Update: https://t.co/KU3dmp1rxM
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 26, 2025
They were participating in a training exercise not far from the Belarus border. Still unknown what happened.
They were in an M88A2 recovery vehicle.
4 US soldiers killed in Lithuania
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Last: 9 mo ago by Eliminatus
They were participating in a training exercise not far from the Belarus border. Still unknown what happened.
They were in an M88A2 recovery vehicle.
4 U.S. Soldiers with the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team (1ABCT), 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Georgia have been founded dead at a training ground in Eastern Lithuania, near the border with Belarus, with it believed that their M88A2 Armored-Recovery Vehicle (ARV) sunk… pic.twitter.com/miYGSt1cIb
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 26, 2025
Sadly, not the first time something like this has happened over the years.
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." - Sir Winston Churchill
They need to say how slain fairly quick. For example, stepping on mines would be quite different from being shot in implication.
Unconfirmed reports now that their vehicle may have accidentally entered a body of water.
Given this was so close to the Belarus border the initial speculation was all over the place.
Given this was so close to the Belarus border the initial speculation was all over the place.
Drowning by sinking in mud in a metal behemoth sounds like a pretty terrible and slow way to go…
Yes, but also very probable once found that way and too easy to see how a wrong turn like it could occur. Its hard to see how much could do to escape. Just awful.Get Off My Lawn said:
Drowning by sinking in mud in a metal behemoth sounds like a pretty terrible and slow way to go…
…RIP you 4 servicemen. Prayers for the surviving service members family.
FCBlitz said:
…RIP you 4 servicemen. Prayers for the surviving service members family.
There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance. Hippocrates
Not to politicize it but perhaps Trump or Vance should consider a receiving when arrive back at the States.No Spin Ag said:FCBlitz said:
…RIP you 4 servicemen. Prayers for the surviving service members family.
Its a chance to perhaps show awareness of that "operational" or accidental losses get too little recognition in any military. Its a sad postscript and sometimes the numbers are not small either.
Seen a lot of drowning in vehicles in the Army, tragic, but it sometimes happens, even in the training environment sadly
does the army do a lot of training exercises in Lithuania?
Also a very harsh reminder that mud remains a HUGE factor in warfare. The Marines cited mud as a significant factor for their divesting of tanks and other heavy vehicles (ignoring that the HIMARS launchers are heavy and prone to getting stuck in mud… and the logistics of their ammo is dramatically heavier than howitzers…). It remains the enemy of maneuver, a killer of speed, and can be incredibly hard for drivers to identify (is that just a slight depression or tall grass concealing a vehicle-consuming mud hole?)
A grim reminder that training is deadly, just in different ways than combat. The Ags I knew personally who died in service, were all killed in training or transport.
Yes. Memory escapes me just now, but there was a beach invasion training exercise rehearsal related to D-Day that many were lost and was made secret for some time. (Or maybe it was for the Mediterranean invasions)CanyonAg77 said:
A grim reminder that training is deadly, just in different ways than combat. The Ags I knew personally who died in service, were all killed in training or transport.
Officially in Lithuania, officially while we trained. To paraphrase Corb Lund.
So true. It played no small role in bogging down (pun not exactly intended) Hitler's armored thrusts, and countless other examples. Marshes and swamps operate the same way, but worse -- for the British and Japanese both in Malaya for example.Get Off My Lawn said:
Also a very harsh reminder that mud remains a HUGE factor in warfare. The Marines cited mud as a significant factor for their divesting of tanks and other heavy vehicles (ignoring that the HIMARS launchers are heavy and prone to getting stuck in mud… and the logistics of their ammo is dramatically heavier than howitzers…). It remains the enemy of maneuver, a killer of speed, and can be incredibly hard for drivers to identify (is that just a slight depression or tall grass concealing a vehicle-consuming mud hole?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tigertitan said:Yes. Memory escapes me just now, but there was a beach invasion training exercise rehearsal related to D-Day that many were lost and was made secret for some time. (Or maybe it was for the Mediterranean invasions)CanyonAg77 said:
A grim reminder that training is deadly, just in different ways than combat. The Ags I knew personally who died in service, were all killed in training or transport.
Quote:
Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, which took place in April 1944 on Slapton Sands in Devon, was one of a series of large-scale rehearsals for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Coordination and communication problems resulted in friendly fire injuries during the exercise, and an Allied convoy positioning itself for the landing was attacked by E-boats of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine, resulting in the deaths of at least 749 American servicemen.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger#cite_note-MacDonald-1988-1][1][/url][url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_Tiger#cite_note-Fenton-2004-2][2][/url]
Because of the impending invasion of Normandy, the incident was under the strictest secrecy at the time and was only minimally reported afterwards.
titan said:Yes. Memory escapes me just now, but there was a beach invasion training exercise rehearsal related to D-Day that many were lost and was made secret for some time. (Or maybe it was for the Mediterranean invasions)CanyonAg77 said:
A grim reminder that training is deadly, just in different ways than combat. The Ags I knew personally who died in service, were all killed in training or transport.
