Going to Field Artillery BOLC, what should I expect?

Very challenging course. Very, very long days that end around midnight. You will have homework most nights, along with redoing the homework from the previous night. Fire Support and JFO is the fun part and the loads are not so bad.You will hate your life and the Army as a whole during manual gunnery.

I was in class 3-15 and graduated in July. A lot of changes were made to subsequent classes- for one, they took out most of if not all manual gunnery which was the real headache for my class. They also removed the hotel exams which were practical, graded events (also a struggle for many). Your standard should be 70% to pass. All exams are open note which makes fire support a snap. As long as you put the effort into your gunnery homework and tab out your FM 6-40 like crazy, you will do just fine. I can't stress the importance of study groups enough- you will get a lot more sleep. None of the concepts are very difficult but expect to be blasted with information constantly. It really is attention to detail that gets people. Pay attention to rounding/artillery expression and make notes on your homework and the example problems you do in class as to where to find things. ALSO, do NOT blow off the CAD classes. There is very little emphasis placed on them, yet we still had a couple of people recycle because of those silly classes. Staying on top of the work load and keeping everything organized is critical.

Statistically, the second hardest BOLC behind Aviation, when I went three years ago there like 23 graded assessments total, not counting homework. It has changed some from what I am hearing, and not in your favor. Early days that end late and regular, if not nightly HW. You will actually fire howitzers a lot less than you would think. Like 5-10% will recycle or drop each class, no options of picking up with the class behind you, you start all over in common core...fire hose all day, but I also saw some "rocks" squeak it out. Good luck!