Soldiers of the Tennessee National Guard are now able to train on the .50-caliber Browning machine gun at Tullahoma’s Volunteer Training Site weapons range.
On Wednesday, Arnold Air Force Base Commander Col. Randal J. Gordon and Tennessee National Guard Deputy Training and Operations Officer Lt. Col. Thomas J. Foley fired the first rounds at a ceremony marking the inaugural firing of the weapon on a Tennessee National Guard weapons range.
For the first time ever, the .50-caliber Browning machine gun was fired on a Tennessee National Guard weapons range, Nov. 15, at Tullahoma’s Volunteer Training Site.
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Up until this week, service members of the Tennessee National Guard have had to travel to other states to certify and train on the .50-cal.
Service members are able to fire the weapon on targets up to 800 meters away at the weapons range.
The Tennessee Department of Military said this new capability will “continue to increase readiness and continue the modernization of Tennessee’s volunteer fighting force.”
“What this does is build on our capabilities and increase capacity for our organization,” Lt. Col. Foley said in a statement. “We now have a range that’s centrally located which our units can utilize year-round, and a lot of people worked hard to make this happen, so we’re very thankful for that.”
“In the past, for so many of our units, too much time has been spent behind the windshield, driving to an out-of-state-range to be able to fire these weapons,” Lt. Col. Foley added. “Adding this range to our training site here in Tennessee will save valuable time that we can now use to train in other areas, improving the overall readiness of our organization.”
The .50-caliber is a heavy machine gun that has been used primarily as a mounted vehicle weapon in recent years by infantrymen, transportation companies, cavalry regiments, and other combat units throughout the Tennessee National Guard, and the U.S. Armed Forces.
The gun has been used by the U.S. Armed Forces since 1921 and played a large role in World War II when it was commonly referred to as the Browning M-2.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
