Armored Reconnaissance Battalion Conducting Tactical Exercises and Firing

Stationary camp of members of the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion is underway at the Serbian Armed Forces’ Training Ground Pasuljanske Livade, including the firing using weapons of the armored units.

In accordance with the purpose of this Army formation, soldiers, NCOs and officers are practicing their duties while performing the tasks of collecting and processing intelligence, adapting at the same time to the organization of life and work in field conditions.

During the multi-day training ground activities, commanders and crews of the BRDM-2MS armored reconnaissance vehicles are practicing combat tactics and procedures and performing scheduled firing. As the most important segments of the stationary camp, they conduct tactical exercises in the daytime and at night, executing firing with the weapons of the armored reconnaissance vehicle, which is the basic combat asset in the unit.

As the company commander in the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, Captain 1st Class Saša Stefanović, has explained, the goal of this stationary camp is to check the skills of the unit members after a period of intensive training. He points out that combat security of the column on the move is one of the activities being practiced at the moment, adding that an armored reconnaissance patrol is formed for that purpose.

— For that assignment, they made all preparations and are ready to set off from the starting point and secure the direction in which the armored reconnaissance patrol will move in the column. As very useful targets for the enemy, columns must be secured additionally to supply the necessary material safely, smoothly and on time, in accordance with orders of the superior command. During the period of intensive training, the commander and all other professional soldiers in the Armored Reconnaissance Battalion mastered all the activities in support of this collective task being performed at the camp — said Captain Stefanović.

Sergeant Zoran Miladinović, gunner of the BRDM-2MS armored reconnaissance vehicle, explains that he is tasked with observing and spotting targets using the most modern sighting devices, as well as securing the column from the sides.

— This vehicle has a modern system for sending information which can be sent up to 60 kilometers in three seconds. Training is very important for us in terms of practicing and repeating some firing segments, which, as a gunner, is my favorite part of the job at the camp. The Pasuljanske Livade training ground is definitely my favorite for such drills. We have a thermal imaging system allowing us to fire at night, and modern fire control systems make firing much easier now. Observing hits is also better with new sighting devices; with them, it is much easier to do it. We have a good team in this unit, we are very close and depend a lot on each other. In the vehicle, we all depend on the commander, but also on the driver, gunner and scout, we all work together — emphasized Sergeant Miladinović, naming the qualities that a gunner should have: to be good, hardworking, brave, diligent, to care for others, to be patriotic and to love his homeland.

During the camp, the focus of the training was on practicing reconnaissance tactics in space, which is done primarily by organizing patrols and ambushes with the use of modern reconnaissance optronics.

The Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, headquartered in Niš, is equipped and trained to gather intelligence in support of Army operations; it is in fact through implementation of field exercises and firing that the unit’s operational capabilities to participate in combat operations are raised.