ArmyJoe's Perpetual Picture Thread

Joe
you have done some good research and made some good trail maps. Before you leave this area, can you share those map routes in any way? Would love to see the actual routes in google map. Thanks in advance, if your still in town, want to go riding next sunday?
GP

Sorry, but I've been back in Ohio for about a month. I'll be posting tracks in this thread as I get them cleaned up.

Just found your thread, keep it coming. Doing an outstanding job. So many places to ride and see, and so little time.


Happy Veterans Day. We all thank You for your service.

50 degrees and sunny tomorrow. Hoping to hit the trails and preemptively posting my Spotwalla log so I have one less thing to do tomorrow.

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=879a52be5898a27e8

Highlights from yesterday's ride. 192 miles for the day. These are the GPS tracks from Knox, Holmes, and Coshocton Counties.



Meeting for lunch in Millersburg, Ohio. Left to right: ArmyJoe, MeefZah, Somecallmetim, Firedog45, Jon, Rich_B, alansz400. Photo by MeefZah.



alansz400 and ArmyJoe near the flooded south end of County / Township Road 366. Out there is State Route 715 (Walhonding Road) and the confluence of the Walhonding and Kokosing Rivers.



GoPro helmet cam video.

I know it's winter, but the video sure looked like a nice fall day. There at the end I thought ya'll were gonna go for it. Thanks for posting, enjoyed!

Well, if it's any consolation, it's 27 degrees and snowing right now. Like we say in Ohio, if you don't like the weather, wait a few hours and it'll change.

I think it was about 50 on Saturday. As long as it's above freezing and there's no salt residue on the roads, I'll go riding. I don't winterize my bikes, so I had to take advantage of the weather to keep the battery charged and gas fresh.

15 mins of video and not one wipeout or crash....so disappointing

My bike tried its damnedest at the :53 second mark.

Good stuff. I was out for a while that day and almost joined y'all, but didn't leave Wooster till 2pm.

After watching your video, I think one of your party stopped to talk to me at Warsaw. I was out riding my F800GS and had stopped at the Fire Station for a short break and someone that looked like one of the guys on your ride stopped and talked to me ( was riding a WR250 ). It was a nice day to be out.

Welcome to the asylum! If you haven't already, drop by the Adventure in Ohio thread and say hi.

That was me. Nice meeting you.

Cool the way the guy on the WR "sacrificed" his bike for the test run thru the water.

alansz400 was brave, too. MeefZah has been known to drown some bikes.

Brave? NO. Full coverage insurance? YES

I'm currently at the US Army Small Arms Championships.

Day 0 - January 25th

I left Columbus in a snow storm. My mother called around 6 PM to let me know there was a 10-car pileup at the interchange closest to my house, but my ride was uneventful. On the way down, I realized I forgot my practice 9mm ammo, but I scored a few boxes from an Academy Sports outside Chattanooga. There was no limit on ammo except for 22LR. After an 11-hour drive, I got to my hotel about 11:30 PM.



Day 1

Woke up, cleaned my weapons, and then headed in to Ft. Benning around noon. I checked in at the Roundhouse at Hook Range.



After that, I went to the arms bunker to have my weapons inspected and turn them in. I met a few guys from the USAR team and introduced myself. I had a few hours to kill, so I went exploring. The towers are used to train Airborne Infantry.





About 3 PM, I headed over to the Maneuver Center of Excellence (aka Building 4). This is the famous "Follow Me" statue.



In the auditorium, we had an abbreviated Small Arms Firing School.



I saw cadets from "the state north of Ohio" rocking this in place of a combat patch.



Something the AMU put out didn't look right. I thought the rear sight was .5 MOA clicks (my competition rifle is .25 clicks) , so I'll need to dig into the Field Manual later to verify this. ETA: I found out one click of elevation on the front sight of an M16 is 1.25 MOA, one click of elevation on the rear sight of an M16 is 1 MOA, and one click of windage on the rear sight of an M16 is .5 MOA, so that chart is right.



Tomorrow is zeroing at 100 yards, followed by practice shots at 200-500 to verify "come-ups." After that is a practice match. Really excited to be here and can't wait to get started.

US Army Small Arms Championships

Day 2 - January 27th

I woke about 5 AM, rolled out of the hotel about 6, and headed for McDonalds for breakfast. I'm not a morning person and handed the cashier my military ID instead of my credit card. Getting back on the road, I got to Ft. Benning about 6:30 and got in line for weapons draw. After getting my M16, I walked about 3/4 of a mile to the range. We lined up in four ranks to get our lane and relay for zeroing.



Being in relay 3, I headed to the pits with relay 4 to pull targets for relays 1 and 2.



Before long, it was time for me to zero. Having a rack grade weapon that I'd never shot, I was not a big fan of their zeroing process. They gave us 50 rounds to shoot 10 each in 10 minutes at 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 yards. Our targets were silhouettes as opposed to the bulls eyes we use in civilian matches.





At 100 yards, I was hitting 4s and 5s, but I would have liked more time to dial in my zero. This is where it really pays off to be a sponsored shooter and have your own personal rifle for competitions. Soon after we moved back to 200 yards, it started to rain. If that wasn't bad enough, my binoculars started fogging up on the 300 yard line, so I couldn't see where my shots were landing. My frustration was starting to get the better of me and my 400 and 500 yards zeros were all over the place.

