You mean they have you qualify on the 6-sillouette practice target? The qual targets have 10 sillouettes on them. Oh well, you don't need to qualify in boot camp in order to graduate. Yup, I'm serious about that. In the Marines, if you went unk, you were put back 2 weeks until you did qualify but in the air force, just firing is good enough.
One other thing has changed since you went to boot camp is that now you are going to be firing with the flack jackets, battle rattle and helmets as well as of Feb 07. Here's the AFQC course of fire:
20 rounds divided into 4, 5-round magazines for zero.
30 rounds divided into 10, 3-round magazines for practice. You start in the prone supported, fire 3 rounds, reload and fire your second 3-round magazine within 50 seconds...if the tower operator is keeping track of the time. You repeat this same 2, 3-round magazines in 50 seconds for the prone unsupported, kneeling supported and over baracade positions. Next you put on your gas mask and with those last 2, 3-round mags, engage those 6 sillouettes in 90 seconds.
50 rounds divided into 5, 4-round magazines and 10, 3-round magazines for qualification. We usually start with the gas mask to get that portion out of the way and for this phase you have 120 seconds. You fire your first 4-round magazine at the bottom 4 sillouettes (I tell my shooters to imagine running the bases), reload and fire your first 3-round magazine at the top left side 3 targets, reload with that second 3-round magazine and fire at the top right 3 targets. You then repeat this same course of fire for the prone supported, prone unsupported, kneeling supported and over baracade positions but for these other 4 positions, you have a 90 second time limit.
Really, we don't care how you fire your rounds but when we score the targets, we can only count 5 hits per sillouette. I've told students before (and a time or two was ignored or goldfish syndrome set in and they did it anyways) that if you fire all 50 rounds at Captain Crunch's brain housing group because it's a big easy one to hit, you are walking out of here with a score of 5...and UQ.
Speaking of scoring, qualifying isn't all that difficult. If you are gunning for expert, you need to get a 43 out of 50. It's not all that hard to do, believe me! Now just to qualify, out of 50 chances, if you are a Cat. A shooter, cops, OSI, PSs, TAC-P, etc. you need to score a minimum of 32. Cops now shoot the TRQC course of fire and they need an 18 out of 30 but that's a different course of fire. Cat. B shooters, mainly flyers, arms couriers, some CE types (Redhorse comes to mind) need to score a 25 out of 50 or hit one round for every one they miss. Now you get to your Cat. C shooters, the cooks, and bakers and candlestick makers, pretty much everybody else in the air force need to score a whopping 19 out of 50 chances to shoot a glorified gopher at 25 meters. That's 38% in case you want to run the numbers so no, we don't ask a lot out of these people. Mainly, it's just load it, shoot it and preferebly not shoot yourself or one of my instructors (point a gun at me BTW and I point a gun at you but the difference is mine's loaded
) and then take it apart, clean it, put it back together and hope it works again. Like I said, small arms aren't really taken all that seriously in the air force. It was after Kimpo in 1951 when Gen. LeMay began SAMTU but that history isn't taught and those lessons have been long forgotten. It's going to take sadly, another incident similar to Kimpo to wake these people I'm afraid.
Want a shorter class? Ain't gonna happen and as a matter of fact, expect it to be a full week or more. Dope off in the class and you are going to get hemmed up in short order and have some commanders that will start putting some bite into firing line failures. Did you know that if you fail to qualify after 3 attempts, it's a command decision as to weather or not you are fit for duty and can be discharged? I've never seen this actually happen though however I've seen one MSgt. come through our firing line 8 freakin' times here last year!
