I think that the “fire five rounds off the fantail” course of qualification went away in the early ‘80s.Originally Posted by TGS
I think that the “fire five rounds off the fantail” course of qualification went away in the early ‘80s.
If we have to march off into the next world, let us walk there on the bodies of our enemies.
My brother reported this to me in the 2000s. He made a special effort to point out the difference between the fleet warfare qual to stand watch with a firearm vs the ribbon he had for shooting a given score on a bullseye course.
ETA: Maybe @Trooper224 can ask his son that recently left the Navy. My brother has been in port assignments for a while, so I don't think he would have any updated info.
Last edited by TGS; 09-22-2021 at 07:47 PM.
"Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll."- Last words of Todd Beamer
Heck, I did that on a tiger cruise. Didn’t know I was qualified. ;-)
I never fired an M9 or M11 or any other military-owned pistol while in the military. I carried an M9 an awful lot in theater, and occasionally an M11. I had spent the time and money on my own to be a bit more than familiar with pistol shooting and with those specific pistols. I am a much better pistol shooter now.
Hip pocket training with that unit while stuck at an airfield waiting on an aircraft to carry us where we needed to go included working with every weapon in the unit to refresh how they worked, even though we may not have had any ammunition to shoot
One day in theater, while walking up to a building where weapons had to be cleared at clearing barrels before entry, I watched a line of VIP visiting officers and senior NCOs clearing their M9s. I arrived at the back of the line where a female O4 was hanging back, letting everyone else go ahead and finish and enter the building before she pulled out her M9.
And stared at the thing, like it was a completely foreign contraption she had no idea what to do with. And then she started poking it with her support hand index finger. The muzzle was pointing off God knows where. I, a bearded gent with a ponytail and civvies (I was on a special assignment) stepped up next to her unaware of her surroundings person, reached over and wrapped my hand around the slide and trigger guard and took it right out of her hand.
“Ma’am, why don’t you let me remind you how this works, okay?” And then proceeded to demonstrate every control, the sequence of loading and unloading, showed her the opening in the clearing barrel and said, “always put the muzzle in that hole before you start this stuff,” handed it back and had her do it three times in a row. After she finished the third time, she thanked me and went on to do her VIP tour.
That spoke volumes to me about how much the military values training on the pistol: I had never officially qualified with one, but was handed one to carry as needed due to demonstrated competence with them, and someone issued one as her only weapon had to get taught by me on a FOB in a crappy third world hell hole how to not shoot herself or someone else while trying to use a clearing barrel.
I remember those days as well. Even Ruger was butthurt that they didn't win.
Now Sig seems to be receiving a lot of the same hate. You can't please them all I guess.
-Seconds Count. Misses Don't-
What is the cause of this I wonder? Legacy locations of established bases that used to be more isolated, but are now surrounded by development? Or is it something else?
Oh god, imagine if the P85 somehow managed to win? I wonder how it would have held up through the years in service.
Some of the reasons you cited plus many others.
One issue is simply building out the available land on the base. The area necessary for ranges is much larger than you think:
For safety purposes, each munitions training range is associated with a safety buffer area, called a surface danger zone (SDZ).
What is a Surface Danger Zone?
An SDZ is an area associated with a training range that is designed to protect people during weapons training. It may include land, water, and airspace. When a range is in active use, the SDZ is an exclusion area that is strictly controlled and could contain projectiles, fragments, or components from firing, launching, or detonating weapons and explosives.
An SDZ is comprised of three parts:
1. Weapons Firing Position: Position from which the munitions are fired.
2. Impact Area: The target or intended area of munitions impact where munitions and munitions fragments are expected to land.
3. Secondary Danger Area: A safety buffer area where fragments from munitions may land.
Code of Federal Regulations (Corps of Engineers, Department of the Army, Part 334 Danger Zones and Restricted Area Regulations, Section 440).
These regulations include safety procedures to ensure that the SDZs are clear of all personnel during training, and that the public is notified when training is conducted. The Department of Defense's current regulations require that SDZs be calculated so that there is only a one-in-one-million chance that munitions or munitions fragments would land outside the secondary danger area.
As you can see even common small arms require an SDZ of 3,000 to 4,000 meters .50 cal requires over 6,000 meters SDZ. That just what the .MIL considers "small."
Locally we have access to two military bases, technically three separate facilities all part of the same Joint base.
At one of these, we can only shoot pistol, shotgun and frangible 5.56 because some genius built base housing in the SDZ for regular rifle and MG ammo.
The other two are contiguous but are so full of old un exploded ordnance from WWII and Korea much of the training area is off limits. There is a 1,000 yard rifle range which was in use for years and is now limited to 100 yards because UXO was discovered buried in the range....
This second facility is also in the extended flight path of the local airport. No live fire may be conducted is any aircraft passing over head within view is under 3,000 feet. If there is cloud cover below 3,000 feet no live fire is permitted.
A good overview of SDZ can be found here: http://tacsafe.net/resources/range/i...angerzones.pdf
Last edited by HCM; 09-23-2021 at 01:27 AM.
Double Tap
Last edited by HCM; 09-23-2021 at 01:26 AM.
It probably would have done fine. Sure, I like the M9 more, and now mostly carry and shoot a Glock, but the Ruger would be just as easy to not shoot very much and not really know how to effectively use for most service people as the M9, M11, M17, or anything else.
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