Tag Archives: Combat Diver

Neptuns Dunklen Söhnen, with blasters by FN

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The Austrian Army this week released a behind-the-scenes look at a little-known frogman unit in the landlocked country, complete with a cameo by FN.

In terms of size, it is thought that the country only maintains about 50 such divers for use in rivers and lakes in the Alpine country. While Austria hasn’t had a coastline since 1918, the nation does have 40 large lakes including Lake Constance on its Western border with Switzerland and Germany, as well as the immense Danube River system which runs through the country. With that, Austria’s combat swimmers (Kampfschwimmers) are highly trained, with its members taking three years to earn their badge.

Besides their Glock 17 pistols– Austria was the first country to adopt the now-iconic handgun as the P80– and Steyr AUG (StG 77) bullpup rifles, the Kampfschwimmer also field the FN P90 in 5.7 NATO.

Austria’s commandos adopted the P90 about 15 years ago, replacing the Steyr MPi 69 sub-gun as a close-in weapon, and augmenting the B&T TMP.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Green Beret dive teams before they were actually Green Berets

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This Big Picture film on Special Forces Amphibious Training in 1956 Okinawa is insightful.

Of note is the fact that the “fighting frogman” detachment receives instruction in conducting water insertion and demolition training off the coast of White Beach aboard a U.S. Naval ship while wearing their floppy Lovat Scouts-style green berets– which was not officially approved for wear by the Army until 25 September 1961 in an evolved, more close-fitting, format.

The tactics covered are classic late WWII/Korean War-era UDT team and Marine recon evolutions. Good stuff regardless.

Those triple tank rigs, tho…

Thanks, Jeff!