Posted on Dec 11, 2018
SSG Platoon Sergeant
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Just out of curiosity, Can a 11B switch over to be a 11C? If so what are the requirements? Thank you in advance.
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1SG Dennis Hicks
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Having served a good portion of my Career as an 11B I can say that becoming an 11C in your comp[any would be as easy as volunteering to be reclassified, When you hit SSG they used to select 11C as a secondary MOS.
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SPC Erich Guenther
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Edited >1 y ago
Regular Army is going to treat this differently than National Guard. My service overlapped part of 1SG Hicks. In Regular Army because each Infantry BN had 11C and both 11B and 11C are the same job family, you didn't need to attend AIT for 11C they would just flip you over to a 11C squad and you would start a course of supervised on the job training with the unit and they flipped your Primary MOS via orders at some point from 11B to 11C. They did the same 11B to 11H when there was a shortage of TOW folks. National Guard is probably different due to the geographic location of the units being more spread out and the training being less than every day. Even though I served two years in the NG........I have no clue how they do it. So when I was in all you needed to do was ask your 1SG for a transfer to a 11C squad and usually he can arrange one in the same BN. The problem your going to run into is he needs someone to fill your slot so it might be easier if you found a 11C that wanted to be an 11B about the same rank as you and in the same area you want to switch to.............thats not a requirement though as he can also work out a deal with that Company's 1SG that he gets the next new guy from Infantry OSUT.
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SGT Dave Matteson
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You should be able to but interesting question nonetheless. Which means that they no longer do cross-over training during Infantry AIT. When I was going through the Infantry School in 1980 we did one week of 81mm mortar training (11C) and one week of TOW training (11H). We had guys switch between the 3 MOS' during AIT. But as a LEG Infantry Training Company the Hotels Charlies would go their way and we would go ours.
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SPC Erich Guenther
SPC Erich Guenther
>1 y
By 1982 they changed Infantry OSUT, 11B, 11C and 11H were split up after week 9 and trained in their specific MOS simultaneously. It was 2 weeks each at that time.
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SGT Carl Blas
SGT Carl Blas
>1 y
In the 82nd 1972, I was 11B and the FDC for the 81's, and I was still in an infantry platoon, we did have a weapons platoon too.
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Can an 11B switch over to become an 11C? If so, what are the requirements?
SSG George Holtje
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I did the opposite. I was C for 5 years and reclassify to B.
The math skills are the big money maker for 11C which is why 11X is assigned as 11C in OSUT. While the M23 makes us all 11C with a little training, it’s being able to pull out a plotting board and conduct a fire mission that makes a difference. Had 9/11 happened earlier, I probably would have stayed Mortar for my whole career. My main reason for reclass was the Balkan missions were constantly turning 11C into an additional dismount squad and firing 120mm was never going to happen there
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LTC Jeff Shearer
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y'all, do they still have the real small 60mm? i know we used it, the tube and base was very small. Its size made it a good choice to carry
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LTC Jeff Shearer
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Pablo I am pretty sure that would not be too hard. I have to be honest I am a big ole fan of the 11 series MOS's. I dont think it would be a bridge to far, I dont know if you could do it or not but If I was the CDR I would want to get some crossed trained guys.
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SPC Erich Guenther
SPC Erich Guenther
>1 y
Thats what you want as a CDR and I can see that perspective from SF. However, what you run into in a Infantry unit is some of the 11B's would rather be chaptered than lose their Primary 11B MOS. I was astonished when I saw this in the 1980's. Like who really gives a crap if your 11B or 11H. Apparently it means a lot to some folks. In the 1980's we had a 11B SGT from the 82nd Airborne that said he would rather be Chaptered out then to have PMOS changed to 11H. Not sure what happened to him but his Chain of Command was not pleased with his overly public stance. He was not the only one either there were at least 7 or 8 others that had the same feelings. It's just paperwork via BN to flip to 11B to 11C and vice versa. They have to document the training to 11C and then administer a common tasks test and document that before orders are cut. Same for some of the Infantry ASI's........very easy to do. At least that is how it worked in the 1980's. I went through it to get my E9 ASI for Improved Tow Vehicle Crewman. Whats really weird is 11M came along and that had to be an AIT type school. Couldn't be done by the unit in the field and conversion to 11M was considered a reclass complete with mandatory contract extension. No idea why 11M had to be so different from 11C, wierd if you ask me.
