U.S. Bullets Found in Body Armor of Dead Bulgarian

[RamboLiberal]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=564733

Bulgaria is now sure U.S. forces killed one of its soldiers last week in a "friendly fire" accident, mainly because of poor communication, army and Defense Ministry officials said Wednesday.

Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said spent bullets removed from rifleman Gurdi Gurdev's body armor were of U.S. issue. Gurdev had been sprayed with automatic weapons fire after his unit shot warning rounds to halt an Iraqi vehicle in the dark.

"They were 7.62x51 Winchester," he said. Results from a U.S. investigation will be revealed on March 11 in Baghdad.

Gurdev's death happened the same day U.S. forces killed an Italian security agent and wounded journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

[leftchick]

1. does this surprise them?

:shrug:

[Lizzie Borden]

2. My God! How many timmes have we done this???

[MADem]

15. Command and control appear to be in serious disarray

There seems to be no substantive lines of communication in operation, no matter which ally we are dealing with. It is cause for grave concern.

There's no excuse for this--we train to this sort of thing all the time, of course, the BULK of the training goes to active duty forces, and the bulk of the heavy lifting is being accomplished by reservists. So much for Total Force....

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. It's called shoot first until they're dead and ask questions later....

If you put people in a hostile environment 24/7, they begin to shoot at anything that moves. Their sole objective is getting out alive.

Our Fearless Leader put our troops in harm's way on a mission that can never be accomplished.

[XemaSab]

3. Coalition of the willing

Wow, we just killed 1/480th of the Bulgarian army in Iraq!

[One_Life_To_Give]

4. The M16 does not shoot this round

Isn't this the old M14 round? Maybe the M60?
It's a tragedy, but was this fired from US troops?
What are the private security contractors carrying?

[Mithras61]

5. Not M16, M60 Squad-level machine gun... (n/t)

[One_Life_To_Give]

8. Thought the M239 replaced the M60 in the squad role?

Leaving the M60 as a Medium Level Machine Gun. Though it could be mounted on a HumVee.

[Mithras61]

9. I haven't tried to keep up with the designations...

but this is the standard NATO 7.62mm round used in several light machine guns by the US military (and the replacement uses the 7.62mm round). It could theoretically have been ANY NATO country that fired the rounds, but I think we've already acknowledged that it was a US-Bulgarian encounter, so...

Actually, the M60's rep[lacement is the M240B (http://tri.army.mil/LC/CS/csi/satoc.htm#M240)

[One_Life_To_Give]

10. My Boo Boo

I was thinking of the M249, 5.56 SAW.

Looks like there would be plenty of mounted M240's

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

6. I am pretty sure...

That it is the M14 round.

Which is still used by SEALS and other US SpecOps.

[Mithras61]

7. That too, but this is the "standard" NATO 7.62mm round...

used in the M60, which would be common in infantry units as well. It's also known as a .308 Winchester, btw.

[Fovea]

11. Let's call it 'The coalition of the silhouette targets."

Here we are, fighting a nightmare war with National Guard and reservists, with widespread use of stimulants, in two theaters, one of which is a narco state. This is your military on dope. Any questions?

[NNN0LHI]

12. U.S. Bullets Found in Body Armor of Dead Bulgarian

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=564733

Mar 9, 2005 — SOFIA, Bulgaria (Reuters) - Bulgaria is now sure U.S. forces killed one of its soldiers last week in a "friendly fire" accident, mainly because of poor communication, army and Defense Ministry officials said Wednesday.

Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said spent bullets removed from rifleman Gurdi Gurdev's body armor were of U.S. issue. Gurdev had been sprayed with automatic weapons fire after his unit shot warning rounds to halt an Iraqi vehicle in the dark.

"They were 7.62x51 Winchester," he said. Results from a U.S. investigation will be revealed on March 11 in Baghdad.

Gurdev's death happened the same day U.S. forces killed an Italian security agent and wounded journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

more

[Straight Shooter]

13. "Friendly fire" needs to be changed to "incompetent judgment."

Two incidents, same day. Do we look like idiots, or what?

:wtf:

[NYC]

14. Friendly fire sounds like an accident. "Sprayed with..."

sounds like gross incompetence.

...Gurdev had been sprayed with automatic weapons fire..

[MADem]

16. Once one shot is fired, many more follow

It's SOP. If you light up a target, you don't take half measures. Your fellow groundpounders will follow suit.

The problem seems to be that there's no effective communication going on between allies. Thus, there are serious gaps in planning and executing missions. Apparently, we're doing this on the cheap, at least so far as soldier training and coordination is concerned, and the price is idiotic mistakes like this one.

[NYC]

17. Can't we recognize our allies?

Why aim at them in the first place?

[MADem]

18. That's the concern

We aren't controlling the battlespace effectively. We should be able to know who is where, and to communicate effectively between units, patrols, and so forth. And avoid shooting friendlies...

[Media_Lies_Daily]

20. We can't even recognize our enemies.