Medak Pocket (info, documentaries, etc. - merged)

[Rfn]

Well, I can tell this will be a hot topic here. Can't wait to hear from the folks with BTDT.

I was on the tour before Medak and I haven't got through the entire article and so I won't comment yet but this line shows a flaw in the author's research:

They had armoured personnel carrier M-113, like those of the American armoured cavalry. On the transporter a steel turret was added to protect the gunner who manned the Browning .50 caliber (12,7 millimetre) machinegun....

A turret on the M113?

 

[Britney Spears]

Yeah, there's a LOT of dodgy assumptions and flawed logic, but I'm willing to overlook the turret thing, lots of other countries used the M113 with gun shields or some kind of protection for the gunner, and since a lot of them were all painted one color (white),  it's not an unreasonable mistake to make.

 

[Kat Stevens]

I dunno where the "author" gets the idea that we chose the Serb side.  In fact, the opposite is true.  I was in Vukovar on Roto 0, or whatever it was called.  We were getting along just fine, more or less, with occupying Serb troops.  Then our beloved PM went on the air and declared the Serbs as the bad guys of the whole conflict.  Within days, the government in Belgrade had spun that into a statement that Canadian aircraft were prepared to start bombing ops at a moments notice.  Needless to say, we, being in the middle of it, became persona non grata quite quickly....

CHIMO,  Kat

 

[TCBF]

You can always tell when those people are lying - their lips are moving.

Tom

 

[larry Strong]

We started receiving gun Shields, both for the .50 and two on the sides of the cargo hatch near the end of Roto1

 

[Britney Spears]

We started receiving gun Shields, both for the .50 and two on the sides of the cargo hatch near the end of Roto1

My sole source for my comments was a reading a few years back in "The Road To Sarajevo" By Lew Mackenzie commenting on what a dangerous job the .50 was, without gun shields. Obviously some more detailed research would have been in order, but hey it's Monday morning...

 

[larry Strong]

I hear you on the "Monday" Not criticizing, just mentioning what I remember.

 

[HItorMiss]

OK I was not there, however I do know 2 individuals who were there and I have since directed to this article..... you want to see some pissed off troops, I myself am enraged not because what the person saying is untrue, in fact many of his facts seem to be correct if you were a casual reader and not a military historian or were/know people that were there, from first hand accounts they were not sporadic small pockets of fire fights it was a push to remove the Serbs from their postions what happened was we got caught in the middle of it.

 

[medicineman]

Geez that guy is long winded.  Interesting hearng things from the other side.  Just need to average it all out I guess.  Having said that, I have a few screwed up friends from that op.

MM

 

[pbi]

I haven't read it, and I'm not going to.

The Croatians, whether through their official spokespeople, their nationalist media, or through expatriate pressure groups here in Canada, have busily tried to deny Medak since the day it happened. The Croats learned very early in the war that the Western media was their friend, and they quickly became spin-masters. The Serbs, obtuse nitwits and xenophobes that they were, of course obligingly provided both the Croats and Western media with an endless supply of material that usually eclipsed the Croats in brutality and stupidity. However, Medak was one the Croats could not spin away, so they tried to deny it, much as they tried to deny their atrocities against Serb civilians and the killing of UN soldiers during their 1995 summer offensive that took back the Krajina: the largest ethnic cleansing in FRY until the Serbs attacked Kosovo.

I have dealt directly with one of these Croat expat groups, known at the time (1994) as "Mothers For Peace" based in Thornhill, Ontario. The blatant and totally false propaganda that this group spewed would have been humorous but for the sad fact that these people were using the safe, peaceful and prosperous haven of Canada to attack the efforts of the Canadian military and to support their "own" war effort which put Canadian troops at risk. It was interesting to see how hysterical they were about Medak: obviously the whole thing was a thorn in their side (or an embarassment to whoever was guiding their efforts). Corresponding with them was like arguing with a rabid parrot.

Cheers.

 

[TCBF]

Reinforces my belief in NO DUAL CITIZEN.  If your country of birth will not release you from your National obligation, then you don't get to come here.

Tom

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Well, I can tell this will be a hot topic here. Can't wait to hear from the folks with BTDT.

I was on the tour before Medak and I haven't got through the entire article and so I won't comment yet but this line shows a flaw in the author's research:
A turret on the M113?

Yes, the ACAV kits - US Army adopted them in the 1960s, we finally got them in the 90s....

