Page 6 - LBV 2024

CUOTC
Shooting
Team
Our annual shooting package, organised and led by WO2 Warren, took place out of Brunswick Camp
in Pirbright once again this year. As always, the event started with a day
to zero the rifles we brought with us, before then moving onto the Annual Combat Marksmanship Test, which
all officer cadets passed with some very close to achieving marksman.
This camp is designed to select and prepare a team of eight for the Defence Operational Shooting Competition, also held in Pirbright, and consequently once weapons were zeroed cadets then moved onto practising and learning
the various different shoots which are cycled through at competition (or mostly the Whitehead).
It is a very rewarding two week camp, affording officer cadets the chance to get hands on with live rounds, many of them for the first time, which all will agree is a very different experience from the normal blank firing we do on exercise. Once you get used to the recoil from live rounds, you never unlearn it - the instinctive flinch is real!
A day was dedicated to GPMG live fire as well, an opportunity not often experienced in UOTC. Although as
those tasked with being fire support during ADX will agree, the GPMG is
an extremely heavy weapon to carry around, it more than makes up for the discomfort when you have the chance to fire it live. As a different weapon system
to the SA80, a lesson on basic handling was required, which was invaluable and deeply interesting.
We also spent two days on the Glock 17, learning how to safely use a weapon for which the only real safety mechanism is the holster, as well as how to hold it properly and finally getting the chance to run through some of the pistol shoots. One of these shoots is a transition from rifle to pistol, so we practised having
the rifle in the aim holstered CQB style, letting it fall to lie across our torsos and then drawing the pistol and getting back into the aim.
Overall, shooting camp this year was as always a brilliant two weeks where all learned something new and progressed well in weapons handling across the three systems.
OCdt Webber
6 THE LIGHT BLUE VOLUNTEER