GREAT LAKES, Ill. - At Recruit Training Command (RTC), Sailors are learning a skill that can potentially save not only their own life but many other lives as well. That skill is learning how to aim and fire a gun. While it’s hopeful that they will never have to use it, in the event they do, the Navy wants them to be properly trained.
To help recruits prepare for the real deal, RTC has an air compressed gun simulator. This simulator gives the recruits the look and feel of a real gun without compromising anyone’s safety during training.
“I think it’s 74 percent of the recruits who come through here have never even touched a weapon before,” said Machinist’s Mate 1st Class Daniel Packer, a weapon’s simulator instructor at RTC. “There’s a lot more chance to instruct and teach and educate them about not just the safety of shooting, but how to do it properly.”
The guns operate by using air compression to give a realistic feel of what happens when a real gun fires, giving the gun a kick back, and helping recruits learn how a gun can contort when fired.
Attached to the front of the hand guns is a laser that hits an electronic target and shows up on a digital screen behind the recruits, showing them, and instructors, exactly where the shots are hitting.
The instructors are sometimes training up to 360 recruits a day, said Packer. So the instructors have the training process down to a science.
First the recruits will receive instruction on what they will be shooting at. Bit by bit the instructors up the challenge until recruits are shooting the same course with live ammunition.
By having recruits use the simulator first, instructors are able to make sure that recruits are handling weapons safely and correctly before they move on to shooting live ammunition.
“Our instructors actually care,” said Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Daniel Heinlein, a weapon’s simulator instructor at RTC. “We’re not here to just hurry up, and get the recruits out. We actually care how they do.”
Subscribe
