The article is spare on details, but can anyone shed some light at just what was supposed to be going on?
Even if the correct rounds had been loaded, that means the soldier would still have been aiming and firing at a crowd of civilians, including children. Was that actually how things were planned, or was this guy just completely off the rails?
And were the volunteers (including the 3-year-old) all posing as terrorists, or is “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius” still the motto of the French military?
The only way I can see this occurring was if they were doing one of those ‘dramatic enactments’ they occasionally do at e.g. the Edinburgh Tattoo - some ‘bad guys’ in a mocked-up building being menacing, then the ‘good guys’ fast-rope from the roof beams or pile out of a vehicle and storm the cardboard building. Lots of flash-bangs, smoke, bad guys spraying fire everywhere in total disarray while the good guys are exemplary in their fire control etc. (although I seem to recall seeing them firing while abseiling on at least one occasion :dubious: ). That would fit with the description of “a demonstration of hostage-freeing techniques”
In such a scenario, if someone was somehow to commit the cardinal sin of blank rounds (getting them mixed up with real ones) I can see that 20-30 rounds might get fired in the direction of the crowd, it would only take a second or two on full auto.
As for aiming at the crowd - where several people are firing fully automatic weapons in a crowded public place while running around and climbing about, I’m not sure ‘safe weapons handling’ has that much relevance, it’s pretty much a recipe for disaster once any safeguards on the ammunition/weapons fails.
I suspect that if you wanted to fire a weapon loaded with blanks in e.g. a stage show, they would certainly be concerned about where you point it but their absolute priority would be “how are you going to make 1110% certain it’s not possible to get live rounds coming out of the gun through some catastrophic sequence of cockups”, on the basis that you can never really make an ND in public safe other than by not having them.
It appears the live rounds were limited to one soldier. Link
I seems odd to me that only one soldier had live rounds. As far as a crowded area and lots of soldiers running around with live rounds and safeties off, I can’t see that accounting for 16 wounded. If that kind of carelessness was common I’d never made it off the live fire and maneuver range in basic.
WTF? From that link it seems they had live and blank ammo issued in different colored magazines. Why even issue live ammo? When I was in the US Army, they issued the live rounds at the range, and you had to account for all the brass before anyone left the range. Do the French carry their own ammo when in non-combat situations?
My point was that once you have a bunch of squaddies playing “look how cool it is to be in the marines” in the middle of a crowd, you basically have only one real weapons safety control - keeping live rounds out of the picture. I have seen a lot of commentary around the web about the ‘never point a gun at anything you don’t want to kill’ rule. While that’s definitely the right rule to follow, in this context it’s a bit like complaining about a landmine in a playground having lead paint.
Public + role playing soldiers + magazine of live ammo == disaster unless you get very lucky indeed.
masterofnone, Paul in Saudi - in France it is very common to see soldiers with rifles patrolling railway stations, airports, etc. I must have seen half-a-dozen pairs in a one-day business trip to paris a few weeks ago. I believe they have an empty magazine in the rifle but carry magazines of live rounds in their webbing - I seem to recall something about them being in pouches which are loosely sewn shut but can be torn open if needed.
So although the particular rounds in this case were apparently left over from an exercise earlier in the year, there are probably a lot more live magazines floating about than would be usual in the US forces. Which would in turn suggest extra caution when
Would a solider firing blanks know he was firing blanks?
Unless he’s looking at the point of impact would the weapon feel the same when firing?
If he thinks he’s got blanks he’s not going to be watching for impacts 100 yards away I would guess. Until the red sprays and screams registered over the weapons fire he might not realise what’s happening, could explain why so many rounds were fired.
Something very messed up in the stories so far, investigation will not be easy. I’m not familiar with the French assault rifle but this quote from above article is very troubling.
“Former members from the regiment said yesterday that they could not understand how the sergeant could have fired live rounds accidentally. When blanks are fired a lever has to be pulled on the Famas to enable it to shoot bursts without bullets leaving the rifle, they said. “It you use real rounds with this on, the weapon would explode,” a former parachutist said.”"
