Spoken by a soldier in the navy: “I know in the Marine Corps, all Marines both Active and Reserve must qualify for small arms. How about the Navy Reserve? If it is not required can any Navy Reservist get it if you’re rating or job doesn’t require it? Not required, in general, for the Navy Reserve.”
“It may be required in some units. If your job does not require it, yes, you can still qualify. The trick to this is to get the opportunity to go to the range. Usually what I have seen in the past is that a large group from a particular command can swing a trip the range just to get the quails. More or less, just a moral sort of thing when you get the extra ribbon.”
“YES, it is required for many units in the Reserves. Join an NECC type unit or Law Enforcement, and you’re sure to get rifle and gun quails once or twice a year. The units you describe do not constitute the majority or even close to “many” of the types of units in the Reserves. No wonder you are having so much trouble finishing college. Reservists are now being pistol qualified in boot. Intel units require qualifications as well. That wasn’t called for. Also, I can tell you that all shipboard personnel are getting quelled on small arms, unlike in the past where many didn’t.”
“Most of the units, not many types of units but most of them now you have to qualify to shoot a gun. There are literally hundreds of units that are required to qualify annually, if not more often, on at least one type of weapon. I would call that many. I also read the previous post and there was nothing about not being able to finish college, maybe you should read it again before getting personal.”
“The easiest way to get quelled is to hook up with the local Seabee Det. Whenever I set the range time I always order plenty of ammo and invite other units from the NOSC. Obviously not all at the same time. It works well for the sailors that normally wouldn’t get the opportunity.”
“Here are just some of the units that need pistol and rifles in the Navy Reserve: ESD units, NCW units, IBU types, NMCB types, CBMU attachments, CR attachments, EOD units, CHB units, Naval Customs Battalions (ALL of them).”
“YES, even shipboard types are getting more training time to carry arms more often: SEAL TEAM Reserve types, FMF Sailors, MA types, IA Sailors, VP Pilots and AC, VFA Pilots and flight, HSL Pilots and crew, and HCS Pilots and crew. Yep, those w/ NCWG-1 Fwd all quail’s on the M-16, M-9 and shotgun, and for those requiring it, the M-2, M-60 and M-240. The Coasties had to fire both the Navy course and the CG pistol and rifle courses. (Darned if I can recall the differences offhand, but for me the Navy 303 British ammo for sale course of fire was much easier.)”
“It’s obvious you still have memories of when you were in. In almost every post, you talk about the way things were. It’s a slow process but agree with the SKC about how things are changing and training has becoming more often. My HQ in JAX is getting an indoor range to fire the Beamhit. Some Sailors might still get stuck in units that are not as pro-active due to leadership, that’s not my beef, I can’t do anything there; unless I was part of that unit, I could try and do something and go up the CoC. But it’s not rare to see units heading to a weapons field now these days.”
“We just hit the rifle and pistol ranges for the second time this year. We were not the only unit there as well. Couple of Drill weekends ago, our nosc set up a Beamhit and had Sailors train, one by one since ammo for 1000 something personnel isn’t cheap. As many as 10,000 est. Sailors are now on duty as we speak on deck or already on mission. About 60% of those are USN (RC) Sailors. That’s roughly 6,000 Sailors that had weapons, tactics and quails either in Fort Riley, Camp Shelby, and Fort Jackson. So now I am making a case that’s a pretty good sum of U.S Sailors getting quails.”