About 8 months ago I wrote about the new US Army rifle qualification, the changes to individual weapons qualification courses outlined in TC 3-20.40, the US Army’s marksmanship training guide for all individual weapon systems. It goes into excruciating detail on the tasks and individual responsibilities for running the ranges and all the lead up work.
It’s an overwhelming amount of information, most of which the individual soldier needs to know about 10% of any given portion. Estimates of how many soldiers can be run through a range with X lanes (assuming they’re working) if they keep administrative times to Y minutes aren’t that important to anyone except the couple of folks in charge of herding the cats.
What is important however, and what is buried in Appendix E of TC 3-20.40, is the list of tasks the individual soldier is responsible for completing in order to qualify. There are six tables of “fire”, three of which involve live fire, and the amount of rounds required to do them properly has gone up from the last qualification.
More rounds fired equates to more repetitions for the soldier. More good repetitions means better retention of good shooting techniques.
Today’s video goes over the body mechanics of Table VI, the qualification, and by proxy Table V, the practice qualification. More videos may follow this one, going into detail on the other tables either live on a range or just academically.
