ArmoredWarfare attracts players from all kinds of environments and many are activeservice members. One such player, Dennis, who goes by the nickname of ADSL on the forums, was kind enough toanswer some questions regarding his work – he is currently a Leopard 2 crewmember in the German army, the Bundeswehr.
AW吸引了来自各行各业的玩家，其中有不少玩家还是现役军人。Dennis就是其中一个，他的论坛昵称是ADSL。而他的工作则能够为我们解答一些问题，他是联邦德国国防军的豹二坦克成员

WHAT MADE YOU JOIN THE MILITARY?
什么催使你参军入伍呢？
I wasborn at the end the 70s in Germany and I had the chance to witness a lot ofmaneuvers and military activity in the area where we lived. In the woods nextto our house, there were a lot of soldiers and tanks, especially in the summermonths. Americans, the Dutch and, of course, a lot of Germans always hid theirstuff around there. It was a very different time then, the Cold War was in itsclimax and tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact were very open. I loved tojoin the soldiers together with my friends, share MREs, sit on an APC or a tankand so on. For the soldiers, it was also a different experience compared totheir regular duties and for some – especially those from the USA – it wastheir first direct confrontation with Germans. Many of the US soldiers came toGermany due to the REFORGER exercise and some had never been before. For me,this was when I decided that I wanted to be a tank crewmember.
我生于20世纪70年代末的德国，当时我有幸在我家附近亲眼目睹一系列的军事调动和演习活动。尤其是夏天时候总是会有很多的美军士兵，丹麦士兵当然还有德军士兵把他们的坦克等装备隐蔽在我家后面的树林里。那是一个和现在不同的年代，当时冷战正处于高潮阶段，北约和华约国家剑拔弩张。我和我的朋友们乐于加入到士兵们的休息当中，比如坐在坦克或者装甲车上分享MRE等等。对于这些士兵们，特别是那些的美国士兵们，这是他们第一次接触德国人的生活，而这带来了和日常任务不同的体验。很多美国士兵是因为REFORGER演习（REFORGER演习是部队重返德国(return offorces to Germany)的简写。REFORGER演习是冷战其间北约的年度演习。演习旨在确保北约能在不得不与华约发生冲突的情况下,快速部署部队到西德。）来过德国，而剩下的则是第一次来德国。对我而言，那个时候就是让我决定成为一名坦克车组成员的时候。

这就是那个大兄弟

Later inlife, after school and my first job apprenticeship, I decided to join theMilitary Forces in order to get a different view on things. I still lovedtanks; I was fascinated by their sheer size and loudness.
后来，我从学校毕业并结束了我第一份学徒工的时候，我决定参军，去见见世面。我仍然深爱着坦克，爱着他们庞大的身躯和引擎隆隆的轰鸣声

Joiningthe military in the late 90s was different to how it is now in Germany. Allyoung males usually had to to do 10 months of national service in the army (itwas greatly reduced after 1990) or in some social service if they didn’t wantto serve with weapons. But the 10-month service did not appeal to me: youcouldn’t really choose where to go, you had no chance to obtain higher ranksand of course the pay was really low. I decided to volunteer for a longerservice period, which was scalable (2 years, 4 years, 12 years) depending onwhat kind of profession and education you had. I chose to become an NCO(Unteroffzierslaufbahn), which came with a 4 year contract. I volunteered,passed all the tests and got to the planning recruiting manager, who asked me:
20世纪90年代后期的时候参军和现在参军有些不同。所有的男性需要在国防军中服10个月的义务兵役（在1990年之后大幅减少）如果不想扛枪也可以选择做一些社会服务工作。但是10个月的服役期并没有吸引到我，这期间你不能选择去哪里服役，没有机会晋升，当然工资也十分低。因此我决定做一名志愿兵，以延长自己的服役期。服役期根据自己所受的教育和职业有不同的延长程度（2年，4年，12年）。我选择成为一名士官（Unteroffzierslaufbahn），然后我拿到了4年的合同。自愿签署合同之后，我通过了所有的测试，到面试时候，募兵计划负责军官问我：
"Well,you passed everything and you can now choose almost anything apart fromParatrooper training, so where do you want to go?"
“嗯，你通过了所有的测试，现在你可以选择除了伞兵之外的所有的兵种，那么，你想去哪呢？”
And thefirst thing I said was:
我想到的第一个当然是：
“It doesn’t matter where in Germany, but I want to serve on the Leopard 2!”
“去德国哪里无所谓，但是我想在豹二上服役！”
to whichhe replied:
他是这么回答的：
“What,seriously? You can do anything, including joining higher ranks directly as apre-promoted NCO! This doesn’t apply for a tank crew career!”
“啥？你确定？你现在可以申请做任何事，包括以预备士官的身份参加更高级的军官培训，你当了坦克兵可没这机会”
I simplysaid:
我简单的回答了几句：
“I’mnot interested in getting merits without doing anything. And I don’t care if Iget dirty, just give me a tank!”
“我可不想无功受禄，另外我不怕干脏活，赶紧把我分到装甲部队上去！”

