In spite of running through a
full range at Camp McCrady, we’ve done it again here at Ft. Lewis, only with more pain: a day of M16 preliminary marksmanship training, a day of M16 electronic simulation training (EST), and a very long day at the range.
I will say that the EST (not ElectroShock Therapy, but Electronic Simulation Training), was a very cool experience: a large motorpool had been converted into an electronic battlefield with converted M16 weapons (machine guns and anti-tank weapons, too, but not for us). The entire North wall was a computer-projected rifle range, and 18 of us at a time went through the process of zeroing our weapons, then engaging pop-up targets…just like what we’d do the next day on the live range. I’m sure it saves the Army a lot of ammunition, improves safety, and improves the scores of everyone who runs through it.
Our day on the range was Saturday. We got our weapons out of the vault at 7am, and were zeroing our weapons by 8am. That involves centering the sights and getting 6 shots in a row within a 2” circle at 25 meters. By 10am, we started moving to the qualification range where we had targets from 50 meters to 300 meters…similar to Camp McCrady, but a better range. We also put on our protective masks (the chemical agent breathing filters), and fired 20 rounds at 50 meter targets. Then we waited 3 hours for nightfall, and fired tracer rounds at 50 meter targets. That part was awesome! I wish I could have video taped it, but
YouTube provides a good M16 nightfire reference . The bullets start really whizzing around 1:18 seconds in this 7 minute clip.
