Hello guys, how are you doing? Time for another update from my military service, this time I have some pretty badass pictures to show off.
(most of this was written last Saturday and now that the week changed it might sound a bit messy but I'll be talking about the last two weeks, not including the one that started today)This and the last week were camping. Last week, week 43 was a hard-bullet shooting camp from Monday to Friday. This time I got into the MT-LB march which was a literal butthurt experience. We left the barracks Monday morning and the shift from barracks to the destination (around 20 kilometers) took an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. The benches got pretty hard during that time and didn't feel too good in the back but at least we got to sleep for a while.
We got to use the bigger tents this time and there was no ongoing war practice so we only had to wear the combat equipment when actually needed. They're trying to make us feel as comfortable as possible there and ensure we get to sleep at least for six hours as we're messing with real bullets during these shooting camps... When it comes to camps where the war is going on around the clock and we're using training bullets (for example this week) they don't give a shit but I guess that's pretty practical since I don't think you would feel good or get to sleep much in a real war either.
During the last week long shooting camp the takes were within a squad range (Alpha 2, ten of us) and it was mostly about the basic move & fire stuff. This time we practiced within a company scale (Kilo, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta and the mortar guys) meaning that it was either cool as fuck or boring as hell. There were times we, Alpha, were the attacking platoon and that's always pleasant but at times we were backing up and supporting other attacking platoons which is basically sitting tight. Obviously there are no enemies during a hard bullet shooting, except for the rising targets but only when you're attacking. Although it was kinda blunt, it gave us an opportunity to shoot a few pictures with my machine gun team's partner's iPhone. I'll include pictures of us, some real bullets of my assault rifle RK-62 and his PKM. You'll also get to see the paper boxes that the bullets are in when they're given to us and how the magazine's bullet space looks like. Also I took a picture of the PKM belt and it's box. The blurred guy is my partner and I'm the one without a helmet. You don't take it off during a battle but we were 15 meters away from others in a wood meaning we were pretty much out of sight and we sat there for 45 minutes so... What can I say, taking off the helmet and the earmuffs feels pretty good after keeping them on for hours.
Last week's Tuesday, day 2 of the shooting camp, was as awesome as a camp day can be. The morning was cold as fuck but a bit later we got to shoot Kalashnikov's from the back of the MT-LB's. Our RK-62 assault rifle is actually an improved version of AK-47 and they fit the same magazine so first we put in 45 rounds into 2 magazines and then formed a double line and every time two of us got to the back of the vehicle and shot a target on a sustained fire as the tank moved in reverse for like 10 meters and then drove back. Shooting from a moving tank was a lot harder than you would think! I still got my target a few times but the cool thing was handling a gun that you've seen so many times in games and the news and such... Cool shit!
Later that day we had a presentation of different kinds of explosives used to kill shitloads of people, enemy tanks or clear a path from mines. The staff was actually behind me during the presentation but I raised my phone in the air to shoot a video likeaboss so I'll include a video of an anti-tank mine that would probably for example turn our MT-LB into a pile of dust and then a Bangalore torpedo that is basically a long stick that explodes and explodes all the mines with it therefore making a few feet wide pathway for us to go through the minefield.
Nothing out of ordinary happened during that camp after Tuesday so I'll just skip straight to this week as I'm in a bit of a hurry. The war camp was from Tuesday to Thursday, and Monday we had a brigade scale practice of what would happen if our country was attacked or under a threat. I can't be arsed to look for the right word but basically we packed our back bags like we were ready to move, put in the fighting gear (yes at the barracks, in our rooms) and got our guns so theoretically we were ready to move and go to war when commanded so. Practically we got to sleep for a few hours holding a gun and wearing the fighting gear as obviously the command to move to an attack never came.
Tuesday we left to the camp. The war camps suck ass big time as you sleep in that knee high tent, have all kind of guard shifts throughout the night and get to sleep three to five hours a night. Fighting gear is on all the time except when you're sleeping. Some people keep it on even then since we're woken up with a command to take the tent apart and move on (therefore it's faster since you don't have to but the vests on) but I'm not one of those who can sleep on their back so I always take it off. The simulation vests are even more annoying than the usual battle vests.
A moment I'll probably won't forget in a while that I want to share with you guys from that camp. Because of the simulation stuff and training bullets it's actually pretty cool once the enemy is in sight and in a random take the leader of our squad commanded us into a space that was right in front of the enemy and was pretty open and we were like what the fuck is going on. Rest of our squad did as commanded but me and my machine gun partner left like 50 meters away from our squad (sometimes the younger soldier, me, is allowed to look for a good PKM foxhole and luckily I found one and used my right to move us there) into a better spot where we could get low in order not to get shot but also had a good sight of the enemy. Rest of our squad got killed (meaning that the transmitter of your gun won't allow you to shoot anymore and you'll take your helmet off as a sign of being dead) except for us and one man who was lucky not to get shot. Me and my partner were alone there with 100 loaded machine gun rounds and a box of fifty in my pocket when we were suddenly confronted by a BMP-2 tank. We didn't know if it had the simulation stuff attached to the barrel and didn't want to find out either so that's when we really had to stay low as fuck. We really had to put all the teachings and guidelines into use in that foxhole in order to survive, for example one really had to stay low while the other goes up for a few seconds to shoot a few rounds at the enemy and then change the guy shooting (usually all this stuff is pretty half-assed since there is no enemy in most cases so most people don't bother being too careful in the practices). After running out of PKM rounds I had to load my 50 rounds in that foxhole into the secondary belt that I carry so we could continue for a bit longer. That's when it got interesting since we had thought that all of our squad had died in the beginning. The field-medic (assault rifle guy) of our squad came into our foxhole with a light anti-tank weapon he had taken from our bazooka guys once they died and we managed to destroy the BMP-2 and felt like winners for a while, the war-feeling was so there which doesn't happen that much in the army. Even though each had only like 20 centimeters of space to move in that foxhole, it was filled with laughter and high fives. We thought we could proceed from there on our own which would have been fucking awesome but another Alpha squad found us a bit later so we had to join them since they had the squad leader alive. But a great and thrilling series of events anyway!
Mythic: My condolences dude, seems like you're still having a blast though 
Thanks man! Means a world to me.
Yeah you could say so.
I'm in army aswell what are you doing exactly Mythic 
?
I'm an armour jaeger (don't know if there's a better translation) that is basically a soldier whose main purpose is to arrive to the front line inside a tank, get out of it and then fight the enemy within a pretty close range, somewhere between ten to thousand meters. The main difference between an ordinary jaeger (infantry soldier) and an armour jaeger is that while the jaeger walks for ten kilometers to go battle, we move nine and half kilometers with a tank and then set foot outside and fight with the tank assisting us.
Inside an armour jaeger squad I'm the younger soldier of the machine gun fireteam. The older one carries the PKM (PK machine gun) and fires it while I seek for good positions or perhaps foxholes for us to go into. I also carry the 100 round belt in a metal box. There's also a 200 round box which I usually don't have to carry when training but if it was a real war I'd be glad to have as many of them as possible with me.
Earlier I wrote more about the structure of a squad and what's there besides the machine gun team, feel free to check it out from my signature.
Army is assum!
BTW, I'm lance sergeant. 
I'll probably agree once it's over!
Good to know that man, how long did you serve for? Think about it for a while that if it was 70 years ago or if World War III took place I'd be out there in the field against you... Glad we're not!
Take care man
