Not A Blog™

Today marks the half way point through my combat training. It’s an approximate half way point. The training is somewhere between six and seven weeks; how soon we finish depends on a number of factors, most of them out of our control. But everyone has been talking about how we’re half way done already, so I’ll claim six weeks and go along with it.

The beginning of this week was a little slow. There is “white space” built into the schedule. These are days where nothing is officially scheduled, except the event that was happening on the previous day or two. Larger units take more time to get through the events. Since we’re only 25 people, we zip through things pretty quickly and end up with extra days. During these times we usually have some sort of ruck march or small unit maneuvers practice: throw all the gear on and walk a few miles through the shady streets of the base. (Yes, this includes both “shady” as in “under the shade of trees” and “shady” as in “disreputable”, seeing as how we took a walk around the prison here on base one day.) It’s not the most exciting thing that happens, but it’s important to get used to carrying around all the body armor. It’s not getting any lighter.

Things got interesting on Thursday. We finally got some range time. I had assumed that we would get practice range time before doing the qualifications. Nope. They jumped us right into all the qualifications, and only if you couldn’t make those within a reasonable period of time (four days), do they do remedial training. The quals aren’t difficult to pass, although it can be very difficult to do well. Ultimately, though, practice time wasn’t really needed and almost everyone qualified without much trouble. The M4 is a great rifle, and anything more than a few inches off center of mass is operator error. Besides that, we had beautiful weather for all four days at the range. It could have been raining and crappy and we still would have had to qual, but we had unbelievably perfect days.

The first thing we did on Thursday–first time firing the M4 for most of us–was zero in the sights. Zeroing required getting five shots in a two inch circle while in the supported prone position (the most stable) at 25 meters. The first time around, I got three in the circle and five touching the outer edge of the circle. Zeroing a rifle isn’t really something you want to rush, so I agreed with the sergeant when he told me I had to do it again. The second time around, I got it without a problem, only with a slightly wide group due to my inexperience with firing the thing.

Thursday evening we did the night fire qualification. Night fire is twenty rounds at a fifty meter target from the prone supported position. You have to hit 7/20. It’s simple during the day, but at night it’s almost impossible to even see if you’ve hit the target or not. Forget sighting in; it just doesn’t happen.

The way things went down, the first few groups shot before the sun went down completely. These people naturally shot almost all perfect twenties. When I got up to the line, there was just enough light to get successfully sighted in on the first target. I clamped down and just held that position without moving, knocking down the first ten. When we switched mags for the second set of ten, it was completely dark. I couldn’t see a thing, and trying to focus through the rear sight just left me looking a huge fuzzy black blob. The targets blink periodically, but even that light isn’t really enough to see through the iron sights. So I got as close as I could with the tracers (which look awesome at night), and ultimately scored 12/20–the last two being complete and utter luck. Not great, but not bad considering I was essentially shooting blind.

On the second day of shooting we did the day qualification and NBC. NBC stands for “Nuclear, Biological, Chemical”–basically any bad particulates in the air that necessitate donning a gas mask. The qual is 20 fifty meter targets, 10 to the right and 10 to the left, from a kneeling position with the gas mask on. 11/20 is passing.

We did the NBC qual first thing in the morning on Friday. I walked out to my lane on the firing line and waited for the command to get into position. While waiting, we had to load our own rounds into the mag. I could have sworn that one of the range officers said to load a single twenty round mag, but as I started to load it, one of the assistant instructors comes over and tells me I’m supposed to have two. Okay, I could be wrong. I load two. We were given two clips of ten and a speed loader. In theory, you lock the speed loader on the end of the magazine and slam all the rounds home in one quick push. In practice, I’m standing there, barely able to get anything shoved down into the mag. By the time I wedged the rounds in both mags with the speed loader, it probably would have taken less time to load them by hand.

I got into position. When the tower called “Gas! Gas! Gas!”, I pulled the mask out from its bag and strapped it on. Masks have to be on within thirty seconds after the call, then it’s lock and load, and the first target’s up. I hit the bolt home, sight in–a perfect sight picture right on target–flip off the safety and pull the trigger. And nothing. The Darth Vader-like sound of my breathing hissing through the mask accelerates. Double check the safety. On semi. Cycle the bolt. Nothing pops from the ejection port. I lock the bolt to the rear and check the chamber. The first round is jammed. Damn speed loader.

I cycle the bolt again, but the round is jammed in the top of the magazine, so I drop the mag and slap in the other one. Sight in, and the gun pops like it’s supposed to. By this point, I had missed five or six targets already. But all ten of the rounds I fire fly true, so I think I’m on my way to passing. I get to the end of that clip, drop it, and pick up the new one. Rap it once against my helmet, just like in the movies (they tell us not to do that, but it does work), lock and load, and–nothing. I pull the magazine out, and just as I’m manually sliding the first round out of the mag, the qual is over. 11/20 is passing, and I got 10. Figures. To make matters worse, I find out later that we were supposed to be using a single twenty round mag after all. The day was not off to a smashing start.

I knew I wouldn’t have any problem passing the qual because every target I shot at I hit. But I had to do it again, and explain to half a dozen drill sergeants why I didn’t pass the first time. I didn’t get another shot at it until the end of the day, after everyone had a few tries at the day qualification. But this turned out to work in my favor.

As part of the range safety briefs, the range officer sternly informed us that there was to be no photography on the range. I’m guessing this was done for two reasons: one, because people would probably be all over the place trying to get photos (especially our group. At least half of us have cameras), and two because it’s probably a safety issue. Everyone on the firing line has live ammo, and it’s no joke. So no pictures.

When I was ready to do the NBC qual for the second time, the drill sergeants insisted that everyone on the line have a mentor/spotter, regardless of the reason for failure in the first place. I got one of my friends–who’s also a shutterbug–to join me, ostensibly as my spotter, but really to take pictures. He got off a few quick shots and a short video. It wasn’t exactly permitted, but as the range officer is fond of saying, no harm no foul. And sure enough, the second time through, I scored a perfect 20/20.

The day qualification was certainly the hardest of the bunch. Passing is 23/40. You get 40 rounds for 40 targets, from 50 to 300 meters, in various positions including prone supported, prone unsupported and kneeling. They pop up for varying amounts of time (from two seconds at 50 meters to eight seconds at 300), and sometimes two at a time. So even though 23/40 seems like a low score (percentage wise, it’s only 57.5% of the targets), it’s a fair challenge to hit.

The first time I ran the course, I got 18/40. This is not bad for someone who had fired less than 100 rounds up to that point. Everyone told me I would have no trouble getting it, but I got overconfident and nervous for the second round and only scored 16/40. But the third time’s the, as they say, charm, and I walked away with 24/40. Not any sort of spectacular score, but passing, which is what matters. I even got two of the four 300 meter targets, which is pretty cool. Those suckers are far.

This morning was the final M4 qual: reflexive fire. It involves walking, turning and shooting from various positions and various distances. Passing was 15/40 rounds in the white area of the target. (See the picture in this week’s album.) I started off too hasty, pulling a few shots off to the left, although they were still within the white area. After I settled down, I got a pretty nice grouping center of mass, and then just for fun, I went for head shots with my last two rounds.

All in all, it was a very successful week. I passed all of my required qualifications with the M4, and had a lot of fun doing it. We still need to qualify on the M9 sidearm (hopefully next week), and we should be getting more range time just to practice with the rifle, so I’ll be out there again. Can’t wait.

-Ted