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[Jake]

As for the attack, yeah, we used blanks.  Note that these are blanks with a potential danger zone of ~120 feet from the gun's muzzle where you're not allowed to shoot at people (instead, you point your gun at the ground and yell "BANG!" really loudly).  Also note that although we use assault rifles with both semi-auto and full-auto capability, the blanks we use don't expel enough gas pressure to reload the gun by itself.  This means we need to pull the bolt back manually after each shot, something this rifle was not really made for doing...

No blank-firing adaptors?

[Jackrabbit]

Hah, that's embarrassing. Anyway, do you have blanks on hand at all times? If it was a real attack, would you have to get actual ammo from somewhere else?

[Nikov]

To my understanding most military training facilities handle both live and blank ammunition with such care that, well, I can't really come up with anything else handled that way. I should think at any instant an officer should be able to walk up, look at a chart, demand by serial number the 30-round magazine of live ammo Private Gump signed out for at 0832 that morning and court martial him if he only had 29 bullets in it. Or in the very least, that would be an armory sergeant's utopian fever-dream.

[Jackrabbit]

Ah, I see. I've no idea how the military deal with weapons, other than really carefully.

[olemars]

As for the attack, yeah, we used blanks.  Note that these are blanks with a potential danger zone of ~120 feet from the gun's muzzle where you're not allowed to shoot at people (instead, you point your gun at the ground and yell "BANG!" really loudly).  Also note that although we use assault rifles with both semi-auto and full-auto capability, the blanks we use don't expel enough gas pressure to reload the gun by itself.  This means we need to pull the bolt back manually after each shot, something this rifle was not really made for doing...

No blank-firing adaptors?

They do have them, but not in the quantities needed to outfit everybody with one. Perhaps enough for 1 platoon per batallion, although it varies from unit to unit. Some units have MILES simulator kits too.

[Kandi Apple]

I SO gota get me a creepy aviator and signature line...

[Nikov]

As for the attack, yeah, we used blanks.  Note that these are blanks with a potential danger zone of ~120 feet from the gun's muzzle where you're not allowed to shoot at people (instead, you point your gun at the ground and yell "BANG!" really loudly).  Also note that although we use assault rifles with both semi-auto and full-auto capability, the blanks we use don't expel enough gas pressure to reload the gun by itself.  This means we need to pull the bolt back manually after each shot, something this rifle was not really made for doing...

No blank-firing adaptors?

They do have them, but not in the quantities needed to outfit everybody with one. Perhaps enough for 1 platoon per batallion, although it varies from unit to unit. Some units have MILES simulator kits too.

MILES is great, but there's nothing like point-blank paint bullets in the shoot house.

What's Norwegian body armor like?

[olemars]

Body armor? Cheaper to just replace with another conscript, being a renewable and biodegradable resource.

That was the cold war mentality anyway (during which, about half of all norwegian men between 18-44 who had been through military service were required to have a G3 battle rifle and 200 rounds in their bedroom).

That's changed the last couple of decades, although I don't know if they're handing out any body armor as standard issue yet. They weren't in 2001 when I was in, they did replace the marshall aid steel potty helmets with kevlar/composite ones then though. Special forces and anyone signing up for foreign deployment get top of the line stuff of course.

[Kagus]

To my understanding most military training facilities handle both live and blank ammunition with such care that, well, I can't really come up with anything else handled that way.

Theoretically speaking, we have extremely high standards regarding ammunition and such.

Realistically, a couple weeks ago pretty much everyone had thirty rounds of blanks either on person inside the barracks or lying around in their rooms.  The next day everyone was informed of just how important it is that we never store ammo (blanks included) inside the bunkhouses.  They then proceeded the official ammo retrieval procedure, where they put out a cardboard box and told everyone to remove the blanks from their magazines and put them in the box.  The officer in charge then wandered off to take a coffee while waiting for people to finish.

Then, ammo control.  Three lazy gits were picked out for the cozy job of counting ammo inside a heated room.  Their main priority was, of course, spending as long a time counting those rounds as possible so they could stay inside.  They even took the initiative and counted how many field rations we had leftover.  I'm sure they came up with an accurate number for how many rounds were left, but that doesn't help control at all because we'd been in a combat situation where rounds had been fired, so nobody knew what number we "should" have.


