 Gunnery is a very important task that I mean all crews must complete at some point simply because it enhances our crew cohesion and not only that but our lethality. If we were to actually have to go out and fight the enemy I'm completely confident that our crews would be able to get it done. So both Axeman and Banshee company, sister company from 137 Armor are out here conducting crew level gunnery to get after our crew level lethality. We're part of the training glide path to go from crew all the way through company CalFX to meet fifth core training guidance and so we've been able to maintain a very high level of operational readiness right here at the range and so I'm confident to say that the majority of the company will be able to fire off their own tank and qualify. So it's a hundred percent important to the crews to be able to come out here and do gunnery mainly because it enhances those individual crew tasks that aren't necessarily honed all the time and can be forgotten such as reloading the main gun, bore sight, even just MRS update for the tankers that know what it is. It's crucial to continue to refresh on those tasks and gunnery is one of those times that they really get to really hone in on it. So it definitely if it still takes the growth mainly by kind of trouble fire kind of you got to get out there you got to learn it at some point and even when things get hard you still got that battle buddy beside you that's saying hey let's get up let's go shoot and let's get it done so I couldn't be more thankful for them. My name is Captain Austin Bayjack I'm from Hackett's Town New Jersey and I'm the commander of Axman Company 137 Armor tank company. So both Axman and Banshee company sister company from 137 Armor are out here conducting crew level gunnery to get after our crew level lethality or part of the training glide path to go from crew all the way through company to meet fifth core training guidance. It's important for our unit level readiness we are training from crew level through company so we are both ensuring that our crews are ready for our own training for NTC came up in 2025. Additionally it helps support our NATO allies here because we're a posture to support and defend our European allies. Wonderful so the tables test different things and so we go through tables three through six at the range here three being dry fire so there's no bullets four machine gun pure five is with scale targets that are smaller and the table six the actual qualification table is where we we qualify our crews. What it looks like there are multiple engagements that test different things and so for instance some engagements degrade the tank so your laser goes out how do you battle site your tank if the stability goes out how do you go how do you engage targets without your weapon system being stabilized and then additionally there are multiple targets so there's a new gunnery table that we're firing currently in accordance with the new doctrine that has just been released and so now there the so-called widow maker in which there are four targets presented so a platoon sized element being engaged and destroyed by one tank so lethality looks like two different things one is how do I fight my tank through different issues that I have with it and then additionally how do I engage multiple targets rapidly and to standard so those are the two major training things that we get after here so first and foremost is qualification so being able to achieve a certain score on the gunnery tables but additionally being able to qualify on your own tank and so we've been able to maintain a very high level of operational readiness right here at the range and so I'm confident to say that the majority of the company will be able to fire off their own tank and qualify additionally there is a platoon competition between each other and so 900 or above out of a thousand is shooting distinguished and so each of the platoons are chasing after that goal within their own crews to shoot both the highest within their platoon the highest in the company and then finally top tank in the battalion so it's fantastic I think that what ends up happening is the crew becomes very close it leads to very close and connected cohesive platoons and then as a company like there is an extreme amount of pride and it's pretty core that is built and all happens or it starts at that crew level but just lends itself at the platoon and company level so very cohesive unit when it comes to operating day to day sure so I think a couple things I'll kind of break it down by echelon so first at the crew and tank level it's been eye-opening to operate because we're used to desert for bliss hot conditions right when we execute gunnery operating in icing conditions the tank responds differently has different issues to fight through even down to like the lubrication of our weapon systems and so like fighting through those challenges we're capturing them we're going to include it in our tax ops so that future units that come through are gonna be able to understand how to operate their tank to a very high level within these cold and icy conditions so that's a huge lesson learned from the crew level at the platoon level so we were storing our ammunition on the tanks for each gunnery table and so it is beholden upon the section sergeants the platoon sergeant to have very accurate logs that reporting for ammo accountability in addition to POL and so what's that what that's placing on our tankers is a high level of responsibility at the nco level at the section and platoon level and it's been really phenomenal to see that kind of come together and that's going to only help us even more when we're in the field and not and are operating under more austere conditions but it's been a very positive lesson that we've been able to carry forward with us and then at the company level I think just conduct of the range has been phenomenal we've been able to pull in some external VCs for gunnery table six but before then it's been run by the by the two companies I think what's ended up happening our two companies have become very close together we've become a very cohesive unit both companies and I think that's going to lend itself very well for a maneuver when we're going to be supporting each other on the battlefield in training to execute maneuver training so no it's this has been a great experience and I'm looking forward to continue to train with this company