Inevitably as an RCO or Safety Supervisor I have spent Range Days solely on the range, and the cadets are normally left to their own devices whilst forming a waiting details.
What has been used to act as a concurrent activity while not interfering with the planned range activity.
I’m looking at having 48 Cadets with no planned activity in between their firing details, will be using a barrack range so have limited space available.
Any Ideas?
Dry drills?
Additional coaching of fire positions and revision of marksmenship principles?
revision of weapon lessons?
kims games?
Observation stance?
Military knowledge test/lesson?
aircraft/vehicle recognition?
Webbing set up?
kit care and maintenance?
radio work?
feildcraft theory?
Dry drills?
Additional coaching of fire positions and revision of marksmenship principles?
revision of weapon lessons?
kims games?
Observation stance?
Military knowledge test/lesson?
aircraft/vehicle recognition?
Webbing set up?
kit care and maintenance?
radio work?
feildcraft theory?
sunbathing? reading? gobbing off? chatting up the girls? (not the staff, ideally…)
certainly one of my favourites was the little shed at the side of the range that was used by cadets as a shelter, but by our hosts as a place to fool around with CS gas - the adventures of anyone who put sandwiches or biscuits on the shelf and then ate them was entertaining for all to see…
personally i’d see it as a development opportunity - learning to occupy yourself while nothing happens without doing something that will eventually get you fired is a valuable skill for later life.
[quote=“angus” post=24625]sunbathing? reading? gobbing off? chatting up the girls? (not the staff, ideally…)
certainly one of my favourites was the little shed at the side of the range that was used by cadets as a shelter, but by our hosts as a place to fool around with CS gas - the adventures of anyone who put sandwiches or biscuits on the shelf and then ate them was entertaining for all to see…
personally i’d see it as a development opportunity - learning to occupy yourself while nothing happens without doing something that will eventually get you fired is a valuable skill for later life.[/quote]
Absolutely spot on. Let them be teenagers and socialise, doss around, faff around on phones etc. We never had the tech to amuse ourselves but we didn’t need endless activities to keep us occupied.
There almost seems to be a fear that if we don’t fill every moment with something cadets will get into mischief … no more than cadets from the past of which I have considerable experience.
The same applies to staff. We don’t want always want to be having to do things.
I’ve been on annual camps where it seems to be competition to keep cadets occupied almost until lights out every single day. When I’ve been CC things stop after the evening meal, with exception of the ‘night ex’.
Negative. If these kids cant spend 1 afternoon stuck to their phone then something is wrong. Camps are slightly different but this guy is asking about a range day.
And having been that cadet that got bored sitting around and ended up getting into all sorts of mayhem and trouble. Theres nothing wrong with concurrent activity to help focus.
Why should I bother to teach/coach/instruct just to have the waiting details messing about stuck to their phones feeding their narrassistic and shallow mindsets of liking and following god knows who or whatever kardasian creature did what.
Or for the detail I just instructed to forget it all and get stuck back to their bloody phone.
You lot keep banging on about it being a military organisation. Being on the range is about as military as you guys get. Act like it. The regulars dont ■■■■ about on facebook or twitter or whatever stupid fad or get to just stand around doing naff all. You learn by repeatition. You go over the drills. Again and again.
I remember as a cadet being incredibly frustrated because I wanted to do dry drills concurrently. I wanted to go over it all abd practise it. Not sit around doing nothing and getting bored.
You are their to learn a skill. A potentially dangerous skill. You learn it. By all means have breaks. But their certainly isnt anything wrong with concurrent activity to enhance the training giving to help improve their skills.
i don’t, and i think anyone who does is powering at warp speed through walty-waltyland - as far as i’m concerned the ACO is a youth organisation thats come up with a cunning wheeze to lever many millions of quid out of the MOD to pay its running costs and to get the MOD to provide the cadets with experiences that no other organisation can shake a jealous stick at, let alone come close to matching.
I remember the training Sergeant when I was on phase two saying: “Troops need to be kept busy, because troops that aren’t busy are bored troops and bored troops play stupid f****ing games.”
Games from when I was a cadet on the ranges included: “Who can take a full 58 pattern waterbottle to the stomach the hardest without collapsing?”, “Can I hang out of the open side door of the minibus backwards while my mate lies across the bench seats and tries to kick me out?”, “The rugby tackle game”, “The Slide tackle game (for soccer loving chavs)”, “Beret frizbee”, “That one where you run up behind someone and try and hook them round the ankles with your boot so they fall over” and “Throwing a combat boot at your mates crotch really, really hard”.