So...  Yeah.  We're pretty tight on security.  I mean, we have to.  It's only national security.

[Erkki]

To my understanding most military training facilities handle both live and blank ammunition with such care that, well, I can't really come up with anything else handled that way.

Theoretically speaking, we have extremely high standards regarding ammunition and such.

Realistically, a couple weeks ago pretty much everyone had thirty rounds of blanks either on person inside the barracks or lying around in their rooms.  The next day everyone was informed of just how important it is that we never store ammo (blanks included) inside the bunkhouses.  They then proceeded the official ammo retrieval procedure, where they put out a cardboard box and told everyone to remove the blanks from their magazines and put them in the box.  The officer in charge then wandered off to take a coffee while waiting for people to finish.

Then, ammo control.  Three lazy gits were picked out for the cozy job of counting ammo inside a heated room.  Their main priority was, of course, spending as long a time counting those rounds as possible so they could stay inside.  They even took the initiative and counted how many field rations we had leftover.  I'm sure they came up with an accurate number for how many rounds were left, but that doesn't help control at all because we'd been in a combat situation where rounds had been fired, so nobody knew what number we "should" have.


So...  Yeah.  We're pretty tight on security.  I mean, we have to.  It's only national security.

Its the security to prevent anyone from stealing those rounds... And not for souvenir. They take taking care of ammunition very seriously here, too. Just a few months ago someone managed to steal a round and shoot himself, and 2010 1 as well. He managed steal a round round, and make it with his gun into the drying room without anyone noticing quick enough, fit himself in one of those cage closets, close the door and shoot himself.

[olemars]

Wow, it's that common? We had one guy steal a round from the shooting range and run into the woods with his G3 one night after drinking heavily (girlfriend just dumped him). He didn't shoot himself though, he fell asleep under a tree and changed his mind in the morning when he'd sobered up. The MPs were freaking out that night though, they worried the lad would go rambo 1 in the forest.

[Kagus]

Okay, let's look at the hair/timeline here...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...yeah.  Thursday, last day before leave, and it's a quiet night.  People are packing, planning, or just sitting around and taking things easy.

One chap decides he needs a spring cut for Easter vacation, and requests the help of one of his roommates to "just take a little off the sides".

The gentleman with the electric clipper, however, gets overly excited and takes a little too much off the sides.  Now left with a rather disturbing mess of hair, everyone decides it's best to just take everything off and then shave what's left with a razor.

A few minutes after this, I walk into the room on one of my nightly wanderings.  What follows is a surge of team spirit and/or peer pressure, along with an increasingly large number of tourists coming to the room to check out the rapidly growing number of skinheads.  Having never experienced so close a shave on the top part of my head before, I figured it would be a truly brilliant idea to volunteer myself for the electric (razor) chair.


So, here I am...  Springtime in Norway, and the tallest hair on my head hasn't quite reached a millimeter yet.  An interesting side effect of this is that my head now sticks to EVERYTHING.  Taking my shirt off is now far more difficult than it should be, and I can attach washcloths and scarves to my pallid dome for later use.  I also find myself bumping into windows, beds, doorframes, and all manner of other objects that my cranial antenna array used to alert me to.


Responses to the cut have been remarkably positive for the most part.  True, there was an enlisted soldier who asked us what the bloody hell we were thinking, but the platoon (apparently this is the so-called 'correct' translation of the term) came back with everything from...

"You know, I think it actually looks good on you"

...to...

"You're definitely much cooler now"

...

...

Moving on.

[Zrk2]

You look like a crazy Russian spec ops guy now. Any chance of that, only for Norway? (I think that's the right nation.)

[Jackrabbit]

Yeah, that does look kinda hard-assed military-ish.

"You're definitely much cooler now"

Ah, a man after my own heart.

[Kagus]

Woman, actually.  The one remaining one we have.


Comments like that always make you wonder what they thought of you before you "fixed" whatever it was and got better...