FORT SILL, Okla. (Feb. 25, 2016) -- Students in Field Artillery Basic Officer Leadership Course Class No. 2-16 fired howitzers for the first time Feb. 19, here on an east range.
About half the class of 137 second lieutenants fired the 105mm and 155mm howitzers; and the 155mm tracked howitzer. They also worked in the fire direction center, providing target information to gun crews.
"It feels great," said student Texas Army National Guard 2nd Lt. Beau Carter, of the live-fire training. "I've always seen it done, but to get on the guns -- it's just a blast."
The training came during the sixth week of the 18-week BOLC, said Maj. Adam Schultz, B Battery, 1st Battalion, 30th Field Artillery.
"They've been sitting in classrooms doing charts and gunnery theory," Schultz said. "This is the first time they get to go to the FDC and see, 'hey, this stuff actually works.'"
For the live fire, the students shot manually, Schultz said.
"In the school we teach both manual and digital (systems) for all aspects of artillery," he said. "Today, they're all looking through the (optical) sights, and computing the data manually with analog systems and all the commands are over radio."
The commander said it was important to learn firing manually in case digital systems go down, but more importantly so students better "understand why things work they way they do rather than just seeing numbers appear on a screen."
The young officers fired the M119A3 105mm, towed M777 155mm, and M109 Paladin -- a self-propelled 155mm. They rotated through the various roles of the gun crewmembers on each weapon system under the supervision of a gun section chief, who was a staff member with B/1-30th FA.
In their subsequent live-fire trainings which will all be digital, the students will also perform fires support roles, Schultz said. There they will be at observation points and with maneuver (infantry, armor) units miles from the gun crews, identifying targets, calling the FDC for fire, and assessing the accuracy of the rounds.
In the FDC which was located in a building behind the gunline, students worked with protractors, maps and with dry-erase boards displaying observer and target information. In combat, they would be receiving information from forward observers, who tell them what the targets are, where they want the rounds to land and the types of effects the maneuver commander wants, Schultz said.
The FDC sent the target information to the gun crew's radio-telephone operator, who logged the data on a record of fire.
"They tell me the core of deflection, which is the direction left-right; and the quadrant which is how high or low the tube (gun barrel) goes," said student 2nd Lt. John Breischer, who was working as an RTO on an M777. "I announce that to the (gun's) section chief." The chief passes the information to the gun crew, who make the adjustments to the gun and the round.
Schultz said every phase of preparing to fire a round is redundant.
"There is always a readback (of data), there is always a second person verifying what's happening," he said. "There are secondary checks of everything we do."
For the training, the students were only firing high explosive rounds, Schultz said. Later during the course, they will fire white phosphorous smoke rounds, and illumination rounds.
Student 2nd Lt. Takeshia Banks said it felt good finally putting the classroom knowledge into practice.
"It's working out just like we learned in the class, and it makes more sense now," she said.
The class will have three more live fire training events before they graduate May 17, Schultz said. The last one will be a cumulative, week-long field exercise with the students working the gun crews, fire direction center and in fires support roles.
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