Corps expanding, upgrading small-arms ranges

Range ground too rough?
Softer grass will cover it soon


Corps expanding, upgrading small-arms ranges
By Gidget Fuentes - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday May 17, 2008 9:07:23 EDT

PU’ULOA RANGE, Hawaii — The Marines, mostly noncommissioned officers, try to steady their M16A2 rifles as their bellies stretch across the scrubby berm that serves as a firing line on this known-distance range.

The firing lines on Alpha Range had been covered by blacktop, but the asphalt didn’t quite maintain its hardened exterior, and it doesn’t make for the friendliest surface for the shooters.

Soon, though, the range will sport softer grass growing from sprays of “hydro mulch,” or hydro seeding, a spray mixture of mulch and grass seed designed to hold water and promote faster growth. The grassy mulch is an easier, short-term fix to improve the 137-acre range east of Ewa Beach, just west of the mouth of Pearl Harbor at Iroquois Point.

“It’s better than grass seed, because the birds will eat the grass seed,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Herman, the officer in charge of the range complex, glancing across the range as students in a coaches’ course aimed at targets 300 yards away.

The upgrades here are part of the Marine Corps’ larger effort to expand and modernize training ranges and facilities. As many bases expand with small observation posts, larger forward-operating bases and larger clusters of urban-style villages or combat towns, the Corps is moving along with improving and modifying its small-arms ranges.


Rest of article at: http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/05/marine_range_051708w/