Japan's Self-Defense Forces aren't shooting blanks anymore.
At least they weren't last month when troops mistook live ammunition for fake rounds at a training exercise.
No one was seriously injured despite almost 80 rounds of sharp-tipped ammunition being fired off in the hair-raising bullet blunder, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Blanks are identifiable by having a more curved tip than live rounds, but the unit in question reportedly only fires guns about twice a year.
The "blanks" were discovered to be live rounds after a piece of an assault rifle was torn off, slightly injuring two soldiers, the paper said, citing the results of a defense department investigation released this week.
A computer error was reportedly to blame for the incident in May at a training ground in Japan's northernmost island Hokkaido.
SDF troops are supposed to act only in self-defence under a pacifist constitution imposed by the United States after World War II.
Japan’s Self-Defense Forces aren’t shooting blanks anymore.
At least they weren’t last month when troops mistook live ammunition for fake rounds at a training exercise.
No one was seriously injured despite almost 80 rounds of sharp-tipped ammunition being fired off in the hair-raising bullet blunder, the Asahi newspaper reported.
Blanks are identifiable by having a more curved tip than live rounds, but the unit in question reportedly only fires guns about twice a year.
The “blanks” were discovered to be live rounds after a piece of an assault rifle was torn off, slightly injuring two soldiers, the paper said, citing the results of a defense department investigation released this week.
A computer error was reportedly to blame for the incident in May at a training ground in Japan’s northernmost island Hokkaido.
SDF troops are supposed to act only in self-defence under a pacifist constitution imposed by the United States after World War II.