ACAV is short for Armoured Cavalry - it included gunshields for M60s over the troop overhead hatch (which Canada didn't use), and an armoured "tub" for the commander, with a large plate in front of the .50 as additional armour for the commander.

The description in the article is accurate, and these are what Larry Strong are remembering.

 

[Cracker Jones]

Here's a copy of an interesting article written by Major General Lewis Mackenzie pertaining to the Kosovo incident. http://www.g2mil.com/Jun2004.htm

 

[Blakey]

Yes, the ACAV kits - US Army adopted them in the 1960s, we finally got them in the 90s....

ACAV is short for Armoured Cavalry - it included gunshields for M60s over the troop overhead hatch (which Canada didn't use), and an armoured "tub" for the commander, with a large plate in front of the .50 as additional armour for the commander.

The description in the article is accurate, and these are what Larry Strong are remembering.

I concur with Mike, I was there in '93 and we had the armoured kits for the 113's.

 

[pbi]

When we took over from the R22eR in OP HARMONY in the spring of 04 in Croatia, our M113s were fitted with the ACAV shields: in my company we eventually got rid of them because they were far more trouble that they were worth: cramped, very hard to turn, and without a reliable locking system: quite often they would rotate suddenly if the vehicle tilted left or right on uneven tracks, risking injury to the gunner. If the vehicle was stopped on an angle anything out of vertical, it was almost impossible to rotate the ring. They also (along with the applique armour kit) added weight to the vehicle that strained the worn-out power plants almost beyond their limits.

Cheers.

 

[48Highlander]

Reinforces my belief in NO DUAL CITIZEN.   If your country of birth will not release you from your National obligation, then you don't get to come here.

Tom

Don't you think that's a wee bit xenophobic?  I suppose that next you'll be telling me to "go back home"?

 

[medicineman]

    It's amazing how many ex-pat Croats in Canada went back during that period.  I remember going on a 72hr pass one time and while we were going down the coast highway from Zadar to Split a minivan with Ontario tags whistled by - imagine my surprise.  As for Medak being a figment of our collective imagination, I think there are alot of soldiers (some buddies of mine) and reporters that might have to say otherwise.  This made CNN when it happened, even though there was probably a bit of a twist to it (there almost always is), I think it's safe to say that the Croats were caught stone cold and flat footed on this one.  Like a number of other instances before the battle and well afterwards, I really don't think they expected anyone to get in their faces and push back and when someone did, it kind of backfired.

    My guess this article is to rebutt "The Ghosts of Medak Pocket".

    MM

 

[Infanteer]

Reinforces my belief in NO DUAL CITIZEN.   If your country of birth will not release you from your National obligation, then you don't get to come here.

Don't know about that.  I fail to see how "Citzenship" is correlated with "Loyalty".  There were numerous examples of Americans (and probably Canadians) who had German parents and returned to Germany in WWII.  Or take John Walker Lindh, who found his way to fight for Al Qaeda.

We aren't going to affect peoples moral decisions within the legal framework of citzenship.

 

[pbi]

medicineman: when I was taking over my sector in the spring of 04, I was meeting each of the opposing force commanders along our line. Opposite the Croat village of Prkos, I met the local Croat HDB (home guard) battalion CO. I walked up to him and offered him a greeting in Serbo Croat: he shook my hand and replied in perfect English. After a brief conversation I found that he was a long tme resident of Toronto, and his family was still there, awaiting his return from serving the "homeland".

What bothered me about this (and what became reality in 95 during the HV offensive...) was that this guy's battalion could be ordered to attack through CANBAT lines to get at the RSK forces holding the Krajina. If he did that, his actions would endanger the lives of Canadiam soldiers, because our task was to : "protect the Zone of Separation against military incursion" (another ill-conceived UN mission statement with no teeth or will to back it up...) Regardless of this risk to the lives of Canadian soldiers, this guy would be free to return back to the benefits of life in Canada. IMHO we should enforce our legislation against foreign enlistment where the foreign service puts the person in opposition to Canadian soldiers.

Cheers.

 

[medicineman]

PBI - I hear what you're saying.  That's what that John Lindh fellow is going through in the US.  If you want to play mercenary like that and come up against your home countrymen, it should be just like you're at home in Canada.

I was in country in Apr - Oct 94 and we got a similar order to defend the ZOS.  The infantry guys in the OPs worked it out to something along the lines of a firefight roughly 3-5 minutes max if they were in "just give it " mode - then no more ammo.  I chuckle about it looking back on it now, but then we were a little exasperated to say the least.

MM