Combat arms facility at Wright-Patterson only one of its kind Published Jan. 22, 2007 By Mike Wallace Skywrighter staff WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio -- When marksmen come to Wright-Patterson's combat arms section, Bldg. 296, Area A, in February to compete for 25 Excellence-in-Competition medals, they'll find a unique, state-of-the-art facility. The indoor range there has 21 stations from which competitors will use M-16A2 rifles to fire from unsupported standing, kneeling, sitting and prone positions during timed rounds at reduced silhouette targets 25 meters away. The competition will include one-and-a-half hours in the classroom and two hours on the range as well as several heats, with the results available after the last one. The combat arms section is a firearms training facility familiar to most, if not all, members of the 88th Security Forces Squadron and all military members deployed or scheduled to deploy from the base. Tech. Sgt. Kurt Rice, the facility's noncommissioned officer in charge, said that the instructors there train as many as 3,500 students each year who fire an average of 30,000 rounds each month. Students include active duty Air Force, Office of Special Investigations, 445th Airlift Wing, Navy, Army, and Marine members. Some get classroom instruction only, but most also shoot on the facility's indoor range. The instructors also train people at ranges at Fort Knox, Ky., and Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, Ohio. The 13 types of weapons used include government-issued pistols, rifles, shotguns, machine guns and other weapons. The instructors administer 17 different courses for these weapons. They also inspect and maintain all the weapons stored in the facility's armory. This means that the instructors double as gunsmiths. Sgt. Rice said they also do security forces work away from the facility when required. He added that instructors help students by identifying their bad habits in handling weapons and working to correct them. (They even helped this untrained writer learn to hold a pistol correctly: in both hands almost as if in prayer.) In the Combat Arms' indoor range, shooters in training fire at targets at distances ranging from very close to 25 meters away. Instructors can change the light conditions on the range from total darkness -- making security force members use their flashlights to illuminate the targets -- to squad car flashing lights or to fully lit conditions. Sgt. Rice said that the combat arms facility is the only one of its kind in the Air Force, and he expects as many as 252 shooters at the rifle match competition Feb. 26 through March 1. Because it's an official military event, eligible competitors may seek permissive temporary duty to come here. Recipients of the Excellence-in-Competition medal may wear it on their Air Force service dress uniforms. Host nation students assigned to the Air Force Institute of Technology or the Air Force Research Laboratory may participate, but are not eligible for medals. For more information about the rifle competition, call Sgt. Rice at DSN 787-2309/7388 or (937)257-2309/7388.