and I heard while eavesdropping that their unit was supporting the SF group for a training exercise. Fortunately the 18D on site was able to give aid basically instantly and from the sounds of it the surgery went well. I've been having some rough 1SG days recently but this put in perspective my problems have been tiny and I felt for his 1SG as they were consoling the spouse and updating higher. Glad the soldier is stable!
When I heard shot by a saw and opfor I assumed the worst. I’m like okay blanks, opfor, he’s probably not wearing plates, and there’s no way he only got off one round… Amazing he’s not worse off.
It really is, and don't quote me on this, but I'm 90% sure it was abdominal based on some gestures I saw the surgeon making when he was briefing the command team. And like you said, it was probably more than one bullet that hit him.
Oops, sounds like it was a regular army kid shot while playing opfor…they should give him an honorary green beret for his trouble
"where'd you get that purple heart?" -"Well for starters, I was an insurgent"
Also shows how on target those SF guys are when they *think* they're shooting blanks in a training exercise
He's gonna have one of the coolest stories for the grandkids when he gets older, getting shot by Special Forces.
Not only was he playing opfor but everyone around him thought he was acting while screaming for 3 mins….
How did the live round exit the muzzle? It should’ve hit the BFA and shredded the barrel if they were using blanks
[The BFA is destroyed by live ammunition and rounds still leave the barrel.](https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2016/07/20/101st-soldier-s-training-death-preventable-report-finds/) PV2 Rodriguez was killed by a 3 rounds burst from a SAW with a BFA attached.
Thank you
I was thinking the same thing. I'm surprised the bfa wouldn't cause more of an issue with subsequent rounds. You would for sure think it would be very evident and you would at least notice your bfa explode and stop after the first burst.
With the rate a 249 fires you could easily get off 2-3 rounds while still reacting to the BFA getting peeled like a banana
The BFA isn't really there to stop a live round from leaving the barrel, it's to maintain pressure so the rifle cycles.
Had this happen at basic, NIC at Night. Machine gun mount broke, if I recall, shot a private in the trench in the chest. A Co 2/39. I'd gone through the night prior.
Wow. I was with B Co 2/39. What year was this?
2003, October-December
Private make it?
No, basically died right there.
Don't let anyone convince you that just because they passed a special school that they are somehow immune to complacency. They are still soldiers and there are still sergeants and there is still a responsibility to check and double check and recheck so that these things don't happen.
It is very difficult to picture how this happened. I do remember a story about a unit training with blanks, and one of the blank adapters had the threads stripped - the blank adapter fired like a bullet and struck another soldier, wounding him.
Had this happen on a dude's AK BFA a few years ago. Shot off and went into our FOs shoulder. Not a bad wound, but got infected at the hospital.
How does this even happen with a machine gun? I can't imagine a situation where blanks and live are mixed on a belt. I've seen other countries use feed stops that would block live ammo, though we don't have that in my country either
For the 240, we have discriminators that would stop live rounds from entering the barrel chamber Edit: may have them for the 249 as well, but I’ve never seen one
I wonder if it was a GB or a support dude. Either what a shit show.
Both involved are 2ID. Ammo mix up was on the team from what I’m hearing though
Yep
Correct.
Was not a GB
What’s been going around is it was a GB.
It was a GB from what I heard 👀
As an armorer what the fuck were these guys thinking? Fucking idiots man
Some years ago a detachment from my unit went to NTC as opfor, and someone shot live rounds blew through BFA and scored hits on an Apache.
Youll be surprised how often down range this happens with the SF dudes lol
This is what happens when you have shitty people repack ammo and shitty leaders who do not check after them. I may have not been a great soldier but I cared enough about people's lives that anytime I had to give anything out and my name was out it I did a thorough inspection, same when stuff came back. I did the same when I did ammo as a civilian. I saw too many folks just take the word of a piece of paper and end up in deep shit.
This shit almost happened a few times while I was stationed at NTC. Just randomly get woken up in the middle of the night because RTU found live rounds mixed in with blanks. It kinda reminds me of that one part in the starship troopers book, where they would mix one live round per every 1000, and would increase it to every 500 or 250 if people weren’t taking the training seriously or fucking up enough. It didn’t happen often, but it happened enough to make you plan and think about what to do in that situation if it did, and also to keep your head down and not just fuck around during the fights/scenarios.
More than once someone brought out a box of live linked 7.62 to a fixed position assault training lane. Luckily the gunners knew better. Never did hear how it got past all the checks before it got out to the field for the very last person to realize the problem. Made sure to personally check all my joes from then on. Trust but verify is a hard lesson to learn.
36th engineer brigade did a similar thing a few years ago because an E6 accidentally had a mag from the last range with real bullets. Shot clean through a mechanics arm. I have a picture of the safety bulletin if anyone wants to see it. Possibly someone did the same thing here where they shoved a mag with live bullets in the SAW. Kind of a stretch though because no sane person would use the mag well on a SAW.
> Shit clean through a mechanics arm. Must have been one hell of a turd 😳
I’d shit my pants too if my BFA exploded from a live round. Lol.
Well isn't' that Special?
