MiTT Training Week 4

Monday, Team Griffin began training this week with crew served weapons Primary Marksmanship Instruction. Team Griffin learned how to assemble and disassemble the M240, 7.62mm Machine Gun and the M2 .50 caliber Machine Gun. We also learned how to load, shoot, perform immediate action and clear the weapon systems. For the .50 cal Machine Gun we learned how to set the "head space" and "timing" for the weapon system.

In the afternoon Team Griffin conducted a Electronic Simulation Trainer for qualifying with the M4 rifle. It's a very "high speed" electronic marksmanship trainer similar to a large video game. It simulated the M4 qualification tables we were to fire on Tueday.

Tuesday, Team Griffin qualified with the M9 pistol and the M4 assault rifle. Team Griffin also qualified with the M4 assault rifle at night. For some reason the buses were not scheduled for the night fire range. All the bus drivers had to get called in for an "emergency" mission. It didn't affect the running of the night range. We all made it out there just prior to nightfall. However, with 128 people needing to get qualified that night, the night range went until 3am. Luckily for us, the schedule allowed us to sleep in for Wednesday morning. Other teams were not as fortunate.

Wednesday, Team Griffin cleaned weapons. MSG Ortiz organized a BBQ for the team.

Thursday, Team Griffin went out to qualify with the M2 .50 cal Machine Gun; both day and night.
Team Griffin needed to qualify a minimum of two members. Team Griffin qualified six for the day and four at night. SFC Ortiz learned an important lesson during the day fire portion of the range. Don't touch the barrel when picking up the brass from on top of vehicle !!! (I think he now has a permanent "browning machine gun" mark on his hand). The night range did not finish until 1.30 am... so it was 2 am before we were back to the barracks. This time Team Griffin was not so fortunate with the schedule, we had a 5 am wake up call so we can eat and make the 06.15 hrs bus to the M240 range.

Friday morning, started very early for Team Griffin. The team got no more than 3 1/2 hours sleep before waking up, getting breakfast and loading up the bus for the M240, 7.62mm range. Team Griffin needed to qualify a minimum of fourof its members on the M240. Team Griffin qualified five. The night range finished at 23.00 hrs and we were back in the barracks by 23.30 hrs. A very tired Team Griffin went immediately too bed. Fortunately for us, Saturday was a free day and allowed all of us to sleep in.

This week's "Shocking Lesson Learned" -- Math is a very important skill set to know

Why is Math sooooooooooo very important?
Well... if a person knows math, then a person can plan things better.

Let me give you two examples:

Example one: Loading a bus of full grown men

Yes, it's true a school bus has 12 rows of seats (total of 24 seats). Certain seats can only carry one person but the majority can carry two. So, mathematically the seating capacity for a yellow school bus is approximately 42 people. However, there is a little mathematical trick with these yellow school buses. These yellow school buses maximum gross weight is 16,000 pounds. A standard car sitting in your driveway weighs 3-4,000 pounds, therefore, a yellow school bus probably weighs in at somewhere closed to 11-12,000 pounds. Mathematically, that leaves no more than 5,000 pounds for passengers.

A grown man... say "me" for example, weighs 170 lbs. (in PT gear). But I'm not wearing PT gear. I'm carrying a pistol, an M4 assault rifle, IBA which alone weighs at least 35 pounds and I'm taking a small ruck sack of gear. In total that adds about 45 lbs to my weight. I think I'm one of the lighter guys on the team, but for the sake of argument lets say I'm just about average. That would make the average person getting on the bus 215 lbs. Hmmmmm.... So, if 16,000 lbs is the maximum gross weight, and the bus itself weighs 11,000 lbs empty.... then the bus maxes out at 5,000 lbs worth of passengers. At 215 lbs per person, that means no more than 23 people should load the bus.

Guess how many buses the "Tranportation Manager" orders for 105 people to go out to the range?
Answer: 3... YES THREE.... Remember, mathematically the bus has enough seats to carry 42 passengers. It's just that the "Transportation Manager" doesn't read the fine print... called maximum load capacity.

Using my assumption that the average person on the bus weighs 215 lbs x 35 people on the bus... that gives you 7525 lbs. Add the bus weight of 11,000 lbs you get a total of 18,525 lbs. Or... 2525 lbs overweight.

Which would explain why the Yellow School Bus was more like the "little engine that could" when it came to climbing Custer Hill (I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....)

Oh... and just as a side note... it really sucks to be crammed in like a bunch of sardines in 90 + degrees of heat to travel 30 minutes to the range in a bus that can barely drive up a hill. For more info on my original comments with regard to Ft. Riley's Transporation Manager... please see my blog dated 20 June (The Bus Ride).


Example 2: Estimating Range Qualification Times.

In this example we will examine why it's important in scheduling to use math. While the rule of thumb that one range takes approximately one day to qualify a large group of people is true... A military planner could actually do much better than that if he used MATH !!!

For example, a planner could use the following information to build an actual schedule for a range, in order to maximize everyone's time, and not just the time of the people running the range.

The bus takes approximately 30 minutes to get to the range.
It takes the average crew approximately an hour and a half to set up the range.
The average crew starts showing up at the range around 07.00 hrs and 07.30 hrs.
Meaning the first firing order won't be ready to fire until ~ 08.30 hrs.
If the range isn't ready to fire until 08.30 hrs or 09.00 hrs...
A planner might calculate that the bus shouldn't have to depart until 08.00 hrs. But to be safe 07.30 hrs should be plenty of time. A planner who used this type of math would have been much more valuable in my opinion, compared to the planner who decided the buses should leave at 06.15 hrs each morning.

The M4 and M2 Firing tables take approximately 15 minutes from start to finish. It also takes about 5 minutes to change firing orders. Therefore, running at peak optimum performance a range with 15 firing stations can qualify no more than 45 soldiers in any given hour. (The real average was close to 30 soldiers every hour). Therefore, you really don't need all 105 people to show up at once. A planner, who would have been able to make this type of calculation and therefore only send out the first 3 firing orders; followed by the next firing order every 30 minutes to rotate the folks in and out of the range, would have been extremely valuable.
It wouldn't have taken more buses, but it would have required the buses move back and forth more often.

Finally, it would have been no surprise to the planner that knew how to apply MATH, that the night ranges that attempted to qualify 105 or more soldiers will take a much longer time than it takes to qualify 75 soldiers. This is quite an unfortunate error, because the one 2LT that was praised for running an efficient range that ended an hour and half earlier than the range run by his peer; didn't truly run a more efficient range. He just had fewer people that needed to qualify, and therefore finished faster.

Hopefully, I've demonstrated the point, that math is truly an important skill set to have on your team.
If for no other reason... it might save you some grief, if properly used.