Marksmanship matters.....

Good article, but like in everything else, History Repeats Itself. The problems we have in Afghan is the same problems we hand in the Civil War that got the NRA started. The same problems addressed by Teddy Roosevelt when he started the Division Marksmanship Program (now known as the Civilian Marksmanship Program). Gen Ike saw the same problem which led him to start the Army Marksmanship Unit when he became president.

The sad part, in future wars there will be others addressing the same problem.

What's the answer? Maj. Gen. Merritt Edson has the best answer in my opinion, and the only answer we and individuals have any control in, after all do the generals really listen to us parents and grandparents when it comes to training our sons and daughters.

If parents wanted their son to have the best chance to survive combat, see that he learns to shoot a rifle as a boy.
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There are programs out there, we as parents and grandparents of future soldiers just need to take advantage of them. The Civilian Marksmanship Program is the best in my opinion, as they fund junior programs, providing rifles, ammunition, equipment and training AT NO COST TO THE TAXPAYER and little if any cost to the people being trained.

It was the CMP the army went to to assist the AMU in training Squad Designated Marksmen. CMP trains Master Instructors who are scattered about the country putting on Clinics and Matches available at very little cost to the individual. The CMP is mandated by congress to provide these instructors and training.

I believe the fault lies with us when our kids can't qualify or fire anything but expert in military qualifications.

We've all seen it, threads going on forever about what gun/ammo works and what don't. In reality we have no control what our kids use, or what training they get when they enter the military. We can control what training they get before they enlist.
 
Well said kraigwy.
Junior marksmanship is more then just how to shoot. Parents that don't like guns may not realize that concentration, focus, thinking under pressure, discipline are benefits from these programs.
 
Well said. I have a 13 yr old girl and i got to tell ya with my 10/22's i would trust her to save my life if needed. She is one crack shot with that thing,all the way out to 100 yards with it. The best part of the deal is i can't go to the range myself.:D (love it) I get up at 5 am and get ready to go,she is right there with me. It is the one biggest thing we have to bond with each other. She loves to shoot and i love to watch her shoot:D
 
It has happened before and it will happen again.

Just yesterday I was talking to a Vietnam Veteran who told me that if he had not learned to shoot before he joined the Army, he would not have learned by the time he reached the field. The military just does not have the time to teach marksmanship skills in war time.

One of our WWII vets, a veteran of the Iwo and Okinawa landings, told me that if his Dad had not taught him how to shoot, he would have died in the war. This is such an issue that he has run our Club Pot Shot’s program since the 70’s. He is teaching the children of Parents whom he taught when they were kids. This gentleman told me he got exactly 20 rounds of familiarization before he shipped into a combat zone.

My Uncle, an original member of the 101 Airborne, he got exactly seven rounds of familiarization with his M1919 before he dropped into France.

He and his assistant were so unfamiliar with that machine gun that they did not know it did not have a safety. In France they loaded the thing, were setting it up, his bud had a finger over the muzzle, and they bumped the trigger mechanism on the ground. Bud lost his finger.

The Army had an active Civilian Marksmanship Program before WWII. They had as many as 2100 people shooting in a single event at Camp Perry. You used to get mileage driving to Camp Perry, loaner rifles, free ammunition, subsidized food and housing. That went all away when the Army pulled out of Camp Perry and civilian shooting in general.

The basic problem is the Corporate takeover of the military. Big, expensive, wasteful acquisition programs get unlimited funding while training programs shrivel and die. Acquisition programs have concentrated groups of lobbyists supporting them on Capital Hill. Readiness and training don’t have well financed lobbying groups.

The consequence, the Military Industry Complex spends its money on the high profit items. Acquisition programs are where the profits are, and Corporate headquarters are where Flag Officers go when they retire.

It is a shame, but the military only exists to feed the industrial complex.
 
