gunnery asst?

• greentea`

  2 Oct 04, 16:31

  wat is gunnery asst?
  
  xiong or slack 1?
• wuming78

  2 Oct 04, 16:46

  the forward observer (FO)'s asst.
• SilencerZ

  3 Oct 04, 08:28

  depends on if u are a FOga or FAga. GAs work in artillary unit. FOga will chiong with the FO officers to frontline and act as "eyes" for the artillary guns.
  FAga stay behind the guns and calculate how the guns should turn to hit the targets.
  
  Actually slack or not depends on which unit u kanna posted to. Well, i m a GA ... seems quite slack for mi.
• Moxie

  3 Oct 04, 14:38

  There used to be 3 broadly-defined expertises for GAs, aka TAs - Technical Assistant - in my time: firing-data (FD) calculation, recce n' survey, & arty-fire planning (i.e. assisting FO/FSO). The 1st two are taught at SOAY; the latter also touched on there, but IMO learnt more ad-hoc while at the active unit.
  
  I understand, though, the recce n' survey side has been phased out with the advent of GPS sophistication & also the newer Arty weapons.
  
  So, of the remaining two, the FD side is physically cushy but quite mentally taxing; you're vehicular-based but will be finger-tapping keyboard/calculator keys all the time.
  
  The arty-fire planning side can, I believe, be split into 2 further subgroups:
  
  - the HQ appointments where you're basically based in an air-con office in camp (generally tagging along for field exercises as BN Ops, though occasionally get attached to FSO/FO's too);
  
  - the line-troop appointments where you pack a signal set & follow the FO/FSO when they do support for the infantry exercises, which was a lot & usually on weekends during my time.
  
  The latter (as FO/FSO GA or TA) is the most siong, esp. if you're not even PES B in the 1st place. You could even end up going to Brunei for jungle-training, like I did!
  
  Tip: Unless you're garang or absolutely hates to work with numbers, you can try to persuade for a change from the "tougher" appointments during the initial getting-to-know-you interview with your commander. That's what I did, & even then I did an about-face come reservist (didn't fancy chiong suah with the infantry until age 30something).
• wocc

  3 Oct 04, 17:46

  commonly called GA.....known as gunnery asst but treated like GENERAL ASSITANCE in units... meaning pao ka liao.
  
  got one poor GA in Sch of Arty everytime arrowed to buy new paper by offr. poor thing come back from cook house then have to walk all the way there again. cos one LTA ask him to buy LL have to buy. this LTA always ask ppl to buy his new paper.
  
  also ask his GA walk there to buy L torch..... and so on
• dragonstar

  3 Oct 04, 17:54

  Originally posted by Moxie:

  There used to be 3 broadly-defined expertises for GAs, aka TAs - Technical Assistant - in my time: firing-data (FD) calculation, recce n' survey, & arty-fire planning (i.e. assisting FO/FSO).

  Don't know about newer practices, but during my time, some TAs were assigned to assist GPO/MPO.