There was indeed a dress rehearsal for D-Day before June 6th along the English coast that went terribly wrong, but it was buried b/c what actually happened was a group of German fast attack torpedo "E-Boats" came upon the training exercise & ripped them to shreds, notwithstanding the other SNAFUs unrelated to the German navy that resulted in drownings, beached & sunken vessels & machinery, & even "friendly fire" during pre-landing naval bombardment practice &/or itchy trigger fingers once reports of the presence of Kriegsmarine vessels was reported.
"CanyonAg77" just proved that I'm a big-time WW2 history nerd!
I am guessing you're talking about Exercise Tiger (had to Google the name). It was my memory that the casualties were due to a German attack but according to Wikipedia, as many as 450 of the ~750 causalities in the exercise may have been from friendly naval bombardment. I don't remember having read about that. Pretty crazy.
Prayers for their families. Terrible news.
Get Off My Lawn said:
Drowning by sinking in mud in a metal behemoth sounds like a pretty terrible and slow way to go…
Same thing happened to a bulldozer driver when Motiva was expanding the Port Arthur refinery. Trapped by a heavy vehicle.
Any training involving tracked vehicles in peacetime is dangerous.
I've gotten Abrams tanks stuck in mud a few times. As a tanker, we rely on the guys in the 88 to get us out when we can't get ourselves out.
If they couldn't get out, that's awful.
I've gotten Abrams tanks stuck in mud a few times. As a tanker, we rely on the guys in the 88 to get us out when we can't get ourselves out.
If they couldn't get out, that's awful.
You are correct. The practice invasion turned in to a cluster.titan said:Yes. Memory escapes me just now, but there was a beach invasion training exercise rehearsal related to D-Day that many were lost and was made secret for some time. (Or maybe it was for the Mediterranean invasions)CanyonAg77 said:
A grim reminder that training is deadly, just in different ways than combat. The Ags I knew personally who died in service, were all killed in training or transport.
Very sad. Armor training exercises have always been very dangerous. I used to hear stories about people killed sleeping in tracked vehicle paths in Germany at night.
Guh, what a terrible way to go. May they RIP.
RIP to the 4 US Soldiers and prayers to their families!
Rollovers and sinkings in tracked vehicles kill servicemembers every year all around the globe. I f'ing hated all of the vehicles we used. Death traps in my eyes. Would rather walk my happy ass everywhere. The honor grad I had in boot camp drowned in Iraq when his M1A1 went off a bridge at night and my SOI class honor grad was killed in an LAV rollover just a few months after SOI during LAR course training. Then two more in turrets during rollovers in ambushes. Being a turret gunner was the worst job as a grunt.
I hate hearing news like this. My thoughts are with their families and may they rest in peace.
I hate hearing news like this. My thoughts are with their families and may they rest in peace.
I read that they somehow left the trail/road and went out onto a frozen lake and then fell through. With night vision and GPS I don't see how this could have happened, but it did. RIP.
My buddy had two of his platoon mates killed at 29 Palms during an exercise from getting run over by a tank. (Circa 1990). He said the tankers called the grunts "crunchies".Eliminatus said:
Rollovers and sinkings in tracked vehicles kill servicemembers every year all around the globe. I f'ing hated all of the vehicles we used. Death traps in my eyes. Would rather walk my happy ass everywhere. The honor grad I had in boot camp drowned in Iraq when his M1A1 went off a bridge at night and my SOI class honor grad was killed in an LAV rollover just a few months after SOI during LAR course training. Then two more in turrets during rollovers in ambushes. Being a turret gunner was the worst job as a grunt.
I hate hearing news like this. My thoughts are with their families and may they rest in peace.
Bless these soldiers and their families.
Russia has been actively jamming GPS in the region for the last couple of years. It's possible Russian jamming may have been a contributing factor to this accident.clarythedrill said:
I read that they somehow left the trail/road and went out onto a frozen lake and then fell through. With night vision and GPS I don't see how this could have happened, but it did. RIP.
And don't forget the Marine AAV drownings.
https://news.usni.org/2021/03/25/investigation-7-month-long-chain-of-failure-led-to-9-killed-in-aav-sinking
https://news.usni.org/2021/03/25/investigation-7-month-long-chain-of-failure-led-to-9-killed-in-aav-sinking
Get Off My Lawn said:
Also a very harsh reminder that mud remains a HUGE factor in warfare. The Marines cited mud as a significant factor for their divesting of tanks and other heavy vehicles (ignoring that the HIMARS launchers are heavy and prone to getting stuck in mud… and the logistics of their ammo is dramatically heavier than howitzers…). It remains the enemy of maneuver, a killer of speed, and can be incredibly hard for drivers to identify (is that just a slight depression or tall grass concealing a vehicle-consuming mud hole?)
And why the Cobra is still fitted with skids.
Interesting. One of those things the average Joe doesn't even think of with regard to military training and fighting.Get Off My Lawn said:
Also a very harsh reminder that mud remains a HUGE factor in warfare. The Marines cited mud as a significant factor for their divesting of tanks and other heavy vehicles (ignoring that the HIMARS launchers are heavy and prone to getting stuck in mud… and the logistics of their ammo is dramatically heavier than howitzers…). It remains the enemy of maneuver, a killer of speed, and can be incredibly hard for drivers to identify (is that just a slight depression or tall grass concealing a vehicle-consuming mud hole?)
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