Primary Arms

Sweet Sweet, Memories You Gave To Me

I grew up with this thing, but with the release of TC 3-20.40, Training and Qualification, Individual Weapons, it’s a dinosaur.

16 Responses to “Sweet Sweet, Memories You Gave To Me”

  1. Dave says:

    I saw some nerds doing that today.

  2. Jon C says:

    Good luck to all the non-shooting cats that only ever qualified on the ALT-C.

    • Brian says:

      You mean good luck to all those NCO’s who actually have to take the time to TEACH their Soldiers HOW to shoot.

      • Dave says:

        Yeah, all these changes coming down the pike, smells like Relief for Cause in some folks’ future. I’m picturing Robert Duvall in my head right now.

        • Pete says:

          Yeah, not so much, lol. More like a greater amount of time spent at pop-up ranges having guys cycle through till they pass. Some would argue that any training is good training, and I will agree that the new 40 round pop-up qual is better shooter training than the old. But at the end of the day, this change is just going to eat up more time on the training calendar for no real large scale change in SM shooting proficiency. ALT-C was easy to cheat on, but done properly it had a lot of advantages in leveling the environmental playing field. Weather rainy, windy, or foggy, you could get a comparative baseline. No 40 round course of fire is ever going to make or SM’s into shooters. And the stultifying safety range-isms we put into the process certainly don’t help either. The only thing that’s ever going to really result in better shooters is incentivizing and subsidizing competitive shooting. I’m not saying they all need to go shoot 3 gun, or High Power, or PRS, or whatever, but if we had some ranges set up to shoot courses of fire and variations thereof for pistol, rifle, and MG on the weekends with ammo and weapons provided, then held regular competitions and incentivized the results through SM’s paychecks, you would suddenly have a reason for people to be good shooters rather than what we currently have which is a reason for commanders to check the block on minimum marksmanship standards for their unit on a regular basis.

  3. Jon, OPT says:

    I used the Alt-C for years due to geographic location of my unit, we were in a foreign country and our range complex was run by the USMC. There were no Army Qual ranges on Okinawa, the closest being in Korea; good luck getting range availability that coincides and fits into the rare JCET mission there; and in Hawaii, good luck getting there period.

    Is this a step up? Yes, incremental, but it’s a step in the right direction. Was the Alt-C a bullshit exam? In a way, it’s easy to cheat on it if the NCO supporting it and running it don’t enforce the actual standards.

    One could also argue that there is almost no difference from grouping on a zero target and passing the Alt-C, other than volume of bullets shot, mag changes, time limit, and that 20 shots are done unsupported. It tested capability, and is a baseline event that can be run on a 25 meter range expeditiously so that units can move on to more advanced shooting drills.

    I’m glad it’s gone, but just like SF saying “all SF will become MFF” the ability to support this change isn’t apparent, nor planned. I’m out now, so maybe there’s magic funding I’m unaware of getting shit out of the sky that can either build an Army qual range in every place the Army is located, or to move Soldiers to one on an annual basis simply to shoot a pop-up range.

    So, great idea? yes. Logistically feasible? Not quite for every unit, that’s for sure, but for the vast majority of the Army it’s feasible… but one could argue that before the change, it was feasible as well, and those units still took the easy wrong.

    • Brendan says:

      This is not supported at all. There will be a lot of soldiers and units in the red this year on qual. We’ll see how the Army takes this. The Alt-C was B.S. but this is shooting your horse before you check if you have gas in the car.

  4. Canadian says:

    As a Canadian who obviously fires a completely different annual qual- can some explain, or point me toward the document that explains- what your new shooting qual consists of?
    Curious to compare.

    • Pete says:

      Yeah, it’s not exactly super obvious in that tome, but it’s in the linked document at the start of this. It’s the Official US Army Training Circular (commonly called TC’s) https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN17949_TC%203-20×40%20FINAL%20WEB.pdf

      Look on page 375. That’s where the actual Daytime Rifle/Carbine qual that people are talking about is explained. Basically the new one introduces a VTAC style barricade and involves 40 rounds fired from four positions and four ten round magazines at pop up targets from 50-300 Meters. The course of fire (COF) is fired continuously with magazine changes and position changes coinciding. So, 10 rounds prone unsupported, mag change, 10 rounds prone supported, mag change, 10 rounds kneeling supported, mag change, 10 rounds standing supported.

      The old COF was the same range and 40 rounds but did not have a barricade. The first 20 rounds were fired off of a sandbag or other support (sandbags being provided by the ranges though), then a pause and very deliberate changeover to stage 2, which was 10 rounds from prone unsupported, then another very deliberate pause and changeover, then 10 rounds fired kneeling supported (buttocks can’t touch ground).

      Now, your turn. How’s the Canadian Army do theirs?

      • Canadian says:

        HPS=49 points, Marksman = 39, Pass= 29 (1pt per round)
        1. 300m prone, 1x fig11, 5rds deliberate, not time limit, tgt dips when hit.
        2. 300m prone, 2x fig 11, 5×5 sec exposure, 2rds each exposure.
        3. Start at 400m, 1×14 rd 1x 20 rd mag. Prone position, round in the chamber, rifle on safe. When 2xfig 11 comes up you have 45 secs to run to 300m and fire 3rds at each tgt. Tgts only pop up for 45 sects.
        4. Tgts pop up again, 45sect to run to 200m and fire 4 rds at each tgt from kneeling, tgts go back down.
        5. Tgts pop up again, 45secs to run to 100m and fire 4rds at each tgt from prone.
        6. From 100m you are in standing, 1xfig 11 handheld comes up for 8 secs, firer drops to kneeling and fires 2rds.
        7. Advance to 75m on order. 1×5 sec exposure 2rds from standing.
        8. Advance to 50m on order. 1x 5 sec exposure at FIG 12 this time, 2rds.
        9. Advance to 25m on order. 2x 5 sec exposures, bursts at 1x fig 11 should be 3 rds each but most people screw it up.

        Seems complicated, but really only takes about 10min if the butts are squared away. If it’s run properly there are different targets going up each time so you can’t cheat and save all your rounds to the 100.

        Advantages over yours: We are running/advancing the whole time.
        Disadvantages: It’s all done on a conventional range, no moving targets.

  5. Steve_B says:

    Good riddance to ALT-C. But to echo Jon’s post, what are the NG/Reserve units going to do? Many of them are hundreds of miles from a full-length range. It could be done during AT, but then you are going to have all these units competing for limited range space during the same compressed time period.

    • SSD says:

      Between this and the CFT, you’ll spend all year shuttling troops to ranges and fitness tests.

      • Big_Juju says:

        Yup. Good luck trying to get anything done beside Individual Tasks in our 39 days a year.

    • Bryan says:

      Same thing that they and units stationed somewhere that doesn’t support a 300m pop up range, shoot alt-c and fudge dtms numbers

  6. Luddite4change says:

    Not dead, more like a zombie which will be coming back when ranges aren’t available.

    OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENT

    1-78. The first general officer in the unit’s chain of command may authorize subordinate units to exercise the validation event when deployed to austere environments when one of the following conditions exist:
    ? Available range facilities do not support the Army-standard qualification requirements.
    ? Local range regulations prohibit firing the ammunition type, standard engagement techniques, or
    do not support the surface danger area.
    ? The training area available does not meet the most stringent range safety regulations of the Army or host nation where the composite surface danger zone (known as SDZ) cannot be sufficiently maintained and secured.

    1-79. The validation event is completed using the alternate course of fire (known as ALT-C) as described in
    the respective appendix