Weapons Qualifications

One thing the Army does well is build firing ranges. Last week those of us who were issued M9 pistols qualified with them on very cool pop-up range. The targets were man-sized, three dimensional shapes painted green (think life-sized toy army men). Sensors in the target actuators tell whether or not you hit it. If so, it falls down; if not, it stays up mocking you.

The course of fire involved numerous magazine changes and even movement forward to engage the targets. To aid in target acquisition, every other lane's targets had heads that were painted white. The result made them resemble Imperial Stormtroopers. I found it amusing. Unfortunately, I was assigned a lane where the targets were painted green missing out on a boyhood fantasy of playing Star Wars for real. I qualified nonetheless.

After qualifying on pistols we went to another high-speed range to practice qualify with our M16A2 rifles. The range had pop-up targets ranging from 50 to 300 meters which also were equipped with sensors that not only registered a hit but where on the target the bullet hit. We got immediate feedback and Army instructors made additional adjustments to our rifles.

Today, we qualified for real on the rifles on another range. Same set of pop-up targets but this time no feedback other than knocking the targets down if we hit it. The course of fire is forty rounds and forty targets ranging from 50 to 300 meters. I'm happy to report I can hit a man-sized target at 300 meters with plain iron sites (most of the time) with the crappy loaner M16 the Army gave me. We ran the qualification several times and I qualified on each one.

Later this week, we get to try out heavy weapons such as the M2 .50 caliber machine gun, Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) and the M19 Grenade Launcher. Good times.