Pistols are not considered as a primary weapon for soldiers on missions. The bigger, more powerful rifles are very much preferred. Hence, since the foundation of The National Defense University aka UPNM, all the cadets are trained to shoot with the M16 and the Steyr AUG A1 only, shooting a pistol is literally unheard of, until now.
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| Assault Rifles |
As a medical personal in the Army, we are not expected to carry an assault rifle running into battle and start shooting at anything that moves. Our role as a doctor is to, well, be a doctor and help the injured. So, the only firearm that we carry would be a pistol for self defense purposes only. Thus, the medical cadets of intake 2010 & 2011 had the privilege of being to first batch to be taught how to handle and shoot a pistol.
The pistol we used was the 9mm Vector Pistol made in South Africa.
The early Saturday morning rising sun saw us all working together getting the shooting ranch ready for our shooting exercise. We measured and set up the targets, erected tents and so on. By mid-morning, everything was done and we were ready to begin shooting.
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| The shooting ranch |
Each of us had 3 rounds of shooting at different distance. We started at 10m then 15m and at last 20m. We had 10 bullets per round and our score was based on our accuracy. The target was divided in 4 parts, hitting the middle would earn you 5 marks and the marks would subsequently decrease as you hit farther and farther from the middle of the target, missing the target would obviously get you 0 marks.
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| Birds eye view of the medical cadets shooting |
After finishing the 3 rounds of shooting, 4 people (2 from each intake) with the highest score from each battalion were chosen to form 2 teams to represent their respective battalion in a shooting competition. The goal of the competition was to see which team could shoot down the most number of plates (Maximum number of plates=10) with 20 bullets at a distance of 20m.
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| The setup of the shooting competitiom |
All together there was 20 teams consisting of 10 medical cadet teams, 2 officer teams, 2 instructor teams and so on. 2 teams would compete at each round of the competition and the team shooting the most plates would win and proceed to the next round.
I'm glad to be chosen to represent Battalion Tuah, together with Farah Diba, a girl small in stature but with very accurate shooting skills.
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| Farah and me in action |
My gun jammed a few times during the first round making me frantic as I thought there was a time limit. Thank God there was none and I managed to hit 2 plates while Farah hit 3. I thanked God even more when the opposing team hit less plates than us so we proceeded to the next round.
I managed to shoot better in round 2 leaving only 2 plates standing but we lost to the opposing team, Team Jebat A, who managed to shoot all the plates. What a bummer!
In summary, after many rounds of shooting, the finals was between Team Jebat B and Team Insructor.
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| The two on the left are the instructors and the other 2 are the Sharpshooters of the medical cadets: Kecik & Pidot |
After a good fight, the champion team was Team Instructor with Team Jebat in second place. I'd say Team Jebat B did very well considering that this was their first time shooting a pistol.
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| Team Jebat B in action |
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| Encik Nel, champion of the day |
And thus concluded the shooting exercise for the day. I seriously learnt a lot throughout this exercise and I'm glad to say I'm on the right path of learning to be the man I hope to be one day. The nice part of being in a military environment is that each mistake is pointed out and punishment is dealt out. It may seem harsh but actually it helps us learnt from our mistakes and prevent us from repeating them.
Here are some photos I'd like to share, a few of my better shots (camera shots I mean):
So nais :D You're a quick learner; for both your shootin skills (if you know what I mean lol)
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