Oh please, look at how bo chap. The entire tank already run over. He didnt even stop!!
@Papsmearer comment?
I am wondering why someone mentioned my name. LOL.
Ok lah, here is my analysis as mentioned in my postings on other forums. Which since has been somewhat confirmed by SAF Brass.
Looking at the pictures of the site of the accident, I noticed that this was a "dry" run. i.e. there was no use of live ammo or blank ammo or even smoke grenade discharges. The ground around the vehicle was clean, no evidence of cartridges or residue from smoke grenades. This was a movement to contact training run where the instructor follows behind and over the radio, tells the VC where the contact is. The standard procedure when contacted by enemy is to tell the driver to stop, reverse, and at the same time, VC discharges smoke grenades. The instructor following behind the Bionix is looking to hear over the radio the proper commands, given in the proper sequence. I have done this drill hundreds of times, either as a tank commander or as an instructor. Most of the time, I have to say that the tank is already in reverse and moving before I even look behind to direct the driver. Therefore, in the few seconds when the AFV first starts reversing, its reversing blind. The vehicle commander just does not have the time to check behind to make sure its clear before ordering the driver to reverse, there just is no time to do this in an actual combat situation. The VC always assumes that there is no one behind him when he reverses, because this is a closed course, and no one else is supposed to be there.
So what actually happened here? My theory is that in the old days, every SAR had its own organic motor transport support company. When we went out into the field for training, we will indent a B vehicle according to our needs. A B vehicle can be a Jeep, Land Rover, Unimog or 3 Tonner. i.e. a soft skin vehicle. There was an MT line and in the same camp as the SAR. The drivers of these B vehicles only supported the SAR that they are based in, and because of this, most of them knew how to deal with armoured vehicles and tanks in the field. When you mix B vehicles and AFVs/Tanks in the field, its a dangerous combination. But what has happened now is that all MT lines and B vehicles are now centrally located in Transport Hubs. I guess they were all taken out of their respective units and centralized in these transport hubs, of which I think they are 2. The victim was from SAF Transport Hub West. So, when a SAR needs a B vehicle, I guess they just indent one from the Transport Hub. But the driver assigned to the training for the day might not have had any experience with AFVs in the field. Whereas drivers in the old days with the SAR know to give the AFV a wide berth during such drills, these drivers randomly assigned from the Transport HUb might not know to do this. And hence they parked too close to the Bionix and was crushed when it reverse. The Instructor in the LR should have told the driver to keep his distance or maybe he assumed the driver knew to do that.
Why did they centralize these B vehicles?Again, an educated guess here. When the MT line was located in the SAR, the camp commander, usually a Major rank was also in charge of it. The MT line was usually run by a SAF Regular with a Cpt rank, which made him the equivalent rank as a company commander. By creating an entirely new camp and organization, such as Transport Hub West, the SAF can put in a new commander with a Major rank to run it, while the SAR still will have its own CO. Therefore a new position is created. The SAF needs to do this because it has a backlog of SAFOS that need to have units to run.
So, if you want, you can blame the death of this inexperienced driver on the SAF scholar Genital policy. Just my 2 cents.