United States Army
Basic Training Operating Instructions
Weapons Training - Practice & Record Fire
1. References: BCT POI 21-114, FM 23-9; USAARMC 385-22
2. Range layout is in appendix 1.
3. RM 9,10,11 will take place in sequential days normally alternating ranges every day. So, if RM 9 was on Ditto I then RM 10 would be on Ditto II and RM 11 would be back on Ditto I.
4. Soldiers normally take a bus out to Ditto Hill complex and may return by foot, if an 8k or 10k road march is desired.
5. Soldiers will ground their ruck sacks and attend a safety briefing in the bleachers. The cadre will receive a safety briefing by 3-81 in the target shack.
6. Place soldiers who are having difficulty shooting in the first firing order.
7. Soldiers will rod their weapon prior to entering the range and then place their weapons down by firing order next to the firing position on the foxhole cover.
8. The center safety will position drill sergeants throughout the range as safeties. The safeties will rod the weapons at the firing position before sending the soldier to be rodded a second time by the center safety.
9. Keep the soldiers in the same firing foxhole and ideally in the same firing order, to minimize the number of changes to the soldier. As at all ranges, privates are broken down into firing orders by platoon, so that their own drill sergeants safety them.
10. After firing, and being rodded twice, the soldiers will report to the ammo shack and stand on the numbered blocks corresponding to their firing point.
11. The 1SG or XO will get the computerized score from the tower and record it on a company alpha roster to maintain a centralized control of the scores.
a. The 1SG or XO will tell the soldier whether he qualified expert, sharpshooter, or marksman or whether he is unqualified.
b. Soldiers who qualify will go around the ammo shack and report to the Commander who will stand by the ammo shack with pre-made marksmanship badges on a table with a blue table cloth.
(1) The soldier will report his rank, name, and earned marksmanship badge.
(2) The commander will pin the marksmanship badge on the soldier’s left breast pocket and the soldier will be able to wear it for the rest of the day as well as place the camouflage cover on their kevlar helmet.
c. Those soldiers who do not qualify will report to the base of the tower to receive retraining prior to refiring.
12. After the initial fire, retraining must be conducted prior to refiring. Soldiers will be allowed one refire in the initial day of qualification, and only four qualification attempts in their current unit. After 4 attempts, soldiers will be Newstarted to another unit.
a. If still unqualified after the initial day, the soldier must be rescheduled with the next unit firing RM 11. If the soldier qualifies on RM 11 with another unit then they qualify. Soldiers cannot qualify on RM 9 or 10, as target arrays are different than RM 11.
13. Normally, shooting prior to 1000 is not recommended because of early morning fog and shadows. Shadows will also make detection more difficult after 1700.
14. The TNG NCO should update the EOC Briefing Slides NLT the day after BRM 11 and also submit:
a. Requests for those unqualified soldiers to re-zero and then refire with the next company to that company and the BN S3.
b. Immediately request more ammunition for the same on the appropriate days.
15. Our drill sergeants must accompany our unqualified soldiers to all ranges.
16. Bring dummy rounds for RM 9, one dummy round per magazine.
17. Drill Sergeants check the privates’ sights prior to coming on the range.
18. Drill Sergeants must plan for concurrent/reinforcement training to be conducted once soldiers are qualified and pulled off the line, and retraining for those who do not qualify.
Note: These Operating Instructions were derived from a set of SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for a United States Army Infantry Basic Training Battalion. While SOPs might differ somewhat from batallion to batallion, it should give a basic idea of the instructions that Drill Sergeants and basic training staff members operate under.
