Navy folks, question about firearms qualifications

[Beachmaster]

In the late 80s early 90s in the USN (submarines), while standing CDO in-port, I was ordered to have the topside watches throw their small arms over the side if Greenpeace rushed our ship.

I call BS.

First, its a BOAT, not a SHIP. If you were really a bubblehead you would know that.

Second, the US Navy would not allow Greenpeace or any other group to climb aboard a ship or submarine AT ANY TIME! Back when I was in (as an amphibious sailor), I had a hard enough time trying to get aboard a sub for a tour with a friend, and I was IN THE NAVY! Subs have some of the highest security in the world because they have a lot of classified stuff onboard. Repelling unauthorised boarders is a standing order, not at the whim of a junior officer or political corectness.

And last, any watchstander is required to "take control of" and protect their weapons at all times. No sailor on watch would toss a weapon over the side, unless the order came directly from the Commanding Officer. Even then, I would have questioned the order as it would have run contrary to the standing orders.

 

[Boanerges57]

little doc,
my bad on forgetting about the medics with the marines. I have never seen an army patrol with navy medics though. Most of the navy medical personnel I have seen or had contact with are on the larger FOBs and medical facilities. Ive heard that there are some navy medivac crews. I hope for her sake that she gets a nice big army or airforce base to live on, they tend to have very nice permanent party living quarters and facilities.

 

[eltorrente]

In the late 80s early 90s in the USN (submarines), while standing CDO in-port, I was ordered to have the topside watches throw their small arms over the side if Greenpeace rushed our ship.

I was on subs in the late 80s and early 90s (USS DRUM (SSN 677)), and there's no way this was an order. NO WAY.

We went to San Francisco during fleet week one year and Greenpeace was there to "greet" us as we sailed in. They all gave us the finger and taunted us as we cruised by them.

We were taught to pull our guns and shoot any boarders, and defending the boat (not ship) was one of the conditions for the use of deadly force. A group like Greenpeace would have been watched closely and they wouldn't have gotten close enough anyway. Actually what would likely happen if they actually did get manage to get close is that we would simply go below decks and close the hatches, and let security deal with them.

Also, I should say that there is a crazy amount of paperwork involved for losing weapons and ammo. Losing just one, single bullet over the side of the boat would require the same paperwork as if you "misplaced" a torpedo.

 

[littledoc]

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Things have changed. For the better. Someone must have figured out it may be a good idea to actually listen to the chiefs.

But there are still two courses of fire available. One for the ribbon and a (slightly) harder one for the devices/medal.

It is now called a certification, not qualification. It makes sense, one has to qualify for his watchstation, DC, warfare pins and such. It keeps the wording in line with that.

The basic qualification course is a little harder than the old famfire, which is good.

Qualifying for a weapon in the military is NOT becoming proficient with a firearm.

Ain't it the truth. Even the Marine course of fire is just an exercise in marksmanship. Infantry is taught how to fight, but its a job all by itself. If we tried to teach everyone their regular jobs wouldn't get done.

...when on board ship had to stand medical watch while others qualified of the ship, and if they knew the gunners chief, got to shoot extra ammo up

The Naval Regulations were amended about the time of Desert Shield. Regulation 0845, which gave us noncombatant status, was changed to give the Skipper discretion and we are no longer prohibited from standing a non medical watch.

Back to the thread: It may be worth a general handgun class before she ships out.

The best organized training is still in the private sector.

 

[eltorrente]

I call BS.

First, its a BOAT, not a SHIP. If you were really a bubblehead you would know that.

I gotta agree here. NO self-respecting submariner would EVER refer to his boat as a "ship"! It's engrained in our minds early on, and becomes a source of pride.

Also, he referred to his watch as a "CDO". In port, there was a Duty Chief, and a Duty Officer - not a Chief Duty Officer. Never heard either of those watches referred to as CDO.

 

[TonyK]

Certification, qualification, tomato, tom-AH-to, who cares right? Stupid Navy bueara-speak.

