03.04.2025.
Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion conducts tactical exercises and firing practices
Members of the Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion are in stationary camp at the Pasuljanske Livade Training Area, conducting firing practices with armour branch weapons.
The soldiers, NCOs and officers of this Army unit are practicing their tasks involving intelligence collection and processing, while simultaneously adjusting to the living and working arrangements in the field.Over the last several days, commanders and crews of BRDM-2MS armoured-reconnaissance vehicles have been practising tactical actions and procedures in combat and conducting firing practices at the training area. The most important segment of stationary camp are tactical exercises conducted during both day and night and firing with weapons systems mounted on the armoured-reconnaissance car, the unit’s principal combat asset.
Captain 1st Class Saša Stefanović, a company commander at the Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion, explains that the aim of the stationary camp is to test the unit members’ skills after a period of intensive training. He stresses that the support provided to a marching column is one of the activities being practised at the moment, and adds that an armoured reconnaissance patrol has been formed for this task. - They have completed all preparatory work for this task and are ready to set off from the starting point and secure the direction in which the armoured reconnaissance column will move. Columns are very profitable targets for the enemy and therefore must be additionally secured so that they can deliver the necessary material in a safe, unhindered and timely manner, in accordance with the superior command’s orders. During the intensive training period, the commander and all other professional soldiers at the Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion have mastered all activities supporting the collective task that is now being carried out at the camp - Captain Stefanović emphasized.
Sergeant Zoran Miladinović, a BRDM-2MS gunner, explains that his responsibilities are to observe and spot targets using state-of-the-art sighting devices, as well as to secure the column’s flanks.- This vehicle has a modern data transmission system and can send data to distances of up to 60 kilometres within three seconds. Training means a lot to us, as we practice and repeat some segments during the firing, which, as a gunner, is my favourite part of the training in the camp. Pasuljanske Livade is my favourite training area for these exercises. We have a thermal imaging system that allows us to fire at night, and firing is now much easier thanks to modern fire control systems. New sighting devices have also made spotting hits much easier. We have a good team in this unit, we are quite close and depend on each other a lot. In the vehicle, we all depend on the commander, but also on the driver, gunner and scout, we all work together - emphasises Sergeant Miladinović and lists the qualities that a good gunner should possess: to be good, hardworking, brave, diligent, to care about others, to be patriotic and to love their homeland.
During the training at the camp, the emphasis is on practising reconnaissance tactics, primarily through patrols and ambushes, using cutting-edge reconnaissance optoelectronic devices.The Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion, headquartered in Niš, is equipped and trained to collect data necessary for the execution of Army operations, and field exercises and firing practices improve the unit’s operational capability for participation in combat operations.
