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USN Silent Drill Team

skim

Teaching MIDN how to drift a BB
None
Contributor
almost as good as my OCS class drill comp. almost.
 

A4sForever

BTDT OLD GUY
pilot
Contributor
My plebe year I was a part of the USNA Silent Drill Team and it's an awesome experience. It takes and incredible amount of work to get to that point. Great job.
Fuckin' A ... I did the same in NROTC -- we "won" the West Coast back in the '60's BECAUSE of our "silent" routine ... the competitors included Stanford, UCal Berkley, UCLA, USC, Oregon, OSU, Washington.

It's very studly and takes an INCREDIBLE amount of work to take a bunch of "newbies" and make 'em into a unified/cohesive drill unit -- the actual routine took 5-6 minutes (can't remember), but took 6-7 MONTHS to get it "right" ... complete w/ bayonets, etc, etc, ...

We broke so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o many Springfield '03 stocks ... it makes me wanna cry today. Especially when the entire '03 piece is going for upwards of $1K on many/most auction sites ... :)
 

PropAddict

Now with even more awesome!
pilot
Contributor
^^ When I was there, the USNA silent drill team cracked so many M-14 stocks that they eventually replaced all the drill team's with plastic ones.

Girl in my company had some explaining to do when she tried to "weaponize" her M-14 by taking the lead rod out of the barrel. Apparently, when the drill team spun them enough, the rod came flying out.:eek:
 

C420sailor

Former Rhino Bro
pilot
Fuckin' A ... I did the same in NROTC -- we "won" the West Coast back in the '60's BECAUSE of our "silent" routine ... the competitors included Stanford, UCal Berkley, UCLA, USC, Oregon, OSU, Washington.

My former drill team was the first Navy drill team in the Pershing Rifles, about 10 years prior. 5th Regiment, Whiskey Company. East coast team, but maybe you drilled against them anyway? No longer a PR team, but Villanova's "Whiskey Company" still takes home its fair share of silver. This video makes me miss it quite a bit.

We still used demil 1903's up until about two years ago. We would use plastic stocks until the day before game time and then we'd break out the rifles with the real wood stocks. A solid drop would shatter them. We were able to replace the stocks for a while---then we had to resort to epoxying stocks back together. It got to the point that we just didn't have enough stocks for a routine, despite having dozens and dozens of barreled receivers and hundreds of various parts. We finally had to retire them to color guard/basic drill and use those black plastic Daisy Drill Rifles for trick. They suck. Strange balance, the snap/pop sucks, and they don't have bayonet lugs. Weak sauce.
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
Fuckin' A ... I did the same in NROTC -- we "won" the West Coast back in the '60's BECAUSE of our "silent" routine ... the competitors included Stanford, UCal Berkley, UCLA, USC, Oregon, OSU, Washington.

It's very studly and takes an INCREDIBLE amount of work to take a bunch of "newbies" and make 'em into a unified/cohesive drill unit -- the actual routine took 5-6 minutes (can't remember), but took 6-7 MONTHS to get it "right" ... complete w/ bayonets, etc, etc, ...

We broke so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o many Springfield '03 stocks ... it makes me wanna cry today. Especially when the entire '03 piece is going for upwards of $1K on many/most auction sites ... :)

We were all East Coast when I did it including performances. Went to Cornell, RPI and Villanova for competition. Even performed at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington and the Sea and Sky Spectacular in Jax. We switched over to composite stocks and practiced spins in the grass to minimize damage and then switched to nice ones for competition.
 

A4sForever

BTDT OLD GUY
pilot
Contributor
Yeah ... all we had was wood "issue" stocks ... we went through 'em like they were candy ... more's the pity.

And "demil" ... what's that ... ??? :D Had you stuck a 30-06 round in ours and "dropped the hammer" ... they would have gone "BANG" ... :)
 

xj220

Will fly for food.
pilot
Contributor
What years? We probably drilled against each other...

It was the 03-04 season. I think Nova was 04. As for demil (not Demille for you A4s:icon_wink), they would remove the firing pins and put a lead plug in the barrels so we couldn't fire them. Most of the plugs found their way out though.
 

C420sailor

Former Rhino Bro
pilot
It was the 03-04 season. I think Nova was 04. As for demil (not Demille for you A4s:icon_wink), they would remove the firing pins and put a lead plug in the barrels so we couldn't fire them. Most of the plugs found their way out though.

Just missed you. Some of our rifles still had firing pins, but the barrels were cut open lengthwise by torch just forward of the chamber, and the barrels were welded to the receivers. We always wondered if a good gunsmith/machinist could somehow replace the barrels without destroying the receivers.
 

EM1toNFO

Killing insurgents with my 'messages'!!
None
an also impressive performance was the USMC Silent drill video (the second one in the related videos after you watch that one)
 

C420sailor

Former Rhino Bro
pilot
an also impressive performance was the USMC Silent drill video (the second one in the related videos after you watch that one)

The second related one on my list was a USAF video.

I don't know if you're referring to this video, but it's a great one. The inspection is what really makes the Silent Drill Platoon's routine incredible.

 
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