Marine Corps CFT calculator: your USMC Combat Fitness Test score

How to calculate your CFT score

1. Find your age group: 17 to 20, 21 to 25, 26 to 30, 31 to 35, 36 to 40, 41 to 45, 46 to 50 or 51 and over.
2. Take your movement to contact time, your ammunition can lift count and your maneuver under fire time.
3. For maneuver under fire, subtract 5 seconds if the grenade was a hit or add 5 seconds if it was a miss.
4. Look each result up in the table for your sex and age group. The points beside the best row you reach are your score for that event.
5. Add the three event scores. The total is out of 300.
6. Check that every event reached its minimum and that the total is 150 or more.

The calculator does all six steps as you type.

The events in order

The order sets the sequence, with no deviation allowed: movement to contact, then ammunition can lifts, then maneuver under fire. Rest between events is at least five minutes, and all three fit in one session of no more than two hours.

Movement to contact is an 880 yard run, timed. The ammunition can lift is as many lifts as possible of a 30 pound can from shoulder height to overhead in two minutes. Maneuver under fire is a 300 yard shuttle course with crawls, a casualty drag and carry, two 30 pound cans, a grenade throw and five push-ups.

Minimums and the 150 line

Every event has a minimum that earns 40 points. For a man aged 21 to 25 the minimums are 3:45 for movement to contact, 67 lifts and 3:18 for maneuver under fire. For a woman in that group they are 4:41, 30 lifts and 4:34. The top rows, worth 100 points, are 2:38, 115 lifts and 2:04 for the man, and 3:13, 74 lifts and 2:45 for the woman.

Three minimums together total 120, which is 30 points short of a pass. Missing the minimum in one event fails the whole test, however high the total is. At 61 lifts, one under the 62 that ages 17 to 20 need, a Marine earns 0 for the event and fails, even with a perfect run and course.

Classes

First class is 235 to 300, second class is 200 to 234 and third class is 150 to 199. A total under 150 has no class. The calculator shows how many points remain to the next class up.

The grenade throw

The 5 second rule is in the order: five seconds come off the overall maneuver under fire time for a hit, and five seconds go on for a miss. The order's own example is a Marine with an overall time of 2:42 and a hit, who is recorded as 2:37.

Enter the overall time and choose hit or miss in the grenade throw option. The calculator scores the recorded time. In the 17 to 20 male column, 2:37 earns 74 points and 2:42 earns 70.

CFT scoring at 4,500 feet and above

At 4,500 feet or more above sea level, units give Marines a 30 day adjustment period, and the order points to altitude tables for movement to contact and maneuver under fire. It states that the lift has no altitude compensation. For a man aged 21 to 25 the movement to contact minimum moves from 3:45 to 3:51 and the maneuver under fire minimum from 3:18 to 3:26.

Worked example

A man aged 24 runs the movement to contact in 3:00, does 90 lifts, and finishes the course in 2:42 with a grenade hit.

The course time is recorded as 2:37. In the 21 to 25 column, 3:00 earns 80 points, 90 lifts earn 69 points and 2:37 earns 73 points. The total is 222, which is second class. He needs 13 more points for first class.

PFT and CFT compared

The PFT measures pull-ups or push-ups, a plank and a 3 mile run or row. The CFT measures an 880 yard run, ammunition can lifts and a shuttle course with a grenade throw. Both are scored to 300, pass at 150 with the minimum in every event, and use the same three classes.

The PFT is taken from 1 January to 30 June and the CFT from 1 July to 31 December. Altitude tables change the PFT run and row at 4,500 feet or more. On the CFT they change movement to contact and maneuver under fire, and the lift stays the same. The 210 point rule for combat arms Marines is a PFT rule. The 285 and 250 point body fat allowances look at both the PFT and the CFT.

When the CFT is taken

Active duty Marines take the CFT once a calendar year between 1 July and 31 December. Reserve Marines follow the same window. The PFT falls in the first half of the year, from 1 January to 30 June.

What the order does not say about the CFT

The order does not say how to score a result between two rows. Because the CFT rows run every second and every lift, a whole-second result nearly always has its own row. Where a cell is blank, this calculator gives the highest row reached, and 0 points for anything worse than the last row.

The order never states in words that the recorded maneuver under fire time, after the grenade change, is the one tested against the minimum. This calculator uses it for both points and the minimum. Fractions of a second, the date that fixes your age group, and the elevation that counts for altitude are also unstated.

Some printed values look odd and are scored as printed. The 51 and over lift minimum is 16 for men and 6 for women, far below the neighboring groups. A woman aged 17 to 20 has a maneuver under fire minimum of 4:53, slower than the 4:34 for ages 21 to 25. In the altitude table for maneuver under fire, the women's 31 to 35 column prints its minimum at 4:52 and then a second run of values from 5:06 to 5:52. Those cells are scored as printed, but 4:52 stays the minimum, so a slower time does not pass.

The 210 point rule for combat arms Marines applies to the PFT, and the message does not mention the CFT.