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Subject: Danish Army introducing snipers and re-introducing mortars
Schackleford    9/2/2006 7:35:38 AM
I always felt that the lack of IFV's, snipers and mortar teams in our army was a major Achilles heel. Sure, none of them was very helpful during your average peace keeping mission. But for infantry combat, they are essential. IFV's were acquired on the latest Defence Budget, though. And now, the first army snipers are being trained at The Royal Life Guards. The rifles being issued is the SAKO TRG42, caliber 8,6 mm Lapua. The rifle is already used by Finland and is by all accounts an excellent weapon. It is planned that the new sniper units will get to train with AKS, Jægerkorpset and Frømandskorpset. In addition, mortars are being re-introduced. All I know about that system is that it is Spanish in origin and of 60 mm caliber. That leaves only one major gap in our army equipment: we still do not have ANY KIND OF UAVS WHATSOEVER!
 
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Schackleford       9/4/2006 4:31:15 AM
I first started wondering about mortars when I started my conscription in The Royal Life Guards. We were in the field one of the first times, when we literally stumble upon the biggest shell I had ever seen (the only shell I had ever seen, at the time :-)).
Playing it safe, we told our platoon commander about it, who told us that it wasn't dangerous. It was an old non-explosive mortar training round that must have been left out here a few years ago when they were still being used.
I asked him what was the problem with mortars since the Army didn't field them any longer(stupid question yes, but I was just a sleep-deprived rookie at the time).
He explained that when the Army started doing peace keeping missions in the 90's on top of the Army's other jobs, they ran short of cash. Therefore they scrapped all mortars and even cancelled ALL building maintenance on Army facilities in order to find the money to keep going.
Since we had a Socialdemocratic government in place at the time, there was a snowballs chance in hell that the Army would get a budget that matched it's expenses.


 
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Thomas    Shackleford   9/4/2006 5:34:19 AM
While not deefending  The Socialdemocrats - far from it.
The main problem was at the time the layout of Danish forces. Danish bases were spread out in dispersal, which was a good thing in the cold war scenario, but what is needed for the future is concentration to get a better logistics.
This means the present facilities - those that are going to be the new centers - are inadequate and must to a larger or smaller extend be rebuild, the others should be sold off as quickly as possible - and that process does tak time; also more time than strictly nescessay.
 
And if i understand correctly: the new 60mm have the same effect as the old 88mm - then scrap the old stuff.
Who wants to carry 88mm grenades if he can get the same effect out of carrying the same amount of 60 mm???
 
The problem is: Why didn't we give them to the Baltic states: Mortars are good in woods?
 
 
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