Accidents are bound to happen in most military settings

Richard Moleofe | Friday July 22, 2016 12:58

As most Botswana National Front (BNF)comrades were heading north in their thousands to attend their congress in Francistown, Botswana Defence Force (BDF) soldiers were streaming to the south after a highly attended funeral in Tonota. There is a hidden association between BDF and BNF. After Kenneth Koma left the BNF to form the NDF (National Democratic Front), he had actually intended to register the new party as BDF (Botswana Democratic Front). The Registrar of Societies  turned down the application because they thought that would cause a great deal of confusion.

A week earlier during a training exercise at Ntwetwe Firing Range, one of the BDF soldiers lost her life in a mortar accident. Usually accident related funerals are highly attended and can educe emotions.

From the traffic levels on Saturday, one could realise that BDF had done everything within its powers to try and show commitment to this fallen comrade. Two major generals and several other officers and men were in attendance. It is very unusual for two general officers to attend a funeral of a private soldier. But in this case we realise that BDF played its public relations card.

Accidents happen by accident and this is why they are called accidents. In a military setting and particularly that of a training session, accidents happen. For every young person who gets inducted into the military, the first thing that runs through their minds is the day when they can fire a weapon. The firing of weapons comes with a huge responsibility. The first thing that the instructors focus on is safety. By the time these trainees are passed, all issues of range safety would have been addressed in totality.

The intention of this opinion piece is not to absolve BDF from any wrong doing on their part, but it is meant to bring in neutral and independent perspectives on what military accidents are all about. In this particular case, a 120 mm mortar used by 111 Medium Artillery Regiment exploded and killed one young female soldier while two others were left with serious injuries that include amputation of limbs.

A little bit of education is required for my civilian readers. A mortar is a tube like weapon which is fed with bombs as projectiles. Since this tube has no trigger to detonate the bomb, the weapon works in a rather interesting manner. Once dropped at the bottom of the tube, the bomb detonates upon impact with a pin. Then the projectile travels in a certain trajectory path until it hits its intended target. Mortars are usually used to fire at targets that are not seen by those firing the weapon.

A mortar and particularly the one cited in the said accident are very reliable and easy to use weapons of war. As mentioned by one local newspaper, the weapon was not purchased from Zimbabwe but rather it originates from Israel. The interesting trend with Israeli made weapons in service with BDF is that the military of the country of origin still have such in service.

If a mortar is as forgiving as said, then how did we end up with a fatal case? Well, they may be several reasons why it happened. It is actually a case of interest. If in this case an inquest is held to determine why this death happened, I personally would be waiting for such results.

Primarily, a mortar accident is most likely to happen from what I would like to refer to as double loading. This is where a bomb gets placed on top of another and in the process preventing the exit of the first. In this case the first bomb would blow up the tube of the mortar.

This would normally be blamed on the operators themselves. They normally would do this in an attempt to land in as many bombs on the enemy position as they possibly can within a short space of time for maximum effect.

The other possibility on the cause of the accident would come from obsolete mortar bombs. It is on record that BDF has always taken an exercise of destroying their expired ammunition and ordinances. This is done regularly because expired military ordinances can often behave in an irregular and unpredictable manner.

In some cases you would have a combination of both the weapon, the ammunition and the operator resulting in a misfire or premature explosion. In very few cases, the cause of such an accident would result from the manufacture’s fault.

Years ago when BDF soldiers were preparing for the annual BDF Day at the National Stadium, it was discovered that several boxes of blank ammunition were contaminated with live rounds. Several soldiers that were watching the rehearsals from the stands were pinned down by a veracious volley of gunfire. Fortunately there were no fatalities in this particular accident. 

BDF immediately took off Zimbabwean ammunition orders from their menu. Even the live rounds had earlier manifested with several problems of misfiring.  While Zimbabwe had been courting BDF to procure ammunition from their factories, only AK47 rounds were ordered.

Regardless of all these positive efforts by BDF, accidents continue to happen. The job is naturally webbed with hazards. The worst of BDF’s accident was at Thebephatshwa Airbase in the late 90s when an entire armoury ignited when soldiers were inside. It is from such accidents that happened in the past that have prepared BDF to deal with such hazards of the job.

For any soldier, the worst military accident would be blue on blue. That is when friendly forces fire at each other. This has happened even with the US Army during Operation Desert Storm.