We had a somewhat humorous moment when the sun came out briefly, causing a thick fog to blanket the range.



Because of the cold weather and potential snow moving into the area, the match director scrapped the practice match scheduled for the afternoon. Instead, they held Match 7:

Stage 1 - 500 yards, prone, 10 shots and 2 sighters, 12 minutes
Stage 2 - Run from 500 yard line to 400 yard line, assume the prone position, 10 rounds, 90 seconds
Stage 3 - Run from 400 yard line to 300 yard line, assume the prone position, 10 rounds, 90 seconds
Stage 4 - Run from 300 yard line to 200 yard line, assume the kneeling position, 10 rounds, 90 seconds
Stage 5 - Run from 200 yard line to 100 yard line, assume the kneeling position, 10 rounds, 90 seconds

I really didn't feel the effect of the sprint until stage 4. That, coupled with my crappy zero, gave me a 105-2x. I don't know the other scores, so I don't have an informed opinion of how well I did. Overall, I'm not pleased with the amount of misses, but if a Reserve Signal Corps Warrant Officer needs to run somewhere to engage the enemy, someone, somewhere messed up big time.

ETA: For this match, I placed 39th out of 119 (top 33 percent) in the Novice class. Overall, I placed 92nd out of 214 (top 43%).



After relays 3 and 4 finished shooting, we went back to the pits to pull targets for relays 1 and 2. The skies finally cleared about an hour before sunset.



We finished up around 6 PM, headed back to the bunker, and turned in our weapons. It was almost 7 PM by the time I left post. I was a good first day. I have mixed feelings about the combat EIC tomorrow. I wish I had that practice match back to work out the bugs.

Day 3 - January 28th

I woke about 5:30 and left the hotel about 6:00. I picked up my rifle from the arms bunker and walked over to the range. On the way I met a four-man team running the wrong way, so I set them straight and they ran back the way they came. The scheduled start was 7:30, so I saw no need to run. The arms bunker opened at 6 AM, so I knew some of the guys (if not most) were on the range and had been waiting in the 32-degree temperature for an hour. I don't get the Army's fascination with hurry-up and wait.

I arrived at the range about 7:10, got in line for ammo, and walked over to my firing position. My scorer was from California and was visibly shivering in his fleece. I had planned ahead and was wearing fleece, goretex tops and bottoms, gloves, and balaclava hood. I loaded the ammo in my magazines and waited for the start of the Excellence in Competition match:

Stage 1 - Start 25 yards behind 400 yard line, move to line and assume prone position, 1 magazine of 10 rounds, 2 minutes
Stage 2 - Start 25 yards behind 300 yard line, move to line and assume prone position, 2 magazine of 5 rounds, 1 minute
Stage 3 - Start 25 yards behind 200 yard line, move to line and assume kneeling position, 1 magazine of 10 rounds, 50 seconds
Stage 4 - Start 25 yards behind 100 yard line, move to line, shoot 1 magazine of 5 rounds from standing, shoot 1 magazine of 5 rounds from kneeling, 40 seconds
Stage 5 - From 75 yards, engage targets for 4 seconds. From 50 yards, engage targets for 3 seconds. From 25 yards, engage targets for 2 seconds. Each of the two targets can only have five hits.

I was unlucky in being in the first firing position of the day. As if the low light wasn't bad enough, the 6-8 MPH wind was making my eyes water and I had to keep wiping the tears away from my shooting eye. I had hoped all the NRA matches from 2013 would have made a difference, but with six misses at 400 yards, I only got 10 points for that stage. Moving to 300 yards prone, I did a lot better with 32 points. I screwed up again at 200 yards kneeling. Rather than sit on the back of my heel, I normally turn my foot sideways and sit on my ankle, like this:



But when I did it today, I felt a sharp pain. I tried to keep firing, but it was unbearable (it actually still hurts). I moved to the standard position, but ran out of time before getting all my shots off and scored a 10 for the stage. Moving to 100 yards, I kicked ass (for me) in the standing with 15 points, but missed the last five shots from the kneeling position. In the final CQB stage, I got a 19 with three misses. Overall, pretty shitty compared to the 112 I got in my first Combat EIC. especially when my goal was 125.



After the match, I went to the pits and pulled targets for the last three relays. We wrapped up just before noon and the USAMU released us for the day and told us to sleep in. Ft. Benning has a late start tomorrow and the arms room will open at 10 AM for the last rifle match.

With a free afternoon, I decided to head to Shooters, an indoor range, to practice with my personal M9. My first 10 shots at 10 yards looked like this (can you guess which one was a double-action trigger pull?):



and 90 shots later, I had this at 20 yards, with one of them being a double-action trigger pull:



Of course, that's without the added pressure of time limits and magazine changes.

In case you're wondering what caused the entire region to shut down:

Day 4 - January 29th

I should have brought ice skates.



Heading south on I-185 to Benning, a County Marshall directed us off the interstate. We were supposed to be at the arms room at 10AM, but nobody at the Marksmanship Unit was answering the phone, so I didn't know if I should keep driving or go back to the hotel. I pulled into a McDonalds to get breakfast and develop a plan. Checking Facebook, I saw:




Back to the hotel! I took advantage of the time off to get caught up on email.

During dinner, I saw another update:




Another day where I get to sleep in. Woo-hoo!