Out Come the Big Guns

Today was great!!! We got to play with the big toys. Out came the 249 S.A.W, 240B, and 50 cal machine guns. We spent the morning learning each weapon system inside and out. I can break down a 240 and have it back together and function checked in a minute 30 seconds. Not too bad for an Air Force guy. We have these weapons mounted on our Humvees so it's nice to know how to use them and take care of them. After we spent enough time on those we moved our focus to the AK family. That is pretty common weapon system over there so we needed to be familiar with those too. The afternoon was time set a side for the gunners and assistant gunners to go play in the simulator. I'm an assistant gunner so I got to go have fun. I felt really comfortable with the 240B. The sights on the 50 cal take some getting used to. After I got the hang of it I was splashing targets at 900 meters. Hopefully all of this training will help because tomorrow we spend the day and night out on the range qualifying. This will also be a first because we will convoy out to the range. The staff has already said they will try to ambush us and hit us with I.E.Ds. We had our I.E.D class yesterday, so it's all coming together. Our instructor was very informative. He used clear roads before mounted combat patrols went out so he has some experience with the subject. He doesn't have a lot of love for the people that place them strangely enough...funny how that works.