Here's a Sea Story that illustrates the difficulty of arming the watch.
When I checked into my first fleet squadron on Chambers Field waaaaay, way back in the day one of my first jobs was Weapons Officer. This was also right after 9/11 so we (Weapons PO & myself) were tasked with standing up an Armed Watch Stander program for our quarterdeck. Why we were guarding H-46's with an armed watch is a whole different conversation, but the problem was finding enough people who had a weapons qual or could even become proficient enough to qualify on a weapon of any sort. We had started the program by arming the watch with 9mm, but they had to have a pistol qual. That was HARD to find and those that had the qual were standing more watch than performing their rated jobs. Side note: the first week of the program, one of our armed watch standers has to use the head. Now, taking your weapon into the head is perfectly fine, but the first class who's on watch with the armed watch stander (IT who's unqualified on the weapon) convinces her that she can't because it's "against regs" and she relinquishes her weapon to him. She goes to the head and while taking care of her business hears her weapon discharged on the quarter deck. The PO she had relinquished her weapon to had decided to screw around with the pistol even though he had no idea how to handle the weapon except what he'd seen on tv...he also claimed it was an accident. Which was complete BS as they weren't even allowed to have a round in the chamber. So the chain of events to fire the weapon was this: he accidentally unholstered the weapon, he accidently chamber a round, and then he accidently pulled the trigger. Uhmmmmm...not an accident. Fortunately, the only thing he hit was a cinder block exterior wall. We got lucky. But the fact remained: we had a qualification, proficiency, and training problem. Solution: Switch them over to shotguns. So we find a range in North Carolina that can handle all of us and we bus down damn near the entire squadron to the range, set up demonstration stations, and start running them through three firing stations to qualify on the 12 GA Remington 870. They had to fire six 3 inch 00 Buckshot rounds...2 from the shoulder standing, 2 from the shoulder kneeling, and 2 from the hip standing. I forget the range...25 yards (seems too far)? For those not familiar, a synthetic stock 870 is pretty light and 00 Buckshot in 3 in rounds kick like a mule. First one up after we demonstrate is an eager go-getter. They fire their first round and we could tell that person was really surprised, but they gather themselves and get through the next three rounds...all hits. Next comes the hip shots. We warned them: HANG ON TIGHT. The sailor fires the first hip shot and the weapon goes backwards like it was attached to a bungee cord pulling behind and clatters to the ground about 6 feet behind them. The sailor had a bad cut on their finger from the trigger/guard and might have been broken too. They failed to qualify. That individual wasn't the only one to lose control of the weapon that day and fail to qualify. Several more folks did, both male and female. And several more, both male and female, couldn't hit the target because they were flinching so badly. At the end of the day we got a lot new armed watch standers, but the fact remains qualifying personnel can be a challenge. Having proficient personnel is another huge challenge. Now put the intent of the armed watchstander into action and having to meet an armed threat head on...I dunno...It's a coin flip at best. Infact, based on the percentages I witnessed, my personal feeling is it might be less than fifty-fifty the good guy comes out on top. Just my 2 cents.
When I checked into my first fleet squadron on Chambers Field waaaaay, way back in the day one of my first jobs was Weapons Officer. This was also right after 9/11 so we (Weapons PO & myself) were tasked with standing up an Armed Watch Stander program for our quarterdeck. Why we were guarding H-46's with an armed watch is a whole different conversation, but the problem was finding enough people who had a weapons qual or could even become proficient enough to qualify on a weapon of any sort. We had started the program by arming the watch with 9mm, but they had to have a pistol qual. That was HARD to find and those that had the qual were standing more watch than performing their rated jobs. Side note: the first week of the program, one of our armed watch standers has to use the head. Now, taking your weapon into the head is perfectly fine, but the first class who's on watch with the armed watch stander (IT who's unqualified on the weapon) convinces her that she can't because it's "against regs" and she relinquishes her weapon to him. She goes to the head and while taking care of her business hears her weapon discharged on the quarter deck. The PO she had relinquished her weapon to had decided to screw around with the pistol even though he had no idea how to handle the weapon except what he'd seen on tv...he also claimed it was an accident. Which was complete BS as they weren't even allowed to have a round in the chamber. So the chain of events to fire the weapon was this: he accidentally unholstered the weapon, he accidently chamber a round, and then he accidently pulled the trigger. Uhmmmmm...not an accident. Fortunately, the only thing he hit was a cinder block exterior wall. We got lucky. But the fact remained: we had a qualification, proficiency, and training problem. Solution: Switch them over to shotguns. So we find a range in North Carolina that can handle all of us and we bus down damn near the entire squadron to the range, set up demonstration stations, and start running them through three firing stations to qualify on the 12 GA Remington 870. They had to fire six 3 inch 00 Buckshot rounds...2 from the shoulder standing, 2 from the shoulder kneeling, and 2 from the hip standing. I forget the range...25 yards (seems too far)? For those not familiar, a synthetic stock 870 is pretty light and 00 Buckshot in 3 in rounds kick like a mule. First one up after we demonstrate is an eager go-getter. They fire their first round and we could tell that person was really surprised, but they gather themselves and get through the next three rounds...all hits. Next comes the hip shots. We warned them: HANG ON TIGHT. The sailor fires the first hip shot and the weapon goes backwards like it was attached to a bungee cord pulling behind and clatters to the ground about 6 feet behind them. The sailor had a bad cut on their finger from the trigger/guard and might have been broken too. They failed to qualify. That individual wasn't the only one to lose control of the weapon that day and fail to qualify. Several more folks did, both male and female. And several more, both male and female, couldn't hit the target because they were flinching so badly. At the end of the day we got a lot new armed watch standers, but the fact remains qualifying personnel can be a challenge. Having proficient personnel is another huge challenge. Now put the intent of the armed watchstander into action and having to meet an armed threat head on...I dunno...It's a coin flip at best. Infact, based on the percentages I witnessed, my personal feeling is it might be less than fifty-fifty the good guy comes out on top. Just my 2 cents.
