Cor blimey -
Go off to run a range, & lots happen.
My bad for listing the personal details. However, there has been some positive discussion……
Some more thoughts. I would go with the either / or option for FCC or eligible competition (as I said, look at a minimum score consideration).
I do not see FCC enabling more cadets to move to Gold Shot. Wg resources are already stretched by higher value trg such as L98 IWT - & thereafter, a high demand for wg shoots.
With the demise of the L81 (& even if the NRA comes up with a master plan that might save some for youth involvement - I might find out more tomorrow night with an NRA Meeting that will include the new Sec Gen), the soon to be curtailment of the (rubbish) L144, will drive things to AR & L98. The L98 cannot be called a dedicated tgt rifle; the Scorpion is (slightly) better in that respect.
I’m not sure if the right coaching focus is being looked at - at some stage on the future, there will be “indoor” coaching & “outdoor” coaching - 2 very different functions & associated access.
There should be another coaching course that sits above FCC to coach application of fire and do some more advanced stuff. That’s never come to fruition due to other priorities.
We also need to close the loop of those getting gold for shooting a comp without first obtaining silver.
That shouldn’t be feasible? There were a couple of my cadets (only shot to CLF4 on AR) who I used to make up teams for our Commonwealth matches (& to give them competition experience - quite surprising how some cadets react to the perceived pressure). Clearly, not eligible for Gold as they hadn’t achieved Silver.
One other point that I will also send in as feedback - IF there are going to be any changes (especially to only have FCC as the “+” element0, then they should be AFTER the last shoot date for Commonwealth Matches. It’s not fair on cadets who are already making the effort to work up to Silver in time to start shooting the matches from Jan 2026 (I discount Dec for that much shooting practice!). I don’t know of many other PTS activities (other than perhaps road marching) where a change in eligibility is potentially affected by date-driven participation.
The interpretation of PTS is that it must be linear.
But volunteers & education doesn’t work that way & its skills in parallel that offers the most development.
Shooting is one of those skills that some can naturally jump to silver or
We complain about there being too many hoops & how it stifles innovation & opportunity.
Rather than a linear approach which will naturally bottleneck & plateau perhaps a more matrix approach which encourages diversity in approach to achievement.
I don’t really have a complaint for this approach (other than it’s almost impossible to run mixed details as per the previous system where sqn / wg / region / corps markman was same shoot but higher scoring per category). CLF2 & CLF 4 are really the only AR exercises that match to that extent.
Certainly for AR, there are enough failures in CLF exercises to say that the bar is set to a reasonable standard (but not too high) & that a repeat attempt can be actioned in the near future. Side note - let’s have a “repetitive” RSD or similar valid for say 3 - 6 months to avoid the mountain of admin for an AR shoot event at a sqn - it’s the same staff, same equipment, same everything.
For cadets shooting CLF7 on AR (snap / rapid), to qualify for Silver shot, it’s a hard exercise. Invariably, it impossible to shoot CLF3 (zeroing) → CLF4 (scoring, multi-positional) → CLF 7 in one evening; not enough range time & the cadets would be cream-crackered. That means a check-zero has to be conducted before CLF7 (& also CLF4 if run at some stage after a cadet has run CLF3). These elements aren’t really taken into account for range time / logistics / planning.
For L98 range days, well, a cadet might not qualify on the attempts that they have; they are (in comparison to AR) poorly placed for continuity & further attempts are limited on range day availability, their availability, & the need to share out allocations fairly. FCC wouldn’t necessarily help here either.
Was it not that Sqn was one, Wing and Region was another, and Corps was a third? I distinctly remember the latter being double the number of rounds! But this was years ago
If memory serves right, Sqn was just simple groupings. Wg/Region introduced snap/rapid, then corprs doubled the rounds?
Sqn was 4 x groups 5 rounds each
Wng & region were group, rapid snap, application with 5 rounds each
Corp was 10 rounds on 2 x application, rapid & snap
The scoring was progressively harder each time but you had the opportunity to attempt region without having completing the wing.
All of this talk about badges is largely irrelevant until you fix the fundamental problem of access to shooting for cadets. You can make the badges for whatever you want but if no one can achieve them what’s the point?
Fix the broken bit first, then improve the other bits.
People are shooting though and achieving badges. There may be local issues and I agree shooting is no where near as easy to do as it used to be but ultimately it is possible.
What do you think would give us the easy wins to make it more accessible? Given we don’t have an unlimited pot of money and limited influence on the tri-service policy.
Local feels small, but when whole regions are struggling I would argue that’s bigger than local.
I don’t know the answer to quick wins - I’m sure there are people more directly connected that can tell us that, but the CPLW issue, the storage issue, the closure of ranges, the removal of a .22 target rifle, the training requirements, the general attitude of some paid staff towards it, the throwing up of blockers, the taking 3 months to make any sort of decisions.
Sure, some of those are resourced based but some of those aren’t. Why weren’t we allowed to fund our own alarms for armouries, for example? Why did it take months for someone to make a decision that we could follow HQAC policy and not (yet) have our own negative spin on it?
Sure, people are shooting, I can send a cadet to a wing organised weekend maybe once a month, but demand far outstrips supply and the reality of them achieving anything more than a blue or bronze is as far as I can see negligible, and that’s with a pretty active wing level shooting community.
Either I submit an RSD for every parade night (& cancel at least 50% = pointless admin workload for me & poor Wg Shoot O), or, make it easier to have short-notice shoots. I can’t look ahead to the weather forecast in a month’s time & make a prediction on good / bad weather. On the days before I can, ah, it’s going to rain (or be hot / cold), drill / fieldcraft / command leadership tasks, whatever, can’t be run outside - let’s shoot. Nope, no RSD & impossible to submit / get approval in such a short time. Can’t invite across cadets from another sqn. That really limits the flexibility / availability.
Looking ahead, the possible future pie in the sky plan to upload AR kit to sqns ain’t going to work - budget will be about £2000(?) per sqn & when I did the maths, maybe 300-350 sqns? That’s a lot of dosh. Moreover, there won’t be enough RCOs / SAAIs to use the new equipment, & an impossible overload to get them trained up.
Maybe move to NSRA oversight / trg / quals for AR? Much simpler?
They were all able to be shot alongside each other if necessary - grouping or scoring. There was no snap / rapid about 13 yrs ago, the differential was a higher scoring requirement for wg / region / corps.
It is perceived as simpler but isn’t in the long term. Also would require 2* sign off as a temporary measure which simply wouldn’t happen. The ACF will come crashing to the ground at some point when they have to go back to MOD quals.
Why would they sign off using NGO when we have a working and feasible military system that is supported by full assurance processes? It would cost money to get people trained and doesn’t guarantee them any safer activity or realistically that much more access to resources than the course that is ran now while actually restricting those who hold the NGO qual to the facilities they can use.
If for some reason SASC withdrew the AR RCO course or there was for some reason a stop in delivering it then maybe it would be considered but in the mean time there’s no need for it.
Pre-authorisation is something to talk to your SPO about, they are the one you are ultimately interacting with and can make your life easier.
I assume the ACF would have had 2* sign off - assuming from director of reserve forces & cadets.
How long have they had the exemption? If it’s been 10 year plus then I don’t think the appetite will be their to change particularly if it would cost money.
If anything I can see the RAFAC having to align with army rather than the other way round.
They’ve only had it a few years and if anything it is them not aligning with the Army (SASC) view so at some point there could be a management change to someone who doesn’t want to sign off the NGO route and it could have ramifications.