But there are still two courses of fire available. One for the ribbon and a (slightly) harder one for the devices/medal.

I don't know about the other branches, but when it comes to ribbons and medals, assuming you qualified, you have three "levels", marksman, sharpshooter, and expert. You are given this "title" depending on your score on the first static target shooting course. If you score high enough to make "expert", than you can wear the expert medal. You don't do a seperate cours for that.

Things have changed. For the better. Someone must have figured out it may be a good idea to actually listen to the chiefs.

Well, that's matter of perspective now isn't it?

Also, I should say that there is a crazy amount of paperwork involved for losing weapons and ammo. Losing just one, single bullet over the side of the boat would require the same paperwork as if you "misplaced" a torpedo.

Don't forget the subsequent re-training of all the weapons, weapons handling, weapons safety, ORM, re-qualifications, GMT, watchstanding principles, weapons turnover, and the implementation of a turnover log..at the armory, quarterdeck, even at ATG. LOL!!!

Also, he referred to his watch as a "CDO". In port, there was a Duty Chief, and a Duty Officer - not a Chief Duty Officer. Never heard either of those watches referred to as CDO.

Ummm....I've never heard of a CHIEF Duty Officer before either, but I HAVE heard of a COMMAND Duty Officer, and that's because us surface folk have them. I assume it's the equivelant of your (subs) Duty Officer.

 

[eltorrente]

I assume it's the equivelant of your (subs) Duty Officer.

Yeah, I think so. Our Duty Officer was the only officer onboard inport (at least during non-work hours/overnight) and had overall command/responsibility in port. The Duty Chief was the Chief (and possibly a qualified E6) that was responsible for maintaining/assigning the watches and dealing with most topside watch activities.

 

[littledoc]

my bad on forgetting about the medics with the marines. I have never seen an army patrol with navy medics though.

It's cool. Quite a few of my old shipmates are getting volunteered to go with the Army. The Nav is so short they are offereing $20,000 for prior service HM 8404. And I may be dumb enough to take it. I just need to loose a little more weight.

Edit to Add:
TonyK-

I just downloaded the Instruction. They have dumbed it down, haven't they? Maybe they didn't listen to the chiefs after all. 15 yds is crazy, the brow can be longer than that.

Maybe I spent too much time with the Marines....

 

[brerrabbit]

I also call shenanigans on the throwing the handguns over. I was sub sailor in the late eighites/early nineties.

Greenpeace generally wants publicity, they do not want dead bodies. They will try to get on board the boat but it will not be a stealth attack. In our case, because they were planning on trying to get onboard a few boats in a protest, so squadron outfitted us all with p250 water pumps to wash them off.

General orders were amended to not to shoot the protestors, but to call repel boarders, close hatches, and rough them up if they got belowdecks where the cameras couldnt catch you.

In the end, they didnt show.

CDO= Command Duty Officer. Usually the XO or the Eng. Not a normal inport watchstation but occasionally employed.

 

[Glockman17366]

"Our SSDF (Ship's Self Defense Force) on the old Iwo (LPH-2) was unarmed, lest we offend the sensibilities of the host nation. (Like the fact that we had a freakin' 18,000 ton war ship med-moored to the quay in Naples wasn't a big clue to the locals.....)"

Now, that's funny!

When I was on the Inchon (Was Iwo Jima's sister ship in the mid-70's), the self defense force had a variety of weapons which we kept on the ready. These were all rifles, shotguns and the Platoon Leaders wore sidearms.

Maybe Italy wasn't as wacky when I was there...

 

[xsquidgator]

A note of explanation:
yes of course I know submarines are usually called boats. An 8000 ton nuclear powered captial SHIP however is also a far cry from the 1500 ton diesel boats of 60 years ago, hence it's appopriate to call an SSN/SSBN a "ship" or a "boat". I earned gold dolphins and am quite aware of that. I used the term "CDO" instead of duty officer or ship's duty officer (SDO) since I usually don't encounter other bubbleheads who know what it means, but the skimmers usually do know what a CDO is. On a submarine a SDO inport pretty much = CDO anyway. You are correct in noting the discrepancy, I simply changed the language to make it more familiar to non-submariners.

