This is an event that our affiliated regiment, 4th battalion the Royal Canadian Regiment puts on every year for its affiliated cadet corps. The cadets (who all have to be 3rd year or up) are given some basic instruction on the C7A2 rifle, do some practice on the computer simulator and then on the Sunday morning they shoot 50 rounds total for both grouping and application scores.
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| Cadet engages his target |
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| Cadet with Reserve Force coach |
All pretty exciting stuff. The cadets start asking about it in their first year. Sometimes the officers get to shoot too, but this year we had a big group of cadets.
The weekend is also used to put some of the Reservists through their PWT (Personal Weapons Test), and then these Ptes and Cpls get to help the Sgts set stuff up and coach the cadets on the range. This morning the cadets got to watch a late arriving squaddie (who had to bring the coffee, the Canadian Army runs on Time Horton's coffee after all) do his PWT; starting at 400m he had to run down the range in "full battle rattle" (helmet, ruck, tac vest full load) putting so many rounds into each target at each firing point (400, 300, 200, 100, 75, 50 and 25 meters). I found it interesting to see at least.
Saturday night after we got settled into the range a 4RCR warrent officer showed his pictures and talked about his deployment on ROTO 3-06 as part of the Force Protection Platoon running convoy escort and having his RG31 Nyala hit by an IED. He also helped do some casualty evac when Charles Coy got hit by the A-10 during OP MEDUSA. Also very interesting.
It was a drizzly hot humid day this morning for the shooting. I'm glad I left my rain gear in my kit bag. I dried out soon enough as it was and I didn't have to carry it around. But the cadets had fun and my cadets won most of the prizes (which made the CO happy). It was actually also my first time taking a group of cadets somewhere on a bus overnight as the only officer in charge (I had a volunteer mom with me to supervise the girls). No drama. (These are teens after all, and I was concerned about a couple of them.) We had to have one picked up Saturday because he was sick, but otherwise no issues at all.
Yay me.
The weekend is also used to put some of the Reservists through their PWT (Personal Weapons Test), and then these Ptes and Cpls get to help the Sgts set stuff up and coach the cadets on the range. This morning the cadets got to watch a late arriving squaddie (who had to bring the coffee, the Canadian Army runs on Time Horton's coffee after all) do his PWT; starting at 400m he had to run down the range in "full battle rattle" (helmet, ruck, tac vest full load) putting so many rounds into each target at each firing point (400, 300, 200, 100, 75, 50 and 25 meters). I found it interesting to see at least.
Saturday night after we got settled into the range a 4RCR warrent officer showed his pictures and talked about his deployment on ROTO 3-06 as part of the Force Protection Platoon running convoy escort and having his RG31 Nyala hit by an IED. He also helped do some casualty evac when Charles Coy got hit by the A-10 during OP MEDUSA. Also very interesting.
It was a drizzly hot humid day this morning for the shooting. I'm glad I left my rain gear in my kit bag. I dried out soon enough as it was and I didn't have to carry it around. But the cadets had fun and my cadets won most of the prizes (which made the CO happy). It was actually also my first time taking a group of cadets somewhere on a bus overnight as the only officer in charge (I had a volunteer mom with me to supervise the girls). No drama. (These are teens after all, and I was concerned about a couple of them.) We had to have one picked up Saturday because he was sick, but otherwise no issues at all.
Yay me.
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Great post. Good to see that Cadets are still alive and well...great opportunity for the young to meet the Troops.
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