Chapter 15

When Captain Prawit and I arrived at the firing range, Lieutenant Chatchai had the men at work already repairing the area of the tam-nop (embankment) to be used for firing and the area on the next dike or embankment where the targets would be placed. With the rain that the area had received lately, the space between the two locations was filled with some eight inches of water, and it resembled a rice paddy – if a small one. The taller embankments were very visible now with the areas between them covered in water.

"Was this area used for growing rice previously?" I asked Captain Prawit.

"Yes, but it was quite some time ago before this area was a part of the camp," he told me. "The men are having an easy time since the water in the low paddy areas has made it easy to remove the soil to repair the higher areas. Those areas will dry out very quickly with the heat that we are having each day," he finished, as I watched the men remove the slick clay-like soil with shovels that were designed for just this kind of work, and move it in bamboo baskets to areas requiring repair. I was also worried about the heat.

"Don't allow the men to work too long without a break. Also do we have sufficient water here for them to drink in this heat?" I asked.

"Yes, for now," he told me, but added, "the cart will return to bring the food for the mid-day meal and more water also."

"Fine, let's look at the distances between these dikes and determine where to place the targets and the firing line," I told him. We used the connecting dikes at the end of the small paddy to cross to what would be the target area. I counted paces as we crossed it.

"This is about 55 yards wide," I mentioned when we reached the other dike.

"Yes, it is 25 wah (1 wah = 2 meters) which is standard," he replied. "That is also the distance at which our Army practices volley firing as the men are very familiar with it."

"Yes, many countries do that at around 50 yards, but I want the men to fire at longer distances, but not too much longer since the open distances in the forest and jungle are often very limited," I told him.

"How much longer?"

"I was thinking about 60 yards, but since you said that this is 25 wah, perhaps 30 wah would be appropriate, since that would be a bit more than 60 yards," I told him to a grin from him.

"Yes, that would work very well. We can still put the targets on this embankment, and move the firing line back from the other edge of the paddy onto the land behind it after clearing away some of the brush and grass," the Captain agreed.

"For a longer range we could put a few targets on the second dike. That should give us a distance of about 55 wah, so say 115 yards more or less," I told him.

"Yes, something like that. I am sure that some of the men will be able to hit a target that far away," the Captain agreed. This however brought up another question, namely what to construct the targets out of.

"If we have one platoon at a time firing, we will need 20 firing positions which means that we will need 20 targets. In my Army, we have permanent standard target frames on the range, but I am not sure what to use for target frames here. It needs to be something that we can put a replacement target of some kind on. We will also require replacement targets. Again in my Army they use printed paper targets," I told him.

"What do these target frames look like?" he asked. I knelt on the ground and sketched out a simple target frame and explained the parts.

"We can make those from bamboo lashed together, and use woven bamboo mats to hold the replacement targets," he quickly told me on seeing the sketch.

"And the targets?" I asked before adding, "In the old days, the riflemen would use a blackened wood shingle with a small piece of paper for a target in shooting matches." The Captain appeared to be thinking for a minute.

"Boards are difficult to obtain here, however banana leaf is easy to obtain and it can be hung from the bamboo mats with bamboo pins as can a small piece of paper for a target. The green banana leaf will also cover the previous holes in the mat," the Captain told me with a smile.

"Most of that is from natural materials and easy to find, but what about the bamboo mats and the paper?" I asked.

"Most things are delivered to the Army in baskets of various sizes and shapes made from woven bamboo, and the supply people always need to get rid of them often by using them as fuel for fires. The rice straw paper is used to wrap things in and is easily obtained since we will not require the better grades used for writing," he finished.

"Can we obtain some of the baskets whole and in good condition?" I asked.

"Yes, probably. What have you in mind?" he asked.

"With only one platoon firing at a time, the other three will be free to handle other things. I was going to have one platoon work on the containers for the cartridges and a second making cartridges. That would leave the platoon that had just fired time to clean their weapons and practice sighting them in," I told him.

"Yes, that would keep everyone busy, and there are sufficient Officers and Sergeants to supervise them. Usually the men make cartridges at night when they expect to have to fight," he told me, and a chill ran down my back at the very thought of them loading black powder into paper cartridges by candle light.

"That can be very dangerous," I quickly reminded him.

"Yes, there have been a number of accidents, and the Commanders have been warned to not allow the practice, but it continues in many units," he told me.

"NOT in our unit!" I told him in a very determined voice. "If we are that short of ammunition, we will stop training and make cartridges during the day," I assured him.

We returned to the area of the original firing line then and determined where the new firing line would be located. The men would be firing from the prone position to sight in their weapons and then from the kneeling and standing positions for advanced firing techniques.

"We will need something to mark the new firing line," I mentioned after we determined where it was. There would be no foxholes on this range as current military technology did not employ them.

"We can use some of the smaller tree trunks. We will need to remove some of them in any event," the Captain told me. "And use bamboo to mark off the different locations for them to fire from," he added.

The next several days were very busy. Corporal Wiwan and his party returned in time to get the last of the mid-day meal. Cartridge container manufacturing would be started on in the next few days. The earthworks were soon completed as well as the brush, grass, and tree clearing. Some men had been sent to collect bamboo for the target frames and had started on their construction, while other groups gathered banana leaves. Baskets and rice straw paper were obtained from the supply people.

By the 8th of June we were ready to begin sighting in the weapons. I was the first one to fire that morning with the entire unit watching. The first five rounds were a bit low and to the right on the target. I brought it back and showed it to the men and explained about adjusting the sights on the weapon, just as I had done in a previous class.