About throwing the smallarms over the side, that was the guidance I was given by my XO. I thought it was wrong at the time and I still do, but there you go, not everyone wearing oak leaves or fish always makes the right calls. They wanted to see demonstrators handled with fire hoses not small arms. I understand the thinking but didn't and don't agree with it. If you trespass onto a military reservation, and then further trespass onto a closed area of the base (waterfront) and onto a nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed vessel, you deserve whatever you get in my book, whether you're wearing a tablecloth from pizza hut on your head or whether you're wearing a tie-dyed save the whales t-shirt.
Don't get incensed at me, I agree it was a stupid order but it was consistent with the (wrong imo) way the USN looked at things back 15 years ago. SUBLANT may not have intended it that way, but that's the way the individual commands were interpreting their guidance from above. The spirit of things unfortunately was very much along the lines of "whatever you do don't have a smallarms accident/incident". From what I hear from people currently serving or recently got out, it doesn't sound like too much has changed.

 

[MarkDido]

"Our SSDF (Ship's Self Defense Force) on the old Iwo (LPH-2) was unarmed, lest we offend the sensibilities of the host nation. (Like the fact that we had a freakin' 18,000 ton war ship med-moored to the quay in Naples wasn't a big clue to the locals.....)"

Now, that's funny!

When I was on the Inchon (Was Iwo Jima's sister ship in the mid-70's), the self defense force had a variety of weapons which we kept on the ready. These were all rifles, shotguns and the Platoon Leaders wore sidearms.

Maybe Italy wasn't as wacky when I was there...

This happened during 2 deployments, one in 1985 and again in 1988. We usually had a watch in the foc’sle with a shotgun. Also 1 guy posted on the fantail with a shotgun as well. Flight deck watch usuallu carried sidearms for "low vis"

The only watch allowed to be armed in "Bella Napoli" was the foc'sle watch, who couldn't be seen from the pier.

The rest of the troops did carry the MK1 MOD 0 tactical assault, high capacity walkie-talkie though

 

[Glockman17366]

Mark...I see you were a PRC...is that still a Chief Parachute Rigger?

I was an AMS1 (Aviation Structural Mechanic (Structures)) better known as a tin bender to othe airdales.

 

[RoadkingLarry]

XSQUIDGATOR, curios as to which boats you were on and when. I was on Flying Fish (SSN 673) and Haddo (SSN 604) I was on Flying Fish in the lat 80s and early 90s and usually stood Duty Chief when inport, After Desert Shield started SDO and DCPO were armed watchstanders. It must have been your XOs unwritten private policy for watchstanders to throw small arms over the side. I cannot fathom that policy coming from SUBLANT. Besides getting "greenpeaced" was usually such a public spectacle that there was always advanced warning, if there was a ribbon for it I'd have 3 stars on it.

 

[SSN Vet]

OIS = knife and fork school....

as a bonifide 16 week wonder in neighboring King Hall, we were told that the exercise mats in the gym were only for the OIS crowd, so they didn't hurt their little bum bums.......

while killing time on OHARP duty in East Lansing, I was required to attend several ad hoc "commissioning ceremonies" for nurses and docs.

Uniforms right out of the box, ill fitting and with fold creases still in them, right hand raised.....BAM!....your an Ensign......finish your first year of med. school....BAM!... your a JG.

In all honesty, I wish your friend well and am grateful to see a medical type go play in the sand box with their chin up.

Reality...she needs to learn to shoot and the Navy isn't going to teach her.

I strongly recommend that she buy a either a 1911 or an M9 clone and become proficient on her own time/dime.

After seeing the abysmal level of training in my duty section, :banghead:, that's exactly what I did.

Regardless of what the Navy does or does not provide by way of instruction, my strongly held personal opinion is that any individual that dons a firearm is responsible to know how to safely operate it.

