Challenge, fun the target of month-long competition
Challenge, comfort and C7 skilz are all in the crosshairs, as 14 Wing Greenwood’s command team, with Readiness Training Flight, pushes personnel to pick up their military rifle this month.
Through February, wing members are encouraged to sign up for the two-part competition: an in-class modified C7 training session, followed by a scored shoot in the small arms trainer (SAT).
“Everyone is expected to maintain readiness levels,” says 14 Wing’s Chief Warrant Officer Justin Harper, taking in his own class session February 4, “and, there are expected tasks that all determine when you need to be ready,” including high-profile visitors to the wing, security level changes and deployments.
“Every year, you should be going to the SAT range and taking the opportunity to get to the live fire range. This is the expectation in the military: you have to be comfortable around guns.”
Military members get a thorough education during their initial basic training, with follow-on regular reinforcement trainings. The wing and Readiness Training Flight, which manages the C7 training and SAT time, are laying down a little extra challenge.
“You’ll be looking at a field, targets will come up and they’ll drop, or they’ll drop when you hit them. Some are real easy, some are moving, crossing left and right – you’ll be leading the target; between 50 metres and 300 metres away. You’ll be prone and standing and have three seconds to put a shot in the target,” says RTF instructor Petty Officer First Class Mark Feetham, Readiness Training Flight.
“I’m a pretty good shot, and I didn’t even shoot as good as I’d like.
“It’s going to be fun. This is a competition: we absolutely had to make it tough.”
The top-five scores through 16 exposures and 20 rounds in the SAT will move into a spring competition on the live fire range in Granville, and the trophy’s already picked out.
Feetham says the pre-SAT shoot class session is a refresher on weapons handling basics, including drills of working in the shooting “workspace,” loading and clearing the C7, and safety precautions – all of which could also come up in the competition scenarios.
“Weapons-handling skills are very perishable skills – you need to do this regularly to be comfortable with a weapon: handling it, manipulating it, fixing it. At the end of the day, there’s always the possibility you could be called upon to use it.”
14 Wing members keen to test their aim in the competition may sign up via the links in both the internal wing Teams site or through the bi-weekly wing newsletter.