Well, 6months later, I started my tour of duty in one of the most famous and bestknown German Tank Battalions, the Panzerlehrbatallion 93 in Munster.
就这样，6个月后，我开始了在最著名的德国坦克团之一，驻明斯特的第93坦克团的服役生涯

就是这个坦克团，WIKI上说这个团装备的是L2A6，隶属于1st Panzer Division

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT SOME OF THE BEST MOMENTS OF YOUR SERVICE?
你能和我们说说你服役期间一些精彩的部分么？
Wellactually that is a good question, can you repeat it? I have some strange noisesin my ear!
当然，这是一个好问题，能不能再说一遍？我耳朵里有些杂音
Just kidding, despite the many rumors, we do wear ear protection under our speakerset. Yes, unbelievably we do use Ohropax ear protection inside our ears and theheadset on top. If you adjust it the right way, you are still able tounderstand incoming radio chatter, while also being protected against the bigboom of the gun.
当然，我是在开玩笑，为了防止噪声干扰，我们在佩戴通话装置的同时佩戴了耳塞，确实，你可能不信，我们用Ohropax耳塞塞住耳朵，然后再把通话装置戴在上面。如果调整得当，我们不仅能够听清电台里的指示，还能有效保护我们的耳朵，防止被主炮开火的噪声干扰。

Insidethe tank you honestly don’t hear the gun that much. It sounds surprising, butit’s true. You usually just hear a “Click – clonk”, which is caused by thebreech and the movement. The clonk sound is basically the bottom of the shellthat doesn’t burn and is falling into the casing basket.
在坦克里面，说实话不怎么能听到坦克开火时的动静。听起来有些扯淡，但是是真的。你通常只能听见“呵啦-呵隆”的动静，那是炮闩动作的声音。呵隆的动静是弹壳掉进弹壳收集器的声音

The othereffects are much more intensive, especially the shock directly after the shot.You feel the tank shake when the gunner presses the buttons and some dustusually comes into the tank via the open top hatches. There tends to be somesmoke coming through the open breech as well, while the loader rams anothershell inside.
而开火后的其他效果来的更猛烈些，特别是在开火后坦克的震动。当炮手摁下击发的按钮时，你可以明显感觉到坦克在晃动，当坦克的舱门打开的时候会有尘土跟着从敞开的舱门口中进来，而装填手在装弹是打开炮闩准备装入下一发弹药时还有些烟雾跟着进入车内。

The firstshot – that is an adventure. It’s like many other things humans do for thefirst time. They know what will happen, but they don’t actually know how it iswhen it happens.
第一次开火的时候，就像一个冒险。就像人第一次做其他事一样，他们知道会发生什么，但是不知道他是如何是什么时候发生。

NCOs orthe recruits who have chosen the NCO career path do their first shooting in atank during a special course. Every NCO who becomes a tank commander needs topass this course, we called it “NCO course part II” (Unteroffiziers LehrgangTeil II) and it usually starts about 9 months after you join the forces. Duringthe course you learn not just how to handle the tank – this you already trainedto do before – but how to train new soldiers on exactly that piece ofequipment, how to operate the tank correctly, how to command the loader, thedriver and the gunner. And, obviously, you receive additional training ingunnery.
士官们或者那些准备走士官这条路的新兵们，会在一个特别的训练上开出他们的第一炮。每一个准备成为车长的士官需要通过这项训练，我们称之为“士官训练的第二部分”(Unteroffiziers LehrgangTeil II) ，该项训练通常在参军后的9个月内进行。在此项训练中，已经不再是教你如何操纵坦克，因为你之前已经被训练过了，而是教你如何训练一个士兵，并把它训练成军队需要的那块料，如何指挥你的装弹手，驾驶员和炮手。当然你还需要接受额外的弹道学训练。

As thefinal step of the course, the NCO recruits participate in certificationshootings (ATN Schiessen). You must pass this step to receive the finalcertificate for becoming a gunner on the Leopard 2 MBT.
训练的最后一步，这些士官学员将会参加一个射击考核，你必须通过这个考核才能真正成为一个豹二主战坦克的炮手

SO, WHAT’S THE FIRST SHOT LIKE?
那么，第一次开火是什么感觉呢？
Actually, the day is full of excitement; most of us have already seen atank taking a shot. But the thrill in seeing your close comrades shooting andgetting closer to it with you being the next in the line is exhilarating. Andthen, you are in the gunner’s seat – in my case I was able to start my trialround on the gunner seat and then I was the loader for my comrade.
事实上，那天士官学员们充满了兴奋。我们大多数人已经见过了坦克开火的景象。但是当你的好兄弟在炮手席上开火而你就在后排做下一个准备时，那种即将到来的激动还是难以言表的。