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What does an Artillery Operator - Gunnery do? After the 2 months training at Artillery Institute, will be posted to any camp with artillery? Some say need to handle cannon, maintain, clean, etc, some say only computer based simulation, etc...
Hey safetyleo, u are quite lucky to get into gunnery! Haha, I'm a gunnery spec (GS) so I should be able to answer your questions :)
For us gunnery people, its more of a higher echelon kind of job rather than being a gunner, or rather gun operator. Basically, a gunner fires the guns, the arty spec (AS) commands them, and thats it. They are solely firers, so to speak. However, we as gunnery do a very different kind of job. Gunnery is the calculations of precisely where the round will land. There's really a ton of factors involved, including wind speed, type of round used, weight of round, and many many more. On long range firing, we even have to take the rotation of the earth into account. U will be getting a black range table book, aka bible :)
In reality, however, we use the computer to make our calculations. At least, as long as the computer works ;) I cannot disclose the kind of stuff on the computer but dont worry cos u'll definitely get to use it. But don't be so happy cos u still need to remember your manual gunnery stuff in case you ever need it. For u as a Gunnery Assistant (GA), you might be either posted to the Forward Observer (FO) as his assistant, or to FD, which is to people like me.
And about your question regarding weapon maintenance, the answer is no. We will never touch any artillery weapons. There's no point, cos if we do, then the gunners are obsolete isnt it?? Lol. Anyway, if u are FD GA, u will be with GS like me, plus a GPO in the BCP. Its the brain of the operations, which kinda make us indispensable cos without us, the guns are useless! But it works both ways really. Without the guns, we also cant do anything.
After your trng ends, u will be posted to an operational unit, which could be any artillery unit, depending on the estab. So, I'd really advise you to enjoy your life in Khatib as much as you can cos life in the unit will suck most of the time.
Anyway, thats all I'll say here. I dun think there's much more stuff I can say here that wont get me charged. Haha