Large numbers of kids going to the military and police force never hunted or fired a rifle. Previous years when boys lived in rural areas it was common to hunt at age 8-9 they grew up shooting that time is gone. I watched a young Marine training snipers on TV his point was it took an A type personality actually I expect a good sniper would be B type, more relaxed looking for precision, the end results is we need young people trained at a early age if you want to win, boots on the ground and rifles of some type will always be required.
 
I liked the article but I feel i need to give my opinion on army marksmanship training: It is pretty good.

Some people can shoot, some people cant. At basic some people who had never shot before ended up learning quickly and shooting expert. There were also people who just could not shoot The drill sergeants spent the vast majority of the range time trying to get a few soldiers to qualify, and they just got them good enough to qualify. I feel that more ammo or range time would not have made them better shooters because it just was not in them.

As far as in AFG...there is no comparison. Maybe we are not all snipers making 1000M shots but the locals (both ANSF and Anti-Government forces) suck at shooting. we can definitely out shoot our enemy.

Now if you guys want to put a couple extra bucks in the IRS's pocket this year and send me some more ammo for training I am not going to complain but i really dont think it will make a huge difference. Most ranges I have been on have involved massive amounts of ammo and ultimately turn into a "spend ex". After everyone has trained until they are burned out and no one is getting any training value anymore we just shoot off the rest of the ammo (this is often after 2-3 days at the range). Dont get me wrong, we still are getting practice out of it, shooting pop up targets and such but really we are just burning ammo by the end of a lot of ranges. This is because ammo and range time gets prioritized: as an infantryman I get more range time and way more ammo. Before a deployment a unit gets a HUGE amount of ammo and priority for ranges.

So summery of my overly long post: I think the army is doing a good job of training us to shoot and a huge change in the marksmanship program is not needed
 
I disagree with the "lack of resources" argument put forth in the article.

My biggest lack was time. The mandatory training for METL tasks and last minute BS from higher really killed all the white space on the calendar. The National Guard has it pretty bad too, their training schedule is planned three years out.

We have the ranges (every machine gun range can be reprogrammed and we still have the KD ranges on most major posts) and we have great shots in every unit to train marksmanship.

But training is costly in both time and money, and there is only so much of both to go around.

Jimro
 
Some people can shoot, some people cant. At basic some people who had never shot before ended up learning quickly and shooting expert. There were also people who just could not shoot
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I totally disagree with that.

Gary Anderson (google him if you don't know his accomplishments) instructs the Master Instructor Clinics for the CMP. He constantly stressed THERE ARE NO HOPELESS SHOOTERS

I've been coaching and instructing for a long time, about 40 years formally, and over that period I learned to agree with Gary Anderson.

Given a bit of time, anyone can be taught to shoot and shoot well. Military personal running marksmanship training in basic don't have the luxury of one on one training for problem shooters. We as parents (or in my case grandparents) can make sure our kids and grandkids get the necessary training and individual coaching.

THERE ARE NO HOPELESS SHOOTERS.
 
The military just does not have the time to teach marksmanship skills in war time.
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You know, they don't seem to have to have the time to teach necessary marksmanship skills in peace time either. It isn't as if everyone who was in Desert Storm who has been in the military for years prior to the start of action has significantly superior marksmanship skills, or when action started again for the war on terror.
 
I think we are overlooking the fact that only about 10% of the troops on any base are actually combat troops, the rest are support troops and never get into combat. That was the problem with the supply troops in Iraq when they get ambushed on there way to supply tanks and troops. If anyone had a single brain they would send combat troops as an escort. But they only have so many real combat qualified to go around.

Jim
 
I agree that there are no helpless shooters. I think that some people just did not care to learn. no amount of funding or range time is going to change that and they would not be the type of people who would go to the range when they are not required to
 
That was the best article that I've read in a long time. The author is 100% correct in addressing this problem. We need more marksman who can hit out to 600 yards. That's when the Sniper take over.

We all need to do our part in accomplishing that and pass it on to young folks.
 
