DA Pam 350-38 (Standards in Training Commision)

For this discussion on Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, I will be discussing DA Pam 350-38 (Standards in Training Commision). This book is used in conjunction with TC 3-20.0 (Integrated Weapons Training Strategy, May 2015). Both of these books are the bible for the amount of ammunition that individuals are supposed to shoot in a given year.

STRAC is broken down based off of unit type. Chapter 2 covers Armor units and Armored Cavalry Squadrons, Chapter 3 covers artillery units, Chapter 4 covers Air Defense Artillery units, Chapter 5 covers all versions of Infantry units (ABCT, SBCT, IBCT) for active, and guard components, Chapter 6 covers Engineers, Chapter 7 covers Aviation, Chapter 8 Covers Military Police, and Chapter 9 Covers Sustainment and Support Weapons Systems.

Chapter 10 covers ammunition allocations for Combat Training Centers and Deployment Exercises, Chapter 11 Covers SOCOM, Chapter 12 Covers Contingency Operations and Mobilization guidance for National Guard and Reserve. This book is revised annually based on changes made by the council of colonels.

Now that we have the basic information on what STRAC is, what does it do for the Paratrooper? This publication lets the Airborne leader know how many rounds they are allocated for training, per WEAPONS SYSTEM ON THE MTOE (not per soldier) per year.

As an example of how this will help the average Infantry company is as follows: If I have 145 M4’s on the MTOE, but only have 118 soldiers currently serving in the Company, that means I have the yearly allocation for 27 people that can be spread across the rest of my formation.

An example of when units fail to take this into consideration is when the end of the year is reached, and units have a considerable surplus of ammunition in their account that needs to be shot. If you’ve ever been out on the range burning up the barrel on your M4 wondering ‘where was this ammunition in February?’ That is why.

TC 3-20.0 (Integrated Weapons Training Strategy) Builds off of this book, and runs the company through the training cycle. starting at the lowest level (the indivudal rifleman) and working them through the gated events until they are qualified on that system. Then it progresses to individual crews/Teams, then Sections/Squads, on up through battalions.

If a unit follows the Integrated Weapons Training Strategy, they will have their yearly allocation of ammunition spread across the training calendar so that soldiers will actually shoot more than once every 6 months.

Later, we will be discussing how to use STRAC to plan your yearly allocation of ammunition in a walkthrough. If you are interested in looking at the STRAC, and wish to download a copy, it is available at the following link:
https://tamis.army.mil/strac/DownloadPublishedManual.aspx

or here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByiIPNyo3GLUNE9zQWNPeHBoLTg/view?usp=sharing

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