I shared an office with a retired Lt. Col. who participated in Desert Storm. He relayed the story of a terrible tragedy he saw first hand, where a soldier in his unit had an AD (later ruled ND) in a hummer....killing his best buddy next to him. He was then taken to a courts martial and sentenced to time in a military prison for negligent homicide.

No excuses...she needs to know how to handle a weapon.

 

[TonyK]

I just downloaded the Instruction. They have dumbed it down, haven't they? Maybe they didn't listen to the chiefs after all. 15 yds is crazy, the brow can be longer than that.

Wow, this thread is getting off track isn't it? Anyway, 15 yards only applies to shipboard quals underway. At a range, they push it out to 25 yrds. Besides, no matter how they change the gun quals, whether they add a PRT course before you shoot so that your heart rate REALLY goes up, or they make you shoot upside down hanging from a pipe splinter cell style, it's still relatively tame, and doesn't teach you anything. That's why training outside the quals is important. A lot of people going through the quals aren't gun savy, and the only time they get any hands on training with any gun is during the safety brief prior to the shoot. Then they go up to the 3 yard line with an M9 and miss. They shoot at a 15 yard target with a Mossy and MISS. This is because they recieved 1) improper instruction, 2) they didn't take the initiative to learn on their own.

Pay attention NICO, cause the stuff here applies to your situation.

Not saying everyone should pay a ton of money to go to the range, but going down to the armory on your own time just to familiarize yourself with the weapon, and maybe do a little dry firing BEFORE you go out there to qual is a start. So, NICO, hopefully you have a better understanding of how Navy quals work, and get some good training in for your GF ahead of time.

No excuses...she needs to know how to handle a weapon.

You're cool in my book SSN Vet.

 

[xsquidgator]

Roadking,
I was on USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN 657 B and then decomm crew) from '90 to '93, followed by a single shore tour as an NPTU shift engineer/instructor. I didn't mean to imply SUBLANT wanted us to do crazy stuff like that, but our command's interpretation of things (imo) was way too much towards CYA and whatever you do, don't get us in trouble. I wish I was making that up about our direction re:greenpeace but I'm not. Our refit periods were mostly in KBay which did expose us to Greenpeace, but mostly at the gate to get in the base. None of them ever made it down to the waterfront where we were though, as far as I know.

Small arms were mostly seen as a potential source of trouble back in the day, at least from what I saw. Almost no training and imo many of the crew were not safe with them nor would they have been effective had the need come up. (I was NWSO also for a year and attempted to better the situation, but I don't know how succuessful I was). My guys got one or two range trips a year as I recall to qualify on 12 ga, 45, and M14, and that range trip was very minimal, something like 30 or so rounds with the 45. Very frequently when I'd ask an RF member to demonstrate the safety on his weapon, he'd activate the magazine release instead. You can only do so much to train people with an orange plastic 45, which was about the only other training item I had other than quizzing RF members on when they could and could not shoot. Maybe fighting terrorists off wasn't our big problem then (the USSR was) but I thought the Navy could have done a lot better. I grew up with firearms in a rural area and I learned next to nothing further about them in the Navy, any expertise I picked up was on my own dime as a hobbyist with some other likeminded crewmen. In fact I could have gone 4 years or so without shooting a firearm in the service at all (one of my JO friends who's still in the reserves tells me he STILL, 20 years later, has never once fired a small arm in the Navy). I realize the mission of the Navy isn't necessarily to be shooting small arms at the bad guys, but from the little piece of things I saw back around late 80s early 90s, they did a terrible job of even the most basic small arms qualification. From what I've seen even the Air Force trains its airmen enough to at least work pistol and M16 for the most minimal type of security work, surely the Navy could at least match that even if the goal isn't to produce mini-Marines.


SSN Vet- which class were you? I was an OCS 88006 who also lived in King Hall next to the OISters and NAPsters over in Nimitz Hall.

