The first thing about this day is that it’s a smooth continuation of yesterday.
Everything was going on – energy drinks, coffee, some people were sleeping during any 5-10 minute break.
First, we walked a couple of kilometers in full gear to the necessary point.
Then we had a practical lesson in tactical medicine. Namely, evacuation. Various types of evacuation were discussed and tested.
Then there was a part that all the instructors spat on. Throwing grenades during a building assault. They said that in reality it was idiotic. Because in reality, when storming small buildings, they are first shot at as much as possible with RPGs or something similar.
In general, the instructors said that storming buildings is a difficult process that requires a high level of professionalism and coordination.
But the 2-hour program was canceled by headquarters, and there was nothing to do 🙂
By the way, I will digress a little and share a new interesting experience I had at the BGMT. It is the special, incomparable smell of your clothes. When you run, crawl, etc. in 40-degree heat. And crawling on the dusty ground, you get completely covered in dust. And then together they give off an incredible smell 🙂
Then there was a tactical program with strike weapons. There was a defense team and an assault team. I joined the assault team.
Basically, most of us understood our past mistakes, that the problems were primarily in communication. It was clear that people were trying to fix it. But there were still mistakes. During the first exercise, we waited 10 minutes for one of the assault groups to reach their positions.
One of my problems became apparent during the first exercise. I was part of the third fire support group. There were four of us. My brother Igor was appointed commander. When we discussed the plan of action, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Why? Well, I have a commander 🙂 He knows and understands everything. My job is simply to follow the commander’s orders.
And when we reached our positions and began fire support, our commander was shot. The radio was passed to another member of our group, which now consisted of three people. After a while, he was shot too. And then the radio was passed on to me. And when I took the radio, I realized that not only did I have a poor understanding of the push-to-talk system, but I also didn’t know the names of the groups and landmarks.
In other words, I exhibited a Soviet trait: “I have a leader, and the leader thinks for me.”
In the end, I was left alone. From the very beginning, I took up a position lying down near a tree. For some time, we exchanged fire with the window from which three members of my group had been killed.
But after a while, I was left alone, and no one was shooting from that window anymore. An internal dialogue began in my head. On the one hand, I was providing fire support and should not leave my position. On the other hand, I understood that there was no point in staying in this position now.
After a while, I decided to move into the building on my own. The big advantage was that no one was expecting this at that moment. So I ran to the house. I climbed the stairs. Looking through the window, I saw the enemy team standing in the hallway. I shot one of them, but the other shot me in return. That’s how my first game ended.
The instructors reviewed our mistakes. They told us to go again with the same team.
During the break, I learned the names of the groups and how to use the radio properly.
In the second round, another very interesting situation arose. We took up our positions. Our commander went somewhere, telling us to stay put.
We sat and waited. After a while, we began to suspect that our commander had been shot. That meant we were left without a commander or a radio 🙂
Again, there was a similar question. On the one hand, we had our position and the commander’s orders. On the other hand, we understood that, to put it mildly, we weren’t doing much good in this position.
After a while, we decided to leave. An instructor met us near the building and gave us some advice. As it turned out, there had been a fierce battle here, and very few players remained on either side.
I was placed on the critical flank. After a while, I was told that almost everyone had been killed and that all the remaining opponents were now sitting in the basement.
I went down to the basement. Here I had the next problem. I didn’t know who was where. People were not visible because everyone was lying in ambush. By asking loudly, I finally figured out who was where. After storming the basement room, we knocked out the last opponent.
There were only three of us left, but it was a victory. That’s how my last tactical training session with strike weapons ended on such a positive and somewhat epic note.
It was very exciting and fun. But when the adrenaline wore off a little, I realized how exhausted I was. By that day, I had already drunk half a liter of energy drink and coffee. I had squeezed everything I could out of myself.
I still had a couple of kilometers to go to get back to base.
There was one more thing that made the situation quite difficult. That was food. In my previous post, I said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ dry rations were more or less okay… but, to be honest, when I woke up in the morning, I felt that I didn’t want to eat that food again today. I had a feeling that I just couldn’t stomach it.
I still took the dry rations with me. But the funny thing was that we weren’t given any time for lunch. So, after the training ended, at around 6 p.m., I was exhausted and hungry.
On the way to the base, we found a store. I took advantage of this opportunity and bought a whole bag of mivina. Mivina became my salvation.
When I arrived at the base, I immediately put water on to boil and just pounced on the first pack of mivina. Then I immediately ate some mashed potatoes (well, the kind you pour boiling water on) and felt a little better.
And finally, after eating and washing up, I went to bed.
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