In an oil-scented, caged room, it’s hard to see the pile of serialized gear stacked on the ground of the dimly lit area. With piles of mounting brackets and pieces piled into cardboard boxes against the walls and stacks of optical equipment laying on the workbench table, Master Gunnery Sgt. Russel B. Sego shuffles his way through the cage pointing out broken rifle racks with serviceable rifles smashed together almost falling out of the rack.
“What it really looks like is… the junk yard look I like to call it,” said Sego, the ordnance chief for 3rd Marine Logistics Group.
U.S. Marine Corps contractors redesigned four different 3rd MLG armories in Okinawa, Japan, Aug. 19-27, 2019. The redesign was implemented to improve the cleanliness and efficiency of the armories.
Marine Corps armories are used to issue and de-issue different weapon systems to Marines for ranges, exercises and operations.
“The redesign, it helps a lot honestly, its got everything laid out for all the optics and all the weapons,” said Cpl. Alixander Myers, a small arms repairer/technician with 3rd Medical Battalion. “[Cite counts] took about 34 to 40 minutes, now it’s down to like 12.”
Sego joined as a 2111 small arms repairer/technician. He said, being an armorer, he knows what takes too much time.
Armory storage solutions were created and designed to assist armorers and custodians with storage and accountability of their equipment.
“Let’s take the weapons for instance. In the weapon racks, weapons were just held in by gravity, so there really wasn’t anything holding them in,” Sego stated. “As Marines would open the racks or try to pull out one weapon others would catch and fall out. So, I wanted to design something that would hold.”
This project installed new work stations, chairs, racks for certain weapon systems and foam inserts to augment storage inside of the old racks.
“[The redesign] has improved efficiency overall in all the cages I have seen so far,” Myers said.
Before the redesign, weapons were not secured in the racks because of the holding system that was being used. Magazines were piled inside of boxes that were stacked in corners of the armory and other serialized gear was piled in boxes and on shelves.
The disorderly system caused Marines to take an exorbitant amount of time on accountability. Gear accountability can now be done, with ease, by simply pulling out drawers and walking past racks.
One of the new products was the weapons case for the crew-served weapon system. These cases were designed to hold specific weapon systems as well as all the gear needed to employ that weapon.
“Storing the big M-3 tripods are kind of a pain, you either have to stand them up or lay them down and they take up a lot of space,” Myers explained. “With them being in their own specific cases and being able to organize all the mounts in their own little case makes it really easy to issue them out. Now we just have to drop in the weapon system, sign your ECR (equipment custody record) card and send the whole box out.”
Sego expressed that armorers would normally have to issue every piece of the weapon system through the window. But, with the new cases it is as easy as putting the weapon system in the box and carting it out the door.
“Going to the armories to inspect them really opened my eyes to the need for someone to do something to solve this problem,” Sego reflected. “Armory storage solutions are more than just storage, it’s how procedures within the armories work. We wanted to provide a new way of how the armorers and custodians conduct business within their arms rooms and I think we have done that.”