 

[UKarmourer]

With regards to the Geneva convention, My wife is a Army Combat Med Tech, and she, like everyone else passes her annual test, I know, she got the same score as me (although I use Iron sights not optics)

the medics are armed in order to protect themselves and their patients

 

[oweno]

Let's see ... in Boot Camp in the spring of '58, I fired maybe 6 rounds from a .22 rifle, prone position. And that was it.
When I reported aboard my first boat, USS Bang (SS385) I stood one topside watch in training, then was on my own with a 1911-A1, empty mag in the piece, and 2 loaded mags in a pouch on the belt.
Maybe a year later, we dumped a bunch of trash over the side while at sea and we took turn blazing away with .45s, Thompsons, M-1s, and our lone BAR.

We did practice 'Repel Boarders' once in a while. All weapons (and magazines full of ammo) were issued and we stormed topside. The duty officer (Mr. Morrison if memory serves) came boiling out of the conning tower hatch waving his sword.

 

[30Cal]

We used the terms "ship" and "boat." The Commodore used to give an award out each year for "Ship Handler of the Year."

Much of the crew qual'ed on the M9 and the mossberg as most of the submarine (SSBN) watchstations have some security force responsibilities. A handful of guys shot the M14. As long as you finished without getting kicked off the line for a safety violation, you got qualified. We had to do it once a year. I had to check everyone's service record for domestic violence arrests (didn't find any). They would have been DQ'd and probably would have gotten transfered off the ship.

The CO's biggest worry about smallarms was dropping a round over the side when they loaded/unloaded during watch reliefs. All 4 CO's I had told us to call the CO immediately, then call the divers if a round was dropped. We had to account for every round. One of the Weps on the waterfront got fired during my time there for that (his problem was they dropped a round over the side and still came up with the right number of total rounds on board).

I left the boat in 2000.

In the late 80s early 90s in the USN (submarines), while standing CDO in-port, I was ordered to have the topside watches throw their small arms over the side if Greenpeace rushed our ship.

DC Central, man hoses 1-1-1, 2-1-3 and 3-1-2. Lay topside to repel boarders.

 

[xsquidgator]

30Cal,
I heard a story much like what you said about dropping a single round of ammo over the side during watch relief or what have you, the pain was supposedly worse than leaving a primary nuclear valve out of position (and that's a painful inquisition). Eventually they got it to go away but that kind of silliness and other hoo-hah and wasting of money I saw has me wondering about other decisions the USN and the government make.

 

[oweno]

and speaking of dropping things over the side, one night I was on below-decks watch, in the control room, shooting the breeze with Skip the quartermaster and we hear a "clunk ... splash".

Yep, the topside watch was playing fast draw and he dropped his .45 over the side.

Many things ensued... court martial for the topside watch, Naval Intelligence doing an investigation, divers over the side until the piece was recovered, etc.

When my son joined the Coast Guard, among the advice I gave him was "Never steal a gun or a set of night-vision gear. They'll move heaven and earth until they find who did it."

 

[Jubjub]

A buddy of mine has a cousin who is a Navy officer, and he got to go on a Tiger cruise. This is when they let civilian friends and family travel on a Navy ship, usually on a short homeward bound voyage.

My friend is one of the best, if not the best offhand rifle shot I've ever seen. He just puts the gun up and welds to it. One of the things he did on the cruise was a bit of M14 shooting. The range was basically across the helicopter deck, he thought it was around 25 yards. His ten shot group was quarter size, on a pitching ship, with a rifle he'd never touched before. Next he whacked some floating stuff from the fantail long after everyone else had given up on hitting it.

The rumor all over the ship within a few hours was that he was a CIA assassin.

 

[eltorrente]

Yep, the topside watch was playing fast draw and he dropped his .45 over the side.

I was one of those idiots that did that stuff sometimes. Standing mid-watch got pretty boring... We used to try and spin it on our fingers, too - but the lanyard would interfere and you couldn't do more than one rotation. Speaking of which, he should have had his lanyard on.

 

[Navy joe]

http://usmilitary.about.com/gi/dyna...ning%20and%20Readiness%20Services/3591.1E.pdf

Nice printable targets at the end of this instruction too.