U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy: Recommended Reading : http://usasma.armylive.dodlive.mil/files/2013/07/Recommended-Reading.pdf
Any more info on coursework/preparation is offlimits to civilians, but for this jumping off “general approach” page here: http://usasma.armylive.dodlive.mil/files/2013/07/Command-Post-of-the-Future.pdf
ETA: Well, hell, Wiki “Sergeant Major” (with intra and inter ranks comparisons): Sergeant major - Wikipedia
A lot of this has to do with the unit and what their priorities are. Soldiers “qualify” on shooting their M16/M4 in basic training, and are “familiarized” with the M249 and AT4. By “familiarized” I mean they shot a few rounds to get the feel for it but did not engage in a qualification shoot.
Every soldier must be qualified with the weapon they are assigned, whether it is a M249, M203, or whatever. Usually the way it works is the unit sets up a range day to train and qualify with a weapon and then just tries to qualify as many personnel as possible (given restraints on time and resources).
Some weapons are harder to train than others. My current unit has a Mk19 assigned, but using it on a range is time and resource-intensive. I was in the Army for 13 years and never fired it, and after the one range the unit did put on, those soldiers will probably never fire it again in their careers. But it’s enough so that if there was an emergency and they had to man it, they could probably remember how to operate the weapon.
Combat arms units will devote more time and resources to it, of course. In addition to standard qualification and training, they do a “Gunnery” course before deployment that requires more intensive training and has higher standards.
Good points, solosam. To add a couple of minor comments, fam firing is a good way to expose troops to other weapons. While the troops won’t be experts after a fam fire, they’ll at least have had the exposure. And besides that, fam firing is fun.
About the Mark 19, I learned in this thread that it apparently has some reliability problems. It was a fun weapon to fire, and I recommend if you can get yourself onto the list for an upcoming fam fire for it, to do so. And have fun with it!
Ok, I talked to my friend again, and asked him particularly about what I mentioned immediately above: for the last 2/3rds of this thread, it was “staff” versus “command” that I was (latterly) confused about.
[Before continuing, I’d like to thank Bear_Nenno, not for the first time, for his off-line personal interest and help.]
He was in-country from 1965-74, and was promoted to Master Gunnery Sergeant in 1969.
Points I gathered from him–I post them here for general interest–after I read him most of this thread. (I skipped the Terminator 2 sidebar.)
He talked about the general role of an NCO, who maybe knew much more about the field situation and men–and comparable situations in the past from his own experience–than a Lt. fresh out of West Point. The way he put it was: ok, when he’ sin the tent talking to an officer, he’s a “staff.” When they send his ass out, he’s “command.” So it’s fluid.
I asked him if everybody got sent out, and that’s when he mentioned a) war vs. peace time, where most everybody went into the field; b) some Master Gunnery Sgts. have to stay in “staff” roles even stateside “to get shit done.” c) aside from that, even in a FOB, “a few” MGS’s “had their head up the Colonel’s ass” and managed never to be in a position to be shot at.
Finally, back to a question I had in OP: if any sort of demonstration of weapons facility and knowledge figured in promotion to his rank (you know, with “gunnery” in it). His answer was quite moving, actually, I thought.
He said that the Captain or whoever, signed and stamped your promotion without particularly giving a fuck about anything at all you demonstrated about weapons–if you survived long enough to be recommended for promotion, it was pretty obvious you could handle about anything.
Thanks to all for this thread.
Bumped. Was and is to re-read a good thread.
More questions on rank|formal skill sets/skill sets known or expected in field|“what I see in Hollywood.” I am calling an MOS a skill-set in the most general sense for hat follows.
Wiki tells me all Marines in the field are MOS-qualified (“qualified” is my word) for 0311, 0331, 0341, 0351, and 0352.* [Which see, in the rich publicly available reference site is the US Military MOS database, for all branches, with description and rank. In theWiki MOS list for the Marine Corps is what seems to me to be the range of ranks available for those particular MOS’s, and in some cases has a more usable organization for scanning.] It also tells me the ways and wherefores of classes of MOS and their relationships. No doubt some of what I ask is buried there, but it’s too much for me.
Your pay scale is by rank, and if you have a list of MOS qualifications a mile long, how that figures is it depends. Got it, sort of, and again forgive me if this info is embedded with that difficult-as-a-whole citation.
The Military is not like college or University where you can “sign up” for different ones to your heart’s content–but to what extent can you–as opposed to those you must? When will they decide you’re just a fellow who wants to broaden his horizons and not someone on the wrong side of Manpower’s Pentagon’s cost/benefit charts?
Someone reports for the first time to his superior, who knows his rank. That superior has in hand or has been informed of each MOS (the nature of which is, in theory, a miracle of efficiency)?