So those are all potential concurrent activities. Hope this helps.
When we go kayaking or climbing there is plenty of downtime and we just let them amuse themselves with guidelines on acceptability.
Sitting around at a range waiting to make some holes in paper should be no different. Offer extra famil by all means but don’t make it compulsory and don’t have it going all day long.
The cadets do this in their spare time lke we are and I certainly don’t want to be having to actively supervise or provide some entertainment all the time.
If you’re that worried about them getting into mischief a football and or a bat of some description and a ball should provide ample opportunity for some activity … jumpers for goalposts, marvellous.
As I say, let them be teenagers.
They are at the range to shoot. Refresh principles of marksmanship, positional aspects & anything else that can enhance the shooting experience. Explain to them the standards required for marksman badges & how they can achieve this.
By all means give them a little time to goof off, but not to the detriment of the shooting.
Drill, obviously!
Must be an adult NCO!!! 
The whole reason we are now reminded so often about including a concurrent activity is because too many people simply left the cadets to “amuse themselves”. There’s a reason that we’ve changed the way we do things since your day GHE2.
I went to a wing shoot once… Such a wasted day. 20 rounds on the range and a whole day sat around doing ■■■■■■ all.
At least at AEF we had videos to watch during the downtime.
Yes, the cadets do this in their spare time, but it’s because they want to partake in the activities that we can offer. If they wanted to play silly buggers or chat on facebook they could have stayed at home.
Let’s also remember that they (or their parents) are paying good money for them to be in the ATC.
Don’t waste a day letting them sit around. Use the time to deliver some interesting, enjoyable activities/training.
If it’s an L98 range (and you’ve got spare WI/SAAI) then the more advanced lessons from Pam 5 [under it’s new name] are always good. They’re supposed to be delivered as part of the IWT but before the introduction of SAAI they were often not covered and there are probably plenty of cadets with no idea about “reaction to effective enemy fire” or “firing from other positions”.
If it’s a No8 range then you’re even more likely (in my experience) to find cadets who’ve simply been taught to pass a WHT and know very little about the marksmanship principals, building a stable firing position, or in fact how to improve their shooting at all.
Take the opportunity to help them get something out of their shooting practices instead of just randomly converting rounds to brass.
If you don’t have spare WI/SAAI then you’ll need to find something non-weapon to do. Fieldcraft is a good one as it directly ties in with Skill at Arms.
Must be an adult NCO!!! ;)[/quote]
Who, me?
Technically, no.
GHE12 and RAS, I can see both points you make.
But it’s about context and resources. Every AI (admin Instruction) and RAM I have submitted has mentioned CA. Few have ever actually happened as planned.
For example, in my county we would be lucky to have sufficient staff to even run concurrent activity, and if it required any materials, a QM who would likely say ‘no’ because he has a vendetta against any and all who run cadet ranges in my county.
However, frequently if there are staff there will likely be a requirement for cadet and adult WHTs to be conducted, and forms completed.
But context is important. How tired are the cadets? is this the end of a long and arduous camp? What kind of cadets? Seniors, juniors, etc;
We recently had an FTX that was all done by 0900hrs Sunday, but the transport wasn’t available till 1400hrs. No problem. We had rations and water. The cadets had just completed a very busy deployment with recce patrols, standing patrols, fighting patrols and sentry duties in some very challenging wet windy weather. Many had little sleep and some of the younger ones were quite ‘shellshocked’ by the Sunday. But then the sun came out and it was a warm spring day, and after de-kitting and cleaning weapons we let the cadets get to know each other from across the county, cook up the last of the rations, and generally chill out.
Then a senior Officer popped up from CHQ and wanted to know why nothing ‘constructive’ was going on. After we explained how hard they had worked and how we had been pushing them up and down the hills all weekend at all hours in atrocious weather he mellowed and wandered off to talk to them in groups.
I think we all learnt something here. There is a social aspect to cadetting that is frequently forgotten these days. And in those few hours I think we convinced a number of younger cadets to continue being cadets. We are now looking to increase the down time for our cadets on camps, as they do not run amok or get bored like we hitherto thought they would, but enjoy the chance to socialize with their peers. It also takes some pressure off our staff too.
If the barrack range is on a station, contact the ACLO and find out what is available. At Linton for example we arranged to use the climbing wall that was held on station. With a bit of imagination it was possible to put it up relatively nearby too.