Blank round recoil is insufficient to enable the auto/semiautomatic fire from gas operated rifles. U.S. rifles use a lightened bolt to function properly. Quote indicates some mechanical obstruction is introduced into the rifle barrel via the lever to raise resistance to the gas exiting the muzzle. This would raise the pressure sufficiently to cycle the rifle. Impact of a live round into the obstruction would wreck the rifle.
Other questions?
Why not a pre-exercise check of all ammo?
Why wasn’t ammo turned in completely from previous exercise with live ammo? Complete NO-NO in U.S.
Was weapon modified in some unapproved/non-standard manner?
Forgive this query by someone not really well-acquainted with arms, but I recall some pretty indignanty responses here with regards to the second Die Hard movie, where the Bad Guys interchanged between magazines containing live rounds and blanks.
“That Can’t Happen!” thundered the gun experts, saying that more of a change was needed than simply switching magazines.
Yet here people are saying that it’s easy to accidemntly slip in a magazine of live rounds and accidentally shoot people on a training session.
Cal, AIUI, for the reasons that smithsb mentioned, that the M-16 cannot change between firing blanks and firing live rounds without some adjustments.
However, without knowing the specific firearm being used by the French services, I don’t have the knowledge to guess whether that’s true for their standard rifle. Then, too, Special Forces troops often use other than the standard rifle.
All assault rifles operate by gas recoil. The powder charge in the casing ignites and pushes the bullet out the barrel. Some of the gas exits the barrel via very small holes. This gas pressure runs through small tubes to push the bolt back wards. The movement of the bolt ejects the spent casing and loads a new round. All of this only works if there is a bullet traveling down the barrel. Without the bullet there is no resistance and the gasses all exit the end of the barrel. The bolt is not pushed back. You have to cycle through manually, one shot at a time.
On the M16 and all it’s variants you must us a Blank Adapter It fits over the flash suppressor and screws in to the end of the barrel. This is the current standard issue French Assault Rifle FAMAS1 It would seem it’s likely the weapon involved. From what I’ve found it requires a similar blank adapter. Without some form of obstruction like this in the barrel to provide back pressure I don’t understand how blanks would work. With an adapter in place the weapon should have suffered a catastrophic misfire with the use of live rounds. There’s no indication that happened. I think that’s the key.
I want to think this soldier didn’t mean to injure 16 people but I see no way that a solider accidentally obtained and loaded a clip of live rounds and accidentally took off the blank adapter and then accidently fired into the crowd and not at the ‘terrorist’ targets.
I have never seen this description before, and it is not correct. I have only ever seen assault rifles classified as ‘gas-operated’ (driven by propellant gas, usually via a piston) and ‘delayed blowback’ (recoil-operated with some mechanical slowing of the bolt). Some adventurous designs like the AR15 rely on direct gas feed to the bolt carrier instead of a piston, which sounds closest to your description.
Your link shows the FAMAS as being “Delayed blowback”, and has a fairly detailed description of how it works - there is no gas mechanism and the action is powered solely by the rearwards impulse of the cartridge.
Having said all that - I have seen quotes like:
which suggest that at the very least something very unusual and noticeable would have happened to the weapon when it was fed live rounds when rigged for blanks. However it may be that the weapon would continue to function (military rifles are normally designed to NOT explode even under quite severe abuse). If this was the case, then given that
it may be that he just ripped off all or part of a live magazine in one burst before he realising something was wrong.
Quotes from The Times.
However all of the reporting I have seen is of such poor quality he may have been using a Gatling gun or an AK47 for all I know - presumably the facts will emerge in a few months.
My apologies for venturing into the the technical side of fire arms. I am certainly out of my dept there. I only have a soldiers experience with the M-16.
My intent was to say that automatic weapons usually need for some type of blank adapter. This adapter obstructs the barrel to make up for the lack of a bullet which would normally provide resistance to the expanding gasses of the round fired.
We seem to be in agreement though that had the weapon been set to fire blanks there would be some rather unpleasant result when it fired live rounds. The lack of reported damage to the weapon is what stands out.
At this point, either the reporting is way off base, or there were an awful lot of very weird and unlikely coincidences, or the sarge went crazy, or a lot of people screwed up their jobs in very imaginitive ways.
