Is weapon familiarization still a thing when not able to fire the qualification course?

2023-07-28T10:44:06-04:00

It used to be that what a soldier did when there was no ability to do the qualification course. I read now WQ is an important administrative thing, even the weapons card is used for recording it now rather than to account for a weapon not in arms room. Speaking of which, does the Army still have carbine and rifle bars for marksmanship badges.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 28 at 2023 1:27 PM

2023-07-28T13:27:07-04:00

speaking for the Reserve Component, our unit has been so limited on funding that we only pull the weapons out for annual qualifications (and primarily for the purpose of promotion boards). We do basic familiarization leading up to the range, but that's about it. We also do still have the bars under the marksmanship badge.

Response by CSM William Everroad made Jul 31 at 2023 8:04 AM

2023-07-31T08:04:49-04:00

MAJ Ronnie Reams, depends on the unit. The Commander sets the training priorities for the next TY. Weapons training can be one of those. The downside is there are competing priorities from BDE and higher that may take hours away that a Commander would normally devote to "weapons familiarization".

A Commander can schedule BRM and ARM, potentially even a QR range, but when "defending" the training events to higher (to get resources allocated), they have to have clearly defined training objectives and end states. The better the brief the higher the likelihood that the events will get approved and resources (ammunition) will get allocated. I have not had an issue scheduling BRM and ARM each FY for units where it made sense, but I have seen units that spend a bunch of bullets and did not move the needle in any appreciable way on WQ or CSWQ. It's one of the reasons the Army spent so much money on virtual trainers. Now Commanders can do familiarization on the cheap and spend bullets qualifying.

Gone are the days where a Commander can just say they want to pull 200 weapons and shoot them at the trees for "familiarization".

Response by SFC Casey O'Mally made Aug 6 at 2023 9:48 AM

2023-08-06T09:48:42-04:00

From what I have seen, fam fire serves very little purpose in today's Army. When we were going over the berm in the wild, wild west of OIF 1, even then we were only allowed to allocate weapons to those who had a qualification with that weapon on record. If one of our three .50 gunners was on leave, the second was already on mission, and the third was on guard duty, we were scrambling to find a guard duty replacement so we could roll. Someone who had previously qualed with a .50 would not cut it - current qual only.

Sure, it helps to have people familiar with the weapon in case that gunner gets shot - but you may as well go ahead and qualify them, because they cannot be used in mission planning otherwise.

And that was back when there were very few rules. It has only gotten worse since then.