That kapitan is being throw under the bus by saf. A military court would be more fair as TSRs are known to the occifers. Civilian court dunno head dunno tail confirm use “outside” logic on the case. Is AUTC part of Armour or just an evaluation center where it evaluators come from all vocations? Is this 30m rule known to him? It an accident but make a scapegoat out of him is unfair.
I know the driver is dead but why he didn’t get out of the way when BX is reversing? The BX VC also at fault for not making sure nothing is behind when ordered BX driver to reverse. Or the BX driver reversed without order? And I haven’t even started on the safety and conducting occifers. It a string of mistakes that that caused the accident.
Not exactly. A military court is just as bad as a civilian court, in many cases, worse. There is a 3 judge panel. Only 2 of them actually need to be qualified lawyers. And these 2 are usually circuit court or lower court judges doing their reservist. The 3rd judge is an NS regular, who summarize the case for the 2 judges behind the scene and tell them what the punishment is. Because this Capt. defied the SAF and claim trial, he will be whacked to the max. The same judge he sees in the civil court is likely the same judge in the military court.
This is not a case of TSR. In fact, to my recollection, there is no TSR that states that there is a minimum safety distance of 30m. The 30m distance makes no difference if you are directly behind the AFV. When I was safety officer, we always park at an offset angle to the AFV or tank. That makes sure that even if the AFV reverses suddenly, they have to turn and reverse at the same time to get to you. Not likely to happen. In fact, we used to keep as little as a 10m distance or less, but we would be almost parallel to the AFV. SO, no chance of being run over, even if the AFV reversed.
The blame on this whole shit scene can be laid on the head of some scholar SAF Genital who thought it was a good idea to re-organize and centralize everything. I don't know whether it was to save money or be more efficient, but I believe it was done to create more post to park more jiakliobee scholars. This re-organization resulted in the SAF Transport Hubs and in the AUTC.
First the SAF Transport hubs. There are 2 of them, East and West. I guess the theory is that if all soft skinned vehicles like land rovers, 3 tonners, etc and their drivers can be consolidated in 2 locations, then its easier to indent them and draw them out when required. In the old days, all land rovers, unimogs, 3 tonners, etc needed for an armour exercise was drawn from the own armour unit's MT line. This drivers and their vehicles are all located in the same armour camp. These drivers only drive for the armour unit and no one else, hence they are familiar around AFVs and tanks. They know how to keep a safe distance even without a TSR. They know how quickly AFVs can move and how blind they are. In fact, when I am in this position, I keep my jeep or land rover in reverse gear, because I know the armour vehicle has to move out quickly. Speed is one of the evaluation criteria. In all my years in the SAF, I have never seen a vehicle get reversed into like in this case. If the driver is not from the Armour formation, and he was just pulled out of the Transport Hub, he will not know anything about all these safety requirements. And this is how this accident happened. No driver in my Armour units would park themselves behind a AFV this way, even if the vehicle commander ordered him to do so.
Second, the AUTC. I have no idea what the fuck this unit is. I am guessing once again, its a centralized unit that sends staff out to oversee the training of SAF combat units. But unless you are from the armour formation, u don't and can't know shit about training an armour unit. In fact, there are more then enough qualified personnel at Armour Training Institute and SOA to conduct this sort of training. I don't know if this Capt is from Armour. But I suspect not. when I was in the SAF, our own officers are the ones that accompany their AFVs and Tanks in this sort of a dry run or live firing exercise. We don't use outside personnel from AUTC or anywhere else. But its likely that this Capt is not an armour trained officer and hence his unfamiliarity with AFVs contributed to this tragedy.
The setting up of these transport hubs and AUTC basically is duplicating what is already in existence. But they create additional commands for scholars to be put in. Unfortunately, in this case, some poor guy paid for it with his life.