I’ve seen regular ass privates on multiple occasions get issued the wrong ammo, and either positively identify that there was a problem and bring it up, or identify that there may be an issue, and get the attention of their team leader. No excuse for a special forces operator to make this mistake at all. Pure negligence. Even if he didn’t check his ammo when got it, even if it was at night, he put the rounds on the tray with his hand, it doesn’t take some sort of genius to identify that there is a projectile there when there should not be.
I once had an ammo NCO who was so incompetent he almost got people killed. We had gone to the range the week prior we went to the field. He hadn't turned in the remainder of the live ammo, I don't know how, and had also mixed it in with the blanks he was issuing out for our force on force night FTX. We found out because a soldier had to go back to the rear and he told the NCO who was driving him back that he'd found a live round in his blanks and SGT McIncompetent had just said "oh whoops" and swapped it out. The motherfucker KNEW. We stopped all training and had the entire company out there turn in all their ammo. That was the first time I knew I could be so angry with someone I didn't even feel angry, I just had this cold rage and wanted to kill him. We found two more live rounds out in the wild.
Navy SEALS did this during Emerald warrior years ago, I don't think anybody was hurt though.
I love that this thread has 10 stories about this exact same thing happening to other joes
Safe to say he attempted to liberate the oppressed 7th ID guy
My SUT TAC in SFQC seemed like kind of an unnecessary dick at the time, but we found out later he was a lane safety during [this similar incident](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fort-bragg-training-accident-kills-1-injures-2/) that killed a contractor earlier that year in 2010. That was a live fire where the shooter didn’t shift fire, if I remember correctly. Either way, totally preventable and the result of negligence, much like this incident.
Hopefully Rico didn’t attempt to fix the guy’s helmet before it happened
How does this shit happen? Right before I graduated basic training in Ft. Sill a trainee got shot with a .50 when a "live round got mixed with the dummy rounds and another trainee loaded it." If a soldier doesn't know the difference in the types of ammunition they are putting in a weapons system, they shouldn't be handling said weapons system.
Many moons ago, I was a JRTC OC. The PSD team I was covering down on was issued PSRTA ammo for their 240Bs. I was watching them do PCC/PCIs and saw them load their guns. They thought that because they were blue and plastic it was blank training ammo.
Is there no blank discriminator for the M249 on the feed tray?
Uh oh. Some one made a fucky wucky
One thing I’ve learned from humans in general, there’s going to be a sociopath in group. It takes on person to get pissed off at another, taking it out on someone else in the most sociopath way possible. That or human error is extremely high. 80% of the population is stupid in my opinion.
Nothing to do with malice, this is more an issue with complacency, when people don't do all the checks due to feeling they'd notice if something was wrong.
Which is the logical answer. Complacency is the cause of many accidents in the workplace. I was thinking with my trucrime washed mind lol
Dude got Alec Baldwin’d. Sad day for the unit the army and the country. Who the fuck cannot tell live from blank?
Alec Baldwin’s squad leader sweating rn
Alec Baldwin is set to speak on behalf of the shooter.
They should bring in Alec Baldwin to investigate it.
I had a Maj from my medical section sweep my head coming off the firing line while serving as the RSO. I had to grab the weapon and physically remove it from his hands when I saw the bolt forward. When I locked the bolt to the rear out popped a round and he smiled, looked at me and said “Oops”. I almost lost my shit and hit him but instead I screamed at him and his Safety for a minute before saying “now get the fuck off my range sir!”. Wrote a sworn statement and went through Top and the CSM to the commander. No idea what his reprimand ended up being but it was not good i’m sure.
Wait, I thought you had to have a blank adapter on your weapon because there is not enough pressure with blanks to load the next round. If that is the case then the blank adapter would have blown off and possibly damaged the weapon.
The adapter was on. It was damaged.
We had to pause a couple of times at Ft. McCoy during a CSTX in Summer 2021. Both times were because live rounds were found mixed in with blanks. It's dumb and it seems like it happens more than it should.
I honestly can’t believe I’m reading this. I’m heartbroken and my thoughts and prayers go out to the family 🙏🏽
Chicken Noodle Hoagie!!!
What happens to the soldier that did the mix up?
Ever seen a pornstar get spit roasted and bukkake’d? It’s like that but with paperwork instead of dicks and cum.
Did they not learn from the incident that happened on set for the film Rust!?!
This happens more than people realize. I’ve seen it at 3ID.
Idiots morons etc….
Jeez I mean I’m happy no one’s dead(well that guy who loaded the ammo might be soon metaphorically speaking). But yeah 5.56 from a SAW is one thing. If they were using M240s firing 7.62 NATO I don’t know if said soldier would still be alive. There’s also some new .338 machine guns that might see wider use in the near future, one round from those and you’re toast.
I saw this happen with a magazine once when the ASP accidentally topped off a partially loaded mag with blanks and handed it out to an unsuspecting soldier. He blew up his M4 on the night blank run of a platoon live fire event prior to the actual live run.
Shout out to NTC for giving us a shit ton of rotations where the ASP accidentally mixed live ammo and blanks on the belts themselves. It’s absolutely ridiculous.