MTP Webbing

[quote=“talon” post=25165]If you take them through all the SAA training and assessment without webbing and then take them on a range and show it to them for the first time then yes, you will have issues.[/quote]Exactly. I’ve never had any cadet who’s had any issues with webbing pouches after having used it all the way through IWT.

Well other people have; maybe not major ones but they are still problems.
You aren’t the only person using webbing on all full-bore service training, testing and shoots.

Right. For a start being in the Cadets isnt some pre selection for the Regulars. It isnt some hitler youth. Or some damned Junior Leaders.
None of you are here to train anyone on what you “think” the Regulars do. Thats what basic training is for. Not some VRT REMFs thinking they have some gucci airforce at their command.
2 double mag pouches with a couple of mags in, on a belt with a yoke is hardly webbing. “Oh but its part of the weapon system blah blah blah blah blah”. Alright then, stick some utility pouches on and lets crank it up to full battle scales. Lets get helmet and CBA or osprey too.

Secondly I have seen being an ex cadet as a hinderance to Basic training, and I certainly kept my mouth shut. Sadly I cant say the same for some of the big timers gobbing off about being a “CWO” or whatever as they are getting an extra thrashing. Cadets arent special. And being a cadet doesnt make you any better than any of the lads (or lasses) that join up too.

Its a uniformed youth clubs. Its the same people who seem to demand a slight bending of the rules for 1 thing but as soon as the rules make them look like a gucci operator a Stalin like obedience of the rules is shouted for.

Lets concentrate on the shooting and the skill set shall we? And all the crying about why bother when we have the No8 to “shoot straight”, why bother with the Tutor then when the Gliders go in the sky too?

Marksmenship Principles are key. Not a belt with a stupid pouch on (which IIRC the action isnt finished until the clip is done up).

If you have more expreinced cadets, great. If you are doing different stances, great. If your using it for a different shoot, great.

Compulsary wearing of it? Rubbish. And any of you arguing for it to remain that way need to take your heads to the toilet and realise that the skillset is more important than the method of containing magazines.

Yes, I have often wondered why cadets are required to wear webbing when shooting. Seems a bit daft to me . Just because the book ,written for the army, says so, doesn’t mean that it is right.
They are target shooting and not being trained to be soldiers !!
Many many many years ago I used to shoot with Enfield 303’s as a cadet. No trace of any webbing apart from the sling) and one followed the protocols and instructions to the letter. We were target shooting, as cadets do now! Competitions and improving ones own performance was part of the enjoyment, after being properly trained to handle the weapon.
Maybe it is time that an equivalent of PAM21 (or whatever it is called now) was written specifically for the cadets, without all the stuff designed for the army.
Before anyone asks, I am not involved in shooting and tend to see things from the outside. e.g. why is the gliding ‘pause’ taking so long to ‘unpause’?

Now. I may have been a little… angry with my last post but I am sick to the backteeth of cadets and some (not all, I didnt mean to make my post seem like I was tarring everyone with the same brush) of the staff acting like its some kind of pre selection for the Forces.
And when certain people seem to claim the rules need to be bent except when it makes them look like some kind of regular, it winds me up.

Shooting with webbing would be an interesting and different angle. And target shooting isnt just about being in prone, but we have to be sensible and use a bit of common sense.
Making it compulsary is just a bit ridiculous. Especially for the early shoots or new shooters.

It can and should be an extra little taster for experienced shooters. But we need to focus on the actual skillset and the Marksmenship Principles.

Ouch, I was on your side! :crying:

[quote=“incubus” post=25170]
Well other people have; maybe not major ones but they are still problems.
You aren’t the only person using webbing on all full-bore service training, testing and shoots.[/quote]

I hate to say it, but someone must be doing something wrong then. If the cadets are properly trained with webbing you should not be getting problems. If you are, feel free to escalate them to the SASC.

Where you had probems, had the cadets been given their SAA training wearing webbing? Did they get revision training prior to firing wearing the webbing? Was the webbing set up correct? Was the webbing correctly fitted to the cadet? What type of webbing was it?

I would suggest that there might be huge differences with cadet organisations/units (& locations) depending on their ease of access to SAAIs, L98s & webbing. If you have regular/easy access with availability of SAAIs, & with wpns/kit stored locally, then life is very good - trg/refresher events = very simple, inevitably the habit patterns will be better.

Now look to those units where this is problematical, lack of SAAIs, & limited trg/range days. Typically, there will be a high percentage of cadets who haven’t touched a rifle for 6 months. Regardless of the standard of initial trg, skill fade will result (been there, suffered it - & I’m an RCO).

Scrap webbing for “low experience” cadets - they faff with this in the range (& WHTs) & concentrate on the ammo pouches to the detriment of other aspects. Build them up with confidence, give proper trg & coaching for principles of marksmanship, & then move to webbing if they progress to more in-depth shooting.

Please can someone tell SASC that cadets are not full-time Forces…

nail. head.

i would think that at least half the cadets from my last Sqn - a 45 cadet parading sqn every week - touched an L98 no more than twice a year, and a large percentage of that just once a year. to expect them to remain not just au fait with the rifle, but with a belt-kit they only touched when shooting, would be dumb as pork.

some cadets - me for example - loved shooting, had L98 RCO’s on our sqns/in our sectors, and lived near decent ranges with co-operative Armouries. however cadets like that are not in the majority, nor in anything like the majority. shooting, the logistics of shooting, has been made harder by changes to rules on the transport of weapons/ammunition and requirements for staff training/qualifiucation. to then make the action of shooting - the holding the rifle, loading the thing - more difficult when you get less time on it, is so dumb as to be dumber than pork.

