U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Peter Smetanka, assigned 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade, talks about live-fire training with an M249 machine gun during exercise Serrated Edge II at the training range in Slunj, Croatia, January 27, 2020. Exercise Serrated Edge II is a live fire and combat skills proficiency training exercise for the 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Over 300 Paratroopers will qualify on their individual and crew served weapons, and build combat readiness in Engineering, Military Intelligence and Signal skills during this training in Croatia, January 23-30.
(U.S. Army Video by Antonio Bedin)
Transcript
I’m Second Lieutenant Peter Smetanka with Echo Company, 54th Brigade Engineering Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade. Today in Slunj, Croatia, we’re qualifying on the M249 weapons system. The first table for the qualification is the 10-meter target, and then for the second table, we do the pop-up targets, in which we fire at pop-up targets, which range from 400 to 800 meters. It’s important that we train here in Croatia, because they allow us to use their training facilities, as well as it gives us the opportunity to train in a different training environment.