As a separate question.
How often does an average cadet actually live fire an L98A2?
This will vary by wing and region massively.
But I would place a strong bet that averaged out, the average cadet live fires an l98 less than once per year.
I can’t remember the last time I shot anything more than blank through any form of L85. And that was 5 years ago…
I have never even seen the new .22, so I haven’t fired .22 since No8 went U/S, so that dates my last shot.
I used to love be shooting. It’s just not something we do anymore it seems.
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In fairness, our Wing shoots a lot, all weapons and pretty regularly.
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To be clear. I started this conversation as a separate question of the back of the assertion that the priority purchase between webbing and day sack, it should be webbing.
The other thread shows the clear majority believe it should be day sack due to the use you would get from it.
But this got me thinking that, cadets live fore or blank fire the l98 so infrequently now, that the purchase of individual webbing is almost redundant.
Each wing should just get 50 sets.
Done.
So, how often, do people on here touch an l98? In any format, even dry training.
Yes ok. Good.
How many cadets go to a wing shoot?
30?
How often is a wing shoot?
How many cadets in your wing?
How many of the cadets who attend wing shoots are the same faces each time?
So, what percentage of your wings cadets are actually shooting and how often?
Genuinely interested in the level of l98 engagement across the Corps and thus the legitimacy to the claim that webbing is a priority purchase.
We have a monthly L98 wing shoot - I’m not involved so haven’t paid much more attention than that. We don’t often see anything else crop up.
Probably if you take LFMT, IWT, WHT, DCCT and Fieldcraft about every fortnight.
But it won’t be all cadets on all of those and we have some quieter months - like now - and sown busier ones.
I’ve delivered
L98 IWT x 36 Cadets in Oct
L98 LFMT x 40 Cadets in Dec
We’ve Planned
L98 IWT x 36 Cadets in Feb
L98 LFMT in Mar
As a Wg we have 53 cadets with Current WHT on the L98, with 48 expired which is near to 15% of the wing trained.
circa 2006 might of been the a1 at the time
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Intersting stats. Thanks.
I rekon 15% is probably a good indicator across the board.
So then weighed against the percentage of cadets who would make use of a day sack…
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I’ve dug out some data from several years ago our wing shared.
132 Cadet places were filled on the L98 - firing 10255 rounds (78 each)
based on the reports we’re a 900-1000 strong wing, your suggestion of 15% isn’t far off, as my numbers would indicate 12.9%
however as you rightly identify not all these 129 will be new faces each month and likely to be repeat attendees…
edit to add webbing can be used for Fieldcraft training/exercises although recognise that these are as frequent as L98A2 LFMT opportunities on average
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I don’t see how this matters.
As long as the opportunity is provided for all and reasonably well policed (which it is as far as our unit is concerned), then what does it matter if, after opening it up to any takers only for there to be no new cadets interested, that it then falls back to those who enjoy it?
We have shoots each month on each of the weapons, with a mix of newly qualified and requalified cadets going - indeed, some of the shoots are specifically written up as such.
However, I’m not overly bothered about shooting, so I don’t pay a great deal of attention to the raw numbers.
Which would be for FT only, can’t wear uniform for AT and they will have a school back pack
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If a cadet turned up for a day walk with an MTP rucksack and civvy clothes, I’m not sending them home, and I don’t know anyone else who would.
Other activities where a camo daysack would be ok:
- road marching
- any sort of activity in greens, such as car parking for instance
- pretty much any activity on camp in any uniform
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The weary AT Centres however…….
For that reason I always recommend black or OG Daysacks.
Or a bright rucksack cover.
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This is what we used to get cadets to do when they had a Camo bag on DofE/AT
I believe SouthWest provided each Wing with about 50 of the new cadet vests, when we were told cadets couldn’t use standard webbing anymore. We have some on them on Sqn, as we shoot L98 fairly frequently. So I personally would prefer cadets to buy a decent day sack and use the cadet vests we issue. We don’t do a huge amount of field craft, so a day sack would be fine for the little bit we do.
The vests can be used for Fieldcraft, I’m not a fan as above but they work ok.
last time i shot an l144 was october, last time i shot an l98 was a couple years ago.