I then used a small brass hammer that had come with the tools to move the rear sight, and explained that I would need to raise my point of aim just a bit to hit the center of the target. I also swabbed out the barrel with hemp fibers before reloading the weapon and returning to the prone position. The target had been replaced with a new one while I was doing and explaining all of this. The next five shots on the new target were all centered around the X on the rice straw paper, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the sight adjustments and that I am a pretty good shot, or because of the Amulets, since mine had warmed up when I thought about it. However, when I brought the target back, the men were greatly impressed with it.

The Officers and the Platoon Sergeants were the next ones to sight in their weapons while I acted as both Range Officer and Safety NCO ... It required several rounds of firing for all of them to get their weapons sighted in. Their targets ran from very tight for Captain Prawit to quite loose for one of the Platoon Sergeants, but they would all improve with practice.

Following cleaning and oiling our weapons, which we had the men carefully observe, the First Platoon was sent to the firing line. Captain Prawit was the Range Officer and several of the Platoon Leaders and Platoon Sergeants helped on the firing line. I acted as Safety NCO to ensure that there were no unsafe acts.

While First Platoon was firing, Corporal Wiwan had those in the Fourth Platoon help with the construction of the waterproof ammunition containers. Lieutenant Chatchai and two of the Platoon Sergeants oversaw the Third Platoon in making paper cartridges. They supervised them as they rolled the two sizes of prepared paper around dowels of the correct size and closed one end with a form. When a good number had been prepared, Minie Balls were added and the third layer of paper wrapped around everything and the ends tied off. The black powder was added before the cartridges had the tail closed. The final step was to lube the bullet end of the cartridge. The men had obtained a pot with a small fire chamber under it and used it to melt the wax and fat mixture to lubricate the outer wrapper around the bullet. These cartridges contained a 491 grain Minie Ball and 2.2 drams or 60 grains of black powder.

Most of the men had prepared ammunition before and were familiar with the process. The Officers and I had taken several of the manufactured cartridges apart and reverse-engineered how they had been assembled. We had then given classes on how to assemble the British type of cartridge to the men. It was fairly easy since we already had the correct tools along with the paper, bullets and black powder. The cartridges that they were preparing were for use here on the firing range, and we would save the factory prepared cartridges for our field expedition. The Second Platoon cleaned their weapons and practiced sighting them in while the others worked.

The men ranged widely in experience with weapons. Those who had been hunters or poachers were the best and soon had their weapons sighted in and produced some very tight groups. Other men were only used to the volley firing used by the Siamese Army and were much less accurate, requiring more time to achieve a good group with their weapon. We had used some of the more experienced men to coach those having trouble. One persistent problem was that many men tended to jerk the trigger rather than pull it evenly. A part of that could be attributed to the muskets that they had previously used which often had poor locks. We managed to get two platoons sighted in the first day.

The last two platoons sighted in their weapons on the second day. For a platoon to fire five shots required 100 rounds of ammunition. If they fired five targets for sighting in or for familiarization, it required 500 rounds of ammunition. We had four platoons plus the Officers and Platoon Sergeants. For all of them to fire five targets required 2250 rounds of ammunition – a huge amount of ammunition in an era of hand loaded cartridges, and a reason that there was so little firing done here on the Siamese Army camp.

Over the next few days, there was much practice firing in various positions without the use of live ammunition. Finally on 13 June, there was live firing again from the kneeling and the standing positions with five rounds from each position. The results were quite varied with those who had hunted doing very well and some of the others at least hitting the banana leaf background on the target frames. It was as good as we could expect given the amount of live firing they had been able to do. Quite a number of the bamboo cartridge containers had been completed, but it would require at least another day to complete enough for each man to have one.

On the morning of the 14th, I had the men erect a target frame six wah out in the water and put a 12 inch square target on its banana leaf background. I then gave a demonstration of my pistols firing the right and left one alternately. When the target was recovered, the men were surprised to see all twelve shots grouped in a three inch circle. That day the cartridge containers were completed with two platoons working on them. The other two platoons collected all of the target frames and policed up all of the trash that had accumulated on the range. The exception to this was the four target frames on the second embankment at 55 wah, or 110 meters.

The best shots in the unit from each of the four platoons then each got five shots at the targets. They had carefully loaded their ammunition for this competition that day, and there was friendly betting by the men as to who would do the best. Each man took his turn firing alone before any of the targets were collected. The Platoon Leaders each collected the target for his shooter and returned for the men to inspect them.

It didn't require an expert to see that the target fired by Corporal Wiwan of the second platoon was the winner. The other targets were very good and close enough to be a tie, but were nowhere near as good as his was. The unit returned to the barracks in a very good mood following that, as they had been surprised to see just how good some of their fellow soldiers were. At the evening formation, I announced that tomorrow was a day off, but that on the following day the final training exercise would begin, and that it would last for five days.

Chanthra was waiting for me when I reached home that evening and had dinner ready.

"You will be very busy over the next week," she said in a worried voice.

"Yes, over the next seven days there will be tests of the men's ability to operate in the field and apply what they have learned since starting training," I told her.

"You are worried that they will fail," she said, and it was a statement, not a question.

"I am worried that I have failed to teach then everything that they need to know, and that it will cost them their lives in the end. There are so many things that I could have taught them, yet many of them are not applicable yet ... not for a number of years," I told her in worry.