And he bears that in mind how?
For example:
a) I [re:)]watch Generation Kill (IMDB page). Gunny Joe Blow and Gunny Joe Blow2 and their underlings and overlings. Some yell, some don’t–and that’s as far as Hollywood gets–but who the hell knows what MOS’s they have under their belt? An underling won’t ask, but some in the right circumstance, to himself at least, would wonder…No? (Anecdotal replies naturally.)
b) Their superior officers meet (or think about), and discuss what their respective Gunnies have said/done/not done. Leave aside the political/personal aspects, so watchable for TV: to what extent does a superior bear in mind the MOS’s of his junior and–in the field now, not in some back office–rely upon that for decision making?
*BTW and FTR, if I had known this fact OP probably would not have been.
I wish I was not on my phone so I could reply more at length, but for the most part a Marine isn’t going to have a long list of MOSs. It’s very possible they’ll only have one unless or until they reach a staff NCO rank that had as a different MOS. For example, one might initially be an 0351, but then transition to MOS 0369 upon reaching a staff NCO rank.
Back in '76 the U.S.A.F. spent a couple of hours preventing us from killing our team mates (and ourselves) while firing an M-16. Nowadays they train on the same weapon but the training is a little more extensive.
A more general comment on this thread turn: everyone, in every situation, civilian and military, when listening to someone else asks himself the question “does this guy know what the hell he is talking about,” based on a lot of things. One can tell, I presume, if someone ordered or reported that add diesel fuel be/was poured on the radio console, something’s fishy.
Obviously everyone has been in or swaps stories of that kind of thing in the workplace and the military.
But if someone who is now in the position to order or report on all sorts of things, and you know that he is experienced in that, you pause a second. So the queries above are not really about rank and carrying stuff out. Another e.g.: if word gets around that Captain X was involved in some serious and difficult armored battles, his new underlings overlings will think/respond/fight differently, and don’t give a fuck about which MOS Manpower has sought fit to grant him. (Cf. in the civilian world, even within upper-level professional academes, who the hell asks what your Ph.D was…nobody.)
ETA to above:
I like this, from your cite:
“Growing pains are expected with the new course, Duerr said. However, the training is intended to hone Airmen’s weapons skills to provide a better equipped and trained warfighter to combatant commanders downrange. The training may be difficult, but it is not impossible.”
It will vary with different branches and different times.
In basic we qualified with or trained with
M16
M60
M2
M203
M79
M3
smoke frag and concussion grenades
Claymore
L.A.W.
The only results I’m getting searching for m256 are for a 120mm smoothbore TANK gun. Either google is failing me, or the Army is expecting unused, intact tanks to be a common battlefield occurrence.
Chemical agent detection kit?
I know it’s from way back in 2015. These are also gone from the inventory. They had a nasty habit of rupturing and burning down storage structures and vehicles. The idea (thought) was good - fire from a longer range into a building/bunker; not have a bulky fuel tank strapped to your back with a sticker saying “shoot me”; but the ingredient was not suitable for long term storage.
From wiki: TPA is triethylaluminum (TEA) thickened with polyisobutylene. TEA, an organometallic compound, is pyrophoric and burns spontaneously at temperatures of 1200 °C (2192 °F) when exposed to air. It burns “white hot” because of the aluminum, much hotter than gasoline or napalm. The light and heat emission is very intense and can produce skin burns from some (close) distance without direct contact with the flame, by thermal radiation alone.
These item had their own storage compatibility group which dictates what type munition you can store with other types of munitions. These were SCG “H” which meant that they could NOT be stored with other types of munitions; they also could NOT be stored with other munitions that were SCG H. They were very lonely.
Development of incendiary rounds continues. Further reading from wiki on thermobaric weapons:
The XM1060 40-mm grenade is a small-arms thermobaric device, which was delivered to U.S. forces in April 2003.[34] Since the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the US Marine Corps has introduced a thermobaric ‘Novel Explosive’ (SMAW-NE) round for the Mk 153 SMAW rocket launcher. One team of Marines reported that they had destroyed a large one-story masonry type building with one round from 100 yards (91 m).[35]
The AGM-114N Hellfire II, first used by U.S. forces in 2003 in Iraq, uses a Metal Augmented Charge (MAC) warhead that contains a thermobaric explosive fill using aluminium powder coated or mixed with PTFE layered between the charge casing and a PBXN-112 explosive mixture. When the PBXN-112 detonates, the aluminium mixture is dispersed and rapidly burns. The resultant sustained high pressure is extremely effective against people and structures.[36]
Regarding the Sergeant Major Academy: My son (in law) was just promoted to E-9 and is in session. My joke is that he is being trained to swear differently. “Alright you maggots” in apparently not acceptable in the new staff/officer interaction position.