why do the british military use live ammunition on some training excercises?

Question

surely that's dangerous

Answer 1

hey there

im joining the British Army in a few month

yes it is dangerous there have been 3 deaths (i think) from the exercises using live rounds , but it is to show you what you could be faceing someday , you have to get used to live ammo and explosions going off

the exercises are very closely monitored now though with instructors with you all the time , you don't have guns shot at you with live ammo you just shoot targets infront of you and fire rockets at distance targets etc

it's more to prepair you for what you could face rather then to scare you

Answer 2

Oh I don't know. It could be that old saying, "Train as you fight." We're not talking preparing for a tea party here. Danger is inherent to the profession. It's actually less dangerous to train with live ammo than it is to use live ammo for the first time in real combat.

As soon as the bad guys start keeling over dead when you cap off a bunch of blanks, I guess we can quit with the live fire. Until that day though, you train as realistically as possible. We shoot bad guys in the face with live rounds, so we train with live rounds in order to better shoot them in the face later.

That said, neither the Brits or the US start off using live ammo. It's pretty standard on this side of the pond to do at least 3 iterations of an exercise: dry walk-through with no ammo; blank fire (repeat as necessary); then go live-fire. Live fire is considered the culmination of an exercise--sort of like the final exam. All the pieces go into play and you show that as a unit (whether squad, platoon, company, etc) you're capable of functioning as you would in combat.

In the end, nothing can replace live fire for realism. Nothing except combat itself.

Answer 3

The British Army has always used live ammo on Exercise, ONLY though when you have passed out from basic and are with your Battalion. The most common places to use live ammo were on any Ex MEDICINE MAN which took place in Canada, Medicine Hat, or in Kenya the Exercise I was on there was I think "trumpet Dance" (or maybe that was in the US, memory fading) and when in the falklands no civvies around we used plenty of live ammo in fact used up a lot of the ammo left behind by the Argies, in fact even used their weapons (basically it was the same FN FAL 7.62 SLR) so I was in from 79 to 88 and the whole time I was in using live rounds was not anything special it was considered routine, best type of training you could have. Note in Canada it was even live firing at night, and over the couple of months it went from section, platoon to company, all the way to combined exercise with tanks included. Kenneth take a chill pill mate he is asking a simple legit question from his point of view if he does not know then he does not know, you only know by being in, there is no reason to jump all over him because of it.

Answer 4

Practice makes perfect, its been a tradition of sorts to have as a close to realistic conditions as possible, with live ammo the soldier knows he has to be careful, forget shooting civilians, he might shoot his squad mate if he isnt careful, so before a soldier even reaches the battlefield he understands the need to ask questions first and shoot later, no spray and pray in Britain. Fields of fire, target identification, are the key areas for this. Its more common with the SAS to use live ammo than squadies, look up 'Kill House' for a bit more.

Answer 5

We used live ammo for alot of training exercises in the Army. Why is it dangerous?? We aren't shooting at each other! We shoot at targets.

Plus the kick on a rifle is different with live rounds versus blanks. The only way to learn to shoot with a live round properly is to fire it.

Answer 6

It's not just the British any more.... My husbands unit in Germany uses live ammo for exercises. Yeah it's dangerous but it's all about trusting the person next to you........ they'll be the ones with you when it gets down to the knitty gritty

Answer 7

There are many reasons, when I was in the army they taught us how to locate a sniper by using the crack and thump of the weapon when it was fired. You can only do that with live ammo.

Answer 8

We (U.S.) used live ammunition in basic training and AIT. Convoy fire, providing covering fire in buddy team movements, just to name a few.

Answer 9

well wake up we use live ammo on training exercises

Answer 10

dangerous only when something goes wrong.

http://www.google.com/search?q=live+training+exercise+death