.22 training

I've hung a 6" metal disk out in the field across from the house. It lasers a bit over 100 yds. I drug out a CMP Mossberg 44 US and got it "on" .

It is now a regular thing for bamaboy and me to have a competition as to who can hit the gong the most. Introduced the boy to the 1907 type sling, and we typically shoot from sitting, and he does OK, though at present, I come out ahead. If the light is good that is...........I don't do so hot if the light is not ideal. Once we are suitably frustrated shooting peep sights, we drag out the scoped 77/22 and shoot from a rest. Hits come easily and much more often.

The kid likes it and its more gratifying than a video. We are fortunate to live out, and can shoot here at the house. Not everybody is so situated.
 
I think we are overlooking the fact that only about 10% of the troops on any base are actually combat troops, the rest are support troops and never get into combat. That was the problem with the supply troops in Iraq when they get ambushed on there way to supply tanks and troops.
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Supply troops are support troops, right? If they never get into combat, what do you call being ambushed? I don't think it is high tea.
 
If you didn't know how to shoot when you showed up with me at USMC boot camp in San Diego in 1971, you would've known how to shoot by the time the instructors got finished with you at the rifle range. Luckily, I had been training from the age of 8 or so. My grandfather had been an Army rifle and machine gun instructor in WW I, and he showed me everything the USMC showed me years later. The peep sight on that M14 and the various uses of a rifle sling were the only things new to me. I'm passing all that along to my grandkids.
 
This article (and this thread) ignores the biggest flaw behind the whole romantic notion of the "one shot, one kill long range rifleman". It is damn hard to spot enemy beyond 300-400 meters. There are no E-Type silhouettes standing around the hillsides of Afghanistan. Unless you have serious optics it is damn hard to spot a man hiding and or firing from behind cover, and even harder to hit him. Most soldiers have short range optics on their M4s and the M4 is a short range weapon. The realities of combat are that anything over 300 meters is heavy weapons territory. Snipers have done a great job of keeping the myth alive, but I'll take a 60mm mortar over a sniper any day.

To compare it to hunting, how would you shoot a small moving target? Do you bird hunt with a shotgun or a sniper rifle?
 
Right now the enemy is keeping distance and using machine guns and mortars because they know that to close within 300 meters of an American patrol is certain death.

So our training to get first round hits out to 300 is successful. However I have been lobbying to change the Infantry small arms training cycle to bring every 11B and 11C up to SDM standards (getting hits out to 600 with assigned rifle). Until the doctrinal standards are changed at Big Army it will be horribly tough to justify extra ranges beyond STRAC in an era of shrinking (justifiably shrinking) budgets.

Jimro
 
The realities of combat are that anything over 300 meters is heavy weapons territory.
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That's fine and dandy in theory, but in reality the Rules of Engagements in today's battlefield don't allow for that. In trying to eliminate or reduce collateral damage we've gone back to relying on the the individual rifleman.

It is damn hard to spot enemy beyond 300-400 meters. There are no E-Type silhouettes standing around the hillsides of Afghanistan. Unless you have serious optics it is damn hard to spot a man hiding and or firing from behind cover, and even harder to hit him.
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Again that goes back to training. The Counter Sniper Guide put out by the Army Marksmanship Unit suggest the best training for a sniper is shoot varmints such as prairie dogs, you get small, fast moving, targets at varying ranges, and weird angles. They are also hunted in gusty wind areas. Great training.

If one practices its not hard to shoot those little suckers at 3-400 yards even with open sights. You can see them.

But my point is, we on websites and face book have no control of what the army does in training. They are not going to take soldiers prairie dog hunting, but we, fathers and grandfathers, can. I believe its us who are responsible to train our kids to insure they have a better chance of survival when they do get into combat, regardless of what the army teaches.

I don't want to get into the discussion on how the army trains, or what guns/ammo they use. We have no control over that. I'm more interested in how we can prepare our kids before they get into the army. That we do have control of.
 
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