PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. - A Basic Weapons Familiarization course for Picatinny Arsenal employees was held on July 2 at the Armament University operated by the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center.
The no-cost course, designed for persons with little or no weapons experience, provided basic weapon safety information and firearms knowledge. Sgt. Michael Turner III of the Picatinny Arsenal Police Department taught the course.
Firearms familiarization and safety is near and dear to Turner, who told the students that he lost a family member due to accidental discharge while performing routine weapon maintenance.
“I’m truly pleased that I have been able to help the Picatinny Community and the individuals that want to learn about weapon safety, operating systems, and the historical achievements that have been made over the years by our servicemen and women, and the engineers here at Picatinny,” Turner said.
The course is designed to provide employees with knowledge that aids in completing their assigned mission, while offering classroom experience that includes weapon handling safety, nomenclature, and cycle of operation.
“I wanted to take this course so I can be more familiar with the weapons since I’m new to this position,” said Edward Salemi, an engineering technician with the Armaments Center. “I was hoping to achieve basic weapons familiarization and was pleasantly surprised on the results,” Salemi said of the lessons.
Students received safe-handling instruction on several types of firearms, including a revolver, handgun, rifle, shotgun, sub-machine guns, and belt-fed machine guns.
“I got a basic understanding of the weapons, how to handle them, and the functionality of how they work,” Salemi said.
While the course provides essential basic firearms knowledge, the instruction may also help engineers understand in greater detail how or why they receive certain results from firing or ballistics reports.
The U.S. Army has long given the Armaments Center the immense responsibility of being its primary research and development center for new and existing armament systems used by U.S. service members around the world. The workforce leads the way in engineering, innovation, expertise, and problem solving in the areas of ammunition, weapons, fire control and associated items.
Sherise Cosby is a team leader and technical specialist for a group of engineers and technical personnel engaged in middle tier acquisition lifecycle product assurance assessment of small caliber munitions. Thus, she felt compelled to attend the training.
“I needed to understand the functionality, and differences along with the causes, for gun firing stoppages that result in essential function failures such as failure to feed and failure to eject,” Cosby said.
Cosby is often tasked with observing live fire demonstrations to observe design verification and production qualification tests of the weapons placed in Soldiers’ hands.
“When I am unable to witness the testing events, I am expected to analyze the data of the ammunition or weapons system and evaluate reliability requirements. Now, I can understand the differences of similar weapons, and the functionality of the parts within the weapons according to the operating styles, which was explained meticulously during class,” she said.
Picatinny’s largest tenant, the DEVCOM Armaments Center, operates the Armament University, which offers a wide variety of courses appropriate for entry level, journeyman, and advanced audiences.
The Armament University specializes in enhancing the professional development of engineers and scientists through in-house technical classes and special on-the-job training.
Persons interested in attending a future course should contact the Armament University training administrator at 973-724-6501.
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