German Navy at my TINY Gym

Hi All,

I went to the gym the other day and about dozen men I'd never seen before were there as well. Now keep in mind there's 1 gym, maybe a dozen restaurants/fast food joints, 1 grocery store and a Walmart in town. After I had been there a while I began talking to one of the guys.

Long story short he and his team are with the German Navy.

"Members of an elite German military unit called Kampfschwimmers, or "combat swimmers," similar to the U.S. Navy SEALs, leap from an airplane thousands of feet above Fayette County as part of their annual training at West Tennessee Skydiving."

Now this may be "annual training" but it just seems sooo strange. I mean one town over there are more hotels, restaurants and even a military base that's partially operational.

Now I came across an article with more info. LINK HERE

Maybe I'm naive but if you're combat swimmers why are you near NO water or pools of any kind (no pool at the gym) in the middle of nowhere really, in the ungodly heat and humidity here. I don't understand how a foreign military unit leader just wakes up one day and thinks "lets go to Oakland/Sommerville, TN for training". I realize they do desert jobs as well but still.

I would think it would be more important to practice skydiving into water if you're combat swimmers.


Anyway, just found it odd. Thought I'd share.







[edit on 21-6-2010 by Bachrk]

Troops from all nations practise all over the world.
It's a normal thing.

Dutch spec-ops train in the jungle, American desert, jungles and so on.
It's because you must train your craft in every kind of climate.

Originally posted by locster
Troops from all nations practise all over the world.
It's a normal thing.

Dutch spec-ops train in the jungle, American desert, jungles and so on.
It's because you must train your craft in every kind of climate.

Well if this is the case I'd never want to meet them in a dark alley. These guys have to be almost super human to run up to 12 miles/day in our heat.
Seriously the heat here is as close to smothering as you could get. There are no breezes.

Read Andy Mcnabs book about SAS training - his specifically. The jumpers in the SAS are known as the Sunshine boys because of their perpetual tans.

They have to train where the weather is pretty much guaranteed clear and fair - you don't get that guarantee in Europe I can promise you. i think Andy mentions about 7 places he and the team went and jumped - then sat and ate ice cream topping up their tans.

One more sign of foreign troops building up in the area surrounding the Gulf of Mexico. It makes perfect sense if martial law is in the works. Your papahs pleeze!

reply to post by Asktheanimals


'paperein bitte' in German, for papers please, I think, forgot most of what I learnt, 'haande hoch'
for hands up, 'halt', for 'stop' 'links'=left, recht,=right.
Phonetic Russian for hands up is 'rooky verch' just in case anyone needs to know.

That's a very interesting article and I think it answers all the questions posed in the OP.

It sounds like their current mission in Afghanistan is more like Marine Recon than what they're accustomed to in their normal areas of operations.



[edit on 2010/6/21 by GradyPhilpott]

Correcto, they are called "combat swimmers" but they are really like our Marine Recon units. The German Navy also has some sort of battalion size amphibious infantry unit but I am not sure what they are called.