WELL . . . somehow I had missed this . . .
IF it is still of interest, and I know it was brought up on those threads, BUT . . .
Current standards for large weapon systems are a annual live fire exercise which is typically a practice shoot to qualify but NOT a live fire under tactical conditions. Lots of staff work on safety and other such stuff goes around that . . . the fire is slow and methodical to be sure things are right. Live fires ALSO shoot practice rounds which were shorter ranges, not sure this applies to BT.
. . . but when I was in the Guard you spent half or more of your weekends doing tactical drills which were 2 or 3 days in the field doing fire simulations under tactical conditions- The operational tempo is designed to be worse than what experience says- or even what the equipment can stand because you are exercising the troops and the best way to do that is under the worst conditions you can. The average drill weekend in the field a battery 'fires' more in those two days than a battalion might in a week for expected combat conditions. The annual training spends a week in the field and intentionally pushes the op tempo for pressure. While the weather might not be the worst- it is summer so hot & nasty rather than cold, wet and muddy, the intention is still to keep that tempo so folks end up short on sleep while having as many other sucky conditions stacking on top as possible. We had a guy at the end of the week after running 24 hour ops answering the radio calls for his launcher in a light doze, or so his platoon sergeant said . . . you could hear us call over the speaker and he would answer back.
To be clear, this was for rocket artillery and was not any different by what I could hear & see from active duty nor for the cannon cockers. You do this because practice firing through the computers does not put stress on your weapon systems and keeps maintenance and replacement costs down. Each weapon system has a expected lifespan and it depends on the use. Consider the battleship which had a turret accident in the 80s and was never able to replace that barrel- because they were no longer made.
Small arms . . . one annual live fire qualification for rifles and crew served weapons. Annual familiarization for crew served weapons for those not assigned to them- if you were not the Gunner or the Assistant Gunner on say a M240, M2, etc then you fired it off at the range just so you were familiar with operations though you did not have to qualify. Rifle qualification is in NO way a accurate tactical application. I hated it b/c it was so artificial . . . and laughed my butt off when some of the 'experts' sucked it up when we DID get into tactical fire qualifications, what was called CQB- Close Quarters Battle- where you practiced urban clearing shoots. The ONLY time I have ever done that was as part of the two mobilizations to go to Iraq after the invasion, the same as mounted (in a Humvee) firing. Infantry formations probably do a bit more of this but according to the annual training or mobilization requirements, there is not a lot of live fires- it is about training muscle memories and habits. I did a LOT more 'glass house' clearing training than I did CQB shoots during those mobilizations.
There is a reason first world militaries only have annual live fires. It is expensive in munitions and expensive in the operational life of the heavy equipment used.
