We started off on Tuesday because of the Memorial Day weekend. I went home to see the little monkey and Andrea. That was SO GREAT!! I got to see her walk!!! Oh, man that was amazing. I'll include some photos. I've been away before, but I did not realize, really realize, just how much I missed my wife and daughter until I saw them at the airport.
When I returned from my weekend with the family, we had a long week of shooting qualifications on the M9 pistol and M4 rifle. We started the day about 05:00 and finished at 01:30. The first range was the M9 pistol. I went with the first group and shot only a 19 out of 30 shots. I asked to try again and they let me. I knew that I could do better.
I love to shoot. I would have shot again even if it hadn't counted for qualification. The second run went much better. I scored a 30 out of 30 on that attempt.Once we were finished there, we moved onto the M4 rifle range. There, we had to first 'zero' in our rifles. That means we had to shoot a very specific target and adjust our sights until we shot 3 shots into a 4cm circle at 25 yards. It took me a while because my range coach didn't really know what he was doing. He was the guy who was supposed to adjust my sights as I shot. A senior enlisted came over and relieved my coach. Once that was done, I was zeroed in about 15 minutes. After I zeroed my sights I moved over to the qualification range. This was much more difficult. We had to shoot from 3 positions: standing, prone unsupported and kneeling. At this too, I went twice. The first time I scored a 29 of 40 shots. The second time I shot a 31 of 40. The kneeling position was the most difficult for me. My knees were 'screaming' at me at 3/4 of the way through the qualification round. I could have shot again, but I knew that I was too tired to try again. Also, I knew that we had to shoot again at night for qualification with our Night Vision Goggles. I had never done any shooting with those before.
The night shoot was interesting. Again, I shot twice.
This time it was because my rifle malfunctioned and it had to be removed from the range. An Armorer had to break down my weapon to remove a live bullet from the chamber that had become lodged hard in the weapon. On the second round, I did pretty well. I scored a 33 of 40 shots at a qualification that I had never attempted before.
The following week found us learning our communication (COMMS) gear and ended with us shooting at the machine gun range. The communications portion, I found, to be fairly easy. I used to be a Crypto Material account manager, so I was familiar with how to load the encryption keys. Being a surface warfare officer, I've had a good amount of experience with using radios of many types. I just have to get used to doing it the "Army" way. Mostly, it just involves using a different type of 'speak' and vocabulary.
The Machine Gun Range was a lot of fun and it was
also one of the longest days of our training to date. We were there for 26 hours! Afterwards we still had class the following morning. Gratefully, the Battery Cdr had the afternoon classes moved to another day. This gave us some much needed time to sleep and recuperate. The course of fire for the day was instructional fire and qualification of our M2 .50 cal, M240 7.62mm, and our M249 5.56mm machine guns. Additionally, we had to conduct instructional (or familiarization) fire on the AK-47, PKM (Automatic version of the AK-47), and the Dragunov Sniper Rifle. The first thing that we had to do was to zero in the M240.
The M240 is a 7.62mm machine gun. This is a massive machine gun. Not as large as a .50 cal machine gun but it gets the message across. We separated our teams into primary and alternate gunners for the different weapons. I have only 8 people on my team, so most of my team became an assigned gunner of some sort. I had two personnel assigned to the M2 .50 cal, and 2 personnel for the M240 and two more to the M249. The two personnel assigned to the M249 had to qualify on the M240 as well. The M249 is like a 5.56mm version of the M240 anyway.
Once we had the M240 zeroed in, we changed it over to the qualification range and mounted it to our 'Up-armored' HMMWV. This weapon is not that difficult to shoot accurately, so the qualification time for all of the teams there wasn't that long. The problem came afterwards. The Range personnel realized that many of the qualification ranges were broken from the previous days storms. The repair of these lanes and change-over to the .50 cal qualification targets required almost 4 hours of down-time. The .50 cal is one of the more difficult weapons systems to qualify on because it is an 'area' weapon meant mainly for suppressive fire. However, when you qualify you have to prove accuracy on a weapon not known for accuracy. I quickly learned that I am not meant to be a .50 gunner. I hit 3 of 10 targets and qualification is 6/10. Maybe with time and more instruction, I could get good enough, but not that day. Some people are naturals at it. I had some of those on my team, so I was able to have the two that I needed to qualify. I had already assigned myself to the M249. I qualified with a 7/10 on the M240 earlier in the day, so I wasn't worried about that.
While we waited for the main range to be repaired,
I spent my time shooting the Russian weapons that they had there. As I said, I love to shoot and the opportunity to shoot some weapons that I would not normally be able to shoot was too good to pass up. I really appreciated the simplicity of the weapons and how reliable they are. It makes me wonder why we do not build our weapons to be so simple and reliable? The Sniper rifle was really impressive. The Dragunov is world renown for its accuracy. It fires a .308 round. Even with iron sights, I could accurately hit the target past 400 meters.
Once the range was repaired, we still required most of the afternoon to get our .50 cal gunners qualified. Once during the shoot, we had to stop because some moron of a pilot decided to fly into our restricted airspace. That took about 1 1/2 hours to get the space cleared and resume firing. Once we were completed with our instructional and qualification fires, we had to remain at the range and wait until 21:00 to resume our shooting. We were required to shoot and qualify again on our M2 and M240 machine guns at night using thermal sights.
To add to our time as well, there were about 30 Army soldiers who were added to our numbers because they were not able to qualify at their original date due to storms and tornadoes. I was quickly reassured that I am NOT a .50 cal gunner! I thought that the day shoot was difficult. The night shoot was almost impossible for me. The .50 cal has a considerable recoil when firing. Well, when you have the thermal sight on, you have to keep your eye pressed to the sight to keep it on. It turns off every time you take your eye off of the eye piece. So, you end up 'riding' the recoil every time you shoot so you can keep your sights on. You have to do this as well with the M240, but the recoil is no where near comparable to the M2 .50 cal and it's very manageable.
The M240 was a great shoot! I had 10 targets come up, and 10 went down. Once I had my orientation confirmed for my lane, I couldn't miss. The biggest problem I had was people who were confused shooting into my lane. I could have found this useful had they actually been able to hit my targets. As it were, they missed and I just found them to be a distraction.
I am currently at my parents house in Oklahoma. My wife and daughter flew in from Virginia and we are spending a four-day weekend together. I have to leave tomorrow to drive back, but it's been great to see them and for my parents to spend some time with the little monkey! My Dad hadn't yet met our daughter until now. She seems to have taken to him fairly well. She doesn't usually warm up well to those she first meets.
Next week is Urban Combat Training. We learn to set security at checkpoints and how to kick in doors and clear rooms. This should prove interesting because we will be shooting simulated type rounds that have a marking on them and we'll be shooting at other people. I am interested in how people will really react to shooting a real person and being shot at as well. I am interested in seeing how I'll react to it as well. First time for everything.
Anywho, I need to get going. Taking the wife and daughter to a water park!!
I'll do better in my updates in the future!
Later!