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SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA
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I'm sure you can. It seems like the Army is always short of 11Cs. Just don't expect to be able to reclass to anything else, ever.
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SPC Erich Guenther
SPC Erich Guenther
>1 y
It's not considered a reclass, it is a job family change. There is no real cost $$ to the Army of making the change and no mandatory contract extension.
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SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA
SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA
>1 y
SPC Erich Guenther makes sense, but 11Cs are always under strength, making it difficult for them to reclass.
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SPC Erich Guenther
SPC Erich Guenther
>1 y
SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA - lol, nobody wants to carry the motar once they get there.
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SFC Transfer Specialist / Precert Nurse
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WHY??? When I was an 11B we had a soldier that came in and our mortar platoon needed a soldier and guess what the 11B became an un-schools trained MOSed 11C granted that was several yrs ago but I would gather that still happens today.
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
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No you can't, not without going to 11C AIT, anyway. Although, if you were an 11C you could switch to 11B without training.
Also, 11C is balanced E1-5 and 11B is understrength E1-5 so any Reclass request would be denied.
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SGT Carl Blas
SGT Carl Blas
>1 y
In 1972, most 11C did transfer into 11B.
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SSG Platoon Sergeant
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6 y
Well, I managed to do it with a 4187, and qualifying on the gunners exam. It is possible without having to go back through 11C AIT.
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SFC Platoon Sergeant
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4187
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SGT Infantryman
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did you ever get to switch ? i dont want 11C but i volunteered for it to get my training started vs being a hold over forever
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PFC Glendan Donald
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Yes but you would have to reclassify.
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SPC Raymond Hanley
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Not hard at all. When I was active they would ask if we wanted to switch them in the Guard I was trained as both.
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SPC Geoffrey Kendall
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I know a lot of people who have made it a secondary mos, as well as primary, very easily
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SFC Platoon Sergeant
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I dunno why you would want that though
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SPC Infantryman
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Why would you wana lower yourself to an 11C it’s all about kicking in doors and shooting people in the face not making background noise.
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SSG Platoon Sergeant
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I’m guessing you’ve done all that yourself already?
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LTJG Student Naval Aviator (Sna)
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No idea but I'd be very curious about this and why someone would make that switch
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SPC Erich Guenther
SPC Erich Guenther
>1 y
11B and 11C and when there was a 11H were MOS in the same job family and about 60% the same. 40% of the training was different though and....
Approx 40% of the time 11B would concentrate on squad drills, tactics and patrolling.
Approx 40% of the time 11C would concentrate on mortar gunnery, placement, etc.
Approx 40% of the time 11H would concentrate on enemy tank ID, TOW firing drills, emplacement, tactics, etc. So what inevitably happens is a 11B will look over and see what 11C's do and say hey I like that better. The problem with 11H is we would not road march as much as 11B's but instead drove because the TOW was so heavy we had a TOW gun jeep or TOW Hummer........so that was an attraction to the 11B's that were tired of marching everywhere. Some liked the idea of driving better than walking. 11C's some like firing explosives more than firing a weapon. So thats why the switching of MOS.......that and being Infantry it really gets monotonous training to do the same thing every single day, for months and years (it has to be that way though), and some people just get bored but not bored enough to leave the MOS. 60% of the time each of the three MOS did the exact same thing.
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1SG Dennis Hicks
1SG Dennis Hicks
>1 y
Sir, in some cases the more training and MOS/SMOS/AMOS you have makes your more marketable to the unit and gives you more avenues for promotion, I did OJT for the 11C and 11H MOS in my day and I enjoyed the training. I also have a couple of MOS's that made it slightly easier for promotions hen things slowed down in one MOS. In the end it is all dependent on whats good for the Army. The higher in rank you get the less chance you will be allowed to re-class. Also down the line if Big Army has a shortage of one of your MOS's then you could get a suprise order to transfer to a unit in need.
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