July-August - Air Defense Artillery School

C~RTC Training ~idsl
By Warrant Officer Sam Horowitz
Improve and exploit!
This is the theme of the Coast Artillery Replacement
Training Center for turning American civilians into welltrained
recruits who soon will help explode the divideand-conquer
theory. Its development is the job of the
Training Aids section of one of the Army's youngest training
centers, located at Camp ~ lcQuaide on scenic t\ Ionterey
Bav in California.
idea center for the CAHTC. the nominal SOP of
T raining Aids is: to gather training ideas from all parts of
the world. select those particularly adaptable for its needs,
add research and lots of it, and then go into production.
Finally, distribution, according to instruction schedule
time-tables, places ideas from near and far at the disposal
of officers and noncoms for presentation in training newly
arrived recruits.
Visiting teams of inspecting officers from the United
States and British Am1ies and neighboring naval bases have
pointed to the CARTe's Training Aids as among the most
complete section of its kind in operation. BrieRy. it consists
of three main departments-the Library of Training Aids, a
chart and model reproduction shop, and a well-equipped
carpenter shop. Supporting all three is the front office
procurement division.
The Library part of Training Aids provides each man in
the CARTC, from the General down to the rawest recruit,
with a source for every bit of issue or non-issue training
literature, chart, model or device in the center. A simple
sign-out library system allows issue for a ten-day period
to all who apply. In addition to the training and technical
manuals used chieRy for Coast Artillery training, a wide
selection of supplemental manuals, Military Intelligence
publications, publications of other branches and foreign
nations and all charts in use at the CARTC are available.
And to prove the variety, the Librarian points to an
18-page typewritten inventory compiled last month. This
is the department which comes in contact with the military
public, so to speak. Its personnel is highly trained to recommend
the proper literature for whatever problem either the
trainers or trainees meet. In addition. the Librarv sch
the requisitioning and distribution of all training lite
and aids, other than ordnance material.
A new technique in military training is found in
reproduction shop. Commercial art is e:\:ploited, but
from becomig too arty, in presenting clearly to ex-fa
clerks and truck drivers, the intricate mechanisms of
machine guns, 155mm guns, searchlights and many
army items. The use of colors and the pictorial is repla
the maze of schematic drafting. which heretofore left a I
percentage of new recruits more befuddled than instru
Personnel of this department consists of comme
artists and draftsmen. Technique chieRy employed is
of silk screen poster printing. a grown-up stencil proced
Here new designing and originality in presentati
proving itself in such charts as an eight-color cuta
view of the 155mm breech mechanism, a three-qu
view of the recoil mechanism of the I55 in as many c
services of the piece for the 155. seacoast searchli
sighting and aiming charts, and many others.
Direct black and white reproductions are an alter
method of reproduction. Two home made light boxes
a commercial developer allow quantity reprints of I
charts, maps, specifications and other aids.
The artists use their abilities in still another main field
that of papier-mache. Several model terrains are circulat
for teaching elementary map reading. Over t\\'o do
principal natural and man-made features are depicted
miniature, light enough for one man to carry. Feature
the terrain is a removable mountain cap which reveal,
series of removable wooden disks cut to contour shape, \lit
contour lines painted along the edges. Another papi
mache structure is made for position of gun batteries 011
cliff overlooking a beach and sea, with a naval target ridi
the waves. This is used in position finding.
Products of the carpenter shop number in the thOUsa~
and range from simple wooden daggers to a miniatu
searchlight control station with a twenty-foot conn\
target range towing fi\'e different classes of na\'al II
Training aids in use. Recoil mechanism of the 155mm gun is eXplained by a team of cadre consisting of an officer and (hr
noncoms-all pointing to the same part on identical charts.