I would extend that beyond SASC and to adults as well.

During WW2 and after with National Service the training would have been more relevant, but we aren’t at war and don’t have NS, so we need training regimes that are relevant to us and not for people in the depleted armed forces of today to work their tentacles into to perpetuate a lifestyle and job which otherwise may have gone and they became a redundancy statistic. Worse still, some adults in the cadet forces who want to live the dream as they probably didn’t have the opportunity to join up themselves and like the idea.

[quote=“talon” post=25165][quote=“angus” post=25150]
and you’ve never been on a dead-end camp where shooting is the only thing going on and there is enormous pressure - internal as well as external - to have as many of the cadets pass their WHT’s so they can shoot as possible?

never seen cadets who, in other circumstances, would be considered a bit small to use the rifle but because its a dead end camp end up on the firing point struggling to keep the rifle pointing down range while changing a magazine?

webbing is an embuggerance cadets already at the limit of their strength don’t need - it adds nothing to the shooting experience, it just gets in the way.[/quote]

Well…no. The cadet should have taken their WHT with the webbing on and therefore should have proven themselves capable of doing this simple thing. I have very small cadets in my unit and they manage to use webbing just fine. If cadets are having trouble opening and closing the pouches, you do realise that PLCE pouches offer velcro closure?

If you take them through all the SAA training and assessment without webbing and then take them on a range and show it to them for the first time then yes, you will have issues.[/quote]
Just like the time my det put in a team for the patrol comp, and an H&S nazi from the regt hosting it insisted on our cadets wearing CBA on a barrack range to fire the L98. Result was, my cadets, who are very strong on all types of shooting (shotgun, airsofters, airgun club and hunters, pest control experience) absolutely bombed out on this shoot.

So I see your point about webbing. If its not been used in pre-training or WHT, don’t introduce it on the first visit to a range.

However we do introduce it right from RL 1, but we have many CTVs, and cadets usually quickly acquire their own webbing.

Cadets can load and unload in the standing position now, which makes pouch access and fastening a lot easier.

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[quote=“bucketofinstantsunshine” post=25761]
Cadets can load and unload in the standing position now, which makes pouch access and fastening a lot easier.[/quote]

Not entirely true. Cadets can load in the standing position, however the unload is undertaken in which ever position they were firing (prone, fire trench, kneeling, sitting), with the port arms being done in the standing position.

Chapter 4, Section 4, Para 0482 of Cadet Training Ranges 2015 highlights this, which is also mirrored on the Cadet Range Management Courses.

What, like a ‘PAM21C’ …? Been there, and it’s now withdrawn and replaced with the same thing but with an Army Code number (which doesn’t come to mind’ instead. Not sure of the reason but I suspect they didn’t want to cloud the issue - PAM21 is always seen as the Bible for all shooting.

[quote=“incubus” post=25154]

We should be encouraging cadets to take part in shooting, and making it more difficult and elite than genuinely necessary will not do that. I must say that the same needs to apply to staff qualifications as well, though the SASC model appears to be to force everybody to become an RCO on L98A2 as a base qualification![/quote]

When I did my SASC overseen Short Range cse we only did live firing with the L98 on a barrack range. We were simply required to write a RAM for a .22 indoor/NDA range, and walked through a recce at a local ACF det range with points to note.

I don’t see how that (RCO-ing L98 shooters) complicates things, but it does require a greater control and awareness of the firers and that correct drills are followed.

Unloads standing? I’m sure I’ve seen that done, maybe several times. I may have even done it on my SR cse last year, that I passed okay. (I’ll have a look at conducting notes if I can find them.) However this was with 5 adult, experienced shooters on the range and I could see all weapons had held open after last round. The instruction was to apply safety catch and stand up, keeping the weapon pointed downrange at all times, followed by unload, port arms etc; I’ll look at that bit in the new book later.

With smaller, less experienced cadets I would unload prone. Maybe even consider loading prone too if they are really midget-like.

[quote=“ibbi” post=25764][
Not entirely true. Cadets can load in the standing position, however the unload is undertaken in which ever position they were firing (prone, fire trench, kneeling, sitting), with the port arms being done in the standing position.

Chapter 4, Section 4, Para 0482 of Cadet Training Ranges 2015 highlights this, which is also mirrored on the Cadet Range Management Courses.[/quote]

I had a look at this and in their example they unload in the prone, but unless I am being blind I cannot see where it actually says that this MUST happen.

I’m not so sure. I find that the the smaller cadets find loading and unloading easier when standing.

You are correct in that it doesn’t say it is a must.

However, on all of the RMQ courses I have seen the SASC on, the process they use is what I outlined. And that same process is what is referenced in all of the conducting notes example they issue.

I suppose this can be another example of where there may or may not be a black / white answer to something and as nothing is actually stipulated as a you “can” or “cannot” do something we could probably discuss and debate for days!

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Although the Cadet Training Ranges book details more on the range conduct, and you would therefore think, covered this matter, if you turn to the rifle PAM, it says the following;

So there is the permission to do any of the basic handling drills (Load, Ready, Make Safe, Unload) in any recognised fire position. Although its not prescriptive, as such, in lieu of anything else more prescriptive, it shoots down the argument that any drill MUST be done in a certain position.

To clarify my position, I would always load standing, adopt the fire position, unload in the fire position, stand for the port arms.

Just a Q: do ACF cadets get issued webbing?

@talon ?

Individual cadets generally don’t get personal issue but the unit will likely have kit to borrow or training vests.

A lot also buy their own.

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