US Army Investigates How Stryker Fired Errant Round Into Korean Home
There was likely a major screw up for something like this to happen, but that is what the Army’s investigation will determine:
The Army in South Korea has stopped firing the mobile gun system on its Stryker vehicles as it investigates why one vehicle errantly fired a 105mm round that struck the home of a man living near the Rodriguez Range complex on March 29.
Army officials said the investigation will review three areas: whether the system operators followed procedure, if the gun system worked properly, and if the training event accounted for all variables, such as the rocky terrain.
“We are as equally concerned about the safety of our local communities as we would be back home,” 8th Army spokesman Col. Shawn Stroud said. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but thank goodness no one was killed or injured by this errant round.
A round of impact at Rod Range? What a surprise.
The investigation has to start at 2 points of responsibility.
1. If the vehicle was performing a live fire exercise, the fault lies with the Range Staff and personnel.
During an exercise all activities of a firing vehicle should be monitored and administratively controlled, example simplified, “You are at Firing Point X”,
firing at Target Y”
Any unsafe act or deviation from the approved actions observed should result in a “Cease Fire, FREEZE! STOP STOP STOP!”
2. If the vehicle was in a non firing status, for example moving on a range road or parked in an assembly area and there was a negligent discharge, it is the crew’s fault.
Most likely, the firing unit was not briefed on safe operations and procedures at Rod range, due to laziness of the Range personnel and staff.
They were only doing what they thought was ok. Lastly they were not properly monitored for safe operation.
Regardless, a white wash will happen, the true facts will be swept under the rug, a straw man will be blamed, and we will move on to the next incident.
The Army is good at that.
USFK statement:
“This teaching moment exposes weaknesses in the System and will help us move forward as we redouble our efforts with safety as our number one priority in reinforcing our zero tolerance policy on potential missteps.
In response, there will be a peninsula-wide standdown for evaluation and introspection followed by reduced curfew to 8pm, ban on the consumption of alcoholic beverages, and Saturday morning sexual harassment training.”
For the uninitiated.
When a firing vehicle performs live fire exercises, the crew is monitored on the Radio for all conversations amongst the crew.
In the Control Tower, an scoring crew is recording what is happening and a Thermal Sight is recording the movement of the
firing vehicle and where it goes, also the target they are shooting is recorded with a separate camara.
If they see or hear anything wrong, they are trained to act.
If the Unit has not been properly briefed by the Range Staff, they don’t know exactly what is right or wrong for a specific Range.
That’s why I say they probably weren’t properly briefed for Rod Range Operations.
All firing vehicles will now have reflective vests attached to their hulls. LQA payouts for civilians will be verified as accurate and justified!
We should note it was a Stryker vehicle, therefore it came from a visiting off-penn unit. There may be issues with familiarity of the range and relevant SOP’s….
Leon.
Please tell me that the Range Safety Certification for a unit new to the Penn.
is more than a 30 min open book test given by a Korean National.
Where it should be a detailed 4 hour briefing on dangers and situations unique to operations in Korea.
Then followed by a common sense written/multiple choice test with specific instances.
Just saying.
6. Can’t say. RUMINT is they just fired 15 US contractors out there and are replacing them with local nationals. Since Koreans are so safety oriented by nature, I expect this will prevent future incidents.
I figured you’d be in favor of local nationals since they do not collect LQA.
Leon,
Good GS workers are great. LQA is great too when granted as intended.
The KN’s more likely than not will be in the protest crowds when off the clock.