SEVENTEEN people were injured when soldiers fired live bullets instead of blanks during a military display in France’s southwest.
….investigators believed the deadly ammunition was loaded by mistake.
A bit hard to imagine. Most blank rounds, in my experience, are a different colour and weigh a lot less. I have no experience with French blank rounds but can’t imagine them being much different.
Should make for a career changing and interesting investigation.
UPDATE:
A sergeant has been identified as the culprit;
The 28-year-old sergeant fired his assault rifle into a crowd of hundreds of visitors watching a mock hostage rescue operation Sunday at the base near the southwestern city of Carcassonne.
He fired the shots from his FAMAS assault rifle and was described as an experienced soldier with no history of behavioural or psychological problems.
The report confirms my belief that French blank ammo is of a different colour and weight than live ball ammo.
Presuming he only fired one mag of maybe 30 rounds then 19 hits is pretty deliberate shooting and even if he fired it all in one burst it’s still hard to imagine all those casualties.
The final report will be interesting
The report in the SMH claims he took the magazine from a pocket (I’m assuming they mean ammo pouch) and
I suspect this guy is going to be in pretty serious merde. Having the live ammo is probably a pretty serious breach of protocol and procedures to start with, let alone then not noticing it when he loaded his weapon is another level of negligence. As for hitting 19 people from a 30 round magazine… if eveyrone was crowded together then firing a full magazine in a burst might still hit that many people. But to get through a full mag without noticing people were being shot seems remerkable.