The Connecting File is excited to announce the Gunner’s Corner, a new monthly series from the Marine Gunner community!
Gunner’s Corner provides actionable advice and recommendations from Marine Gunners for infantry leaders in short-form podcasts, videos, and articles. The goal is getting you good information left of bang so you can lead your formation better right now.
You can expect advice on infantry weapons employment and tactics, navigating range safety without degrading training, as well as recommendations on manning, training, and equipping infantry units. Gunners will combine their deep understanding of doctrine and training manuals with real-time observations and updates from the FMF, supporting establishment, retired Gunners, to provide unit leaders with timely advice to ensure their units are maximizing their training time, potential lethality, and other professional leadership topics.
For the Infantry Weapons Officers who subscribe to the CxFile, we look forward to you sharing your wisdom with our community! Please contact us at cxfile0302@gmail.com with your ideas, recorded podcasts, videos, and/or articles.
Want the Gunner community to sound off on a certain topic? Email us and we will pass it along to the Bursting Bombs for action.
In our first installment, First Marine Division Gunner, Gunner Browne, tackles one of the most critical weapons in the battalion’s arsenal: mortars. Few weapons in the armory provide the infantry battalion with such a marked advantage in combined arms. At the same time, these weapons are well known for the risk they pose to friendly troops if handled carelessly or without proper supervision.
Gunner Browne provides an excellent breakdown on how to best employ the battalion’s “hip-pocket artillery” while ensuring safe and effective fire support.
Some of the topics covered in today’s episode:
The value and characteristics of mortar gunnery.
Inherent error in mortar gunnery.
The importance of having school trained mortar unit leaders and recommendations on assigning the most qualified and best suited leaders.
Properly supervising the care and use of the aiming circle and stakes.
Training and supervising forward observers.
The importance of digging in and sandbagging baseplates.
Terrain selection for setting in mortars.
The most important components of mortar accuracy.
Use of simulation based training.
Building a training and education plan for preparing mortars to support maneuver.
CWO5 Gunner Ray Browne currently serves as the First Marine Division Gunner. He can be reached at raymond.browne@usmc.mil.
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