Quote Originally Posted by JMA View Post
I look at it this way. If a soldier can't group (from the prone position) 5 rounds within 4 inches @ 100m or 1 inch @ 25m then you do two things. You fire his instructor and take his weapon away and issue him with a machette.

All he will do is make the contact area more noisy and be a greater danger to you than the enemy.

Once qualified to marksman level in the equivalent of APWT then the real training can begin.

Remember there is basic training and recruit training and then there is ETS training (exercise trained soldier). In most armies the basic training does not flow directly into being inserted into unit already in a war situation.

In Rhodesia we did and that made the training people get a lot smarter. And in many instances the training instructors were NCOs rotated out of ops to do the training and subsequently were 100% operationally current.



OK, but that is not live firing. So can we agree then that the live ammo allocated to training will be fired by the selected crews who in turn are probably selected as a result of using the other stuff?



Ok, lets agree on the basics here and they are , aiming , holding, breathing and squeezing. Once this is mastered at the 'entry level' say by score a 4" group @ 100m etc etc then we introduce light variation, moving targets, making the shooter out of breath before having to shoot etc etc. What goes and what stays and what gets added?

But yes... I think I can see where you are coming from. More kills are propably made by weapons other than rifles and so concentrate on where the difference will be made.
If I could be king for a day, my desire would be to have the ability to take a troop who demonstrated the aptitude and even slightest desire for instructor work, and get them assigned to the business of actually instructing. This would be in stark contrast to the silliness we face within the Corps of screening teams that pull stellar Marines out of a list and say, "you're getting screened for recruiting duty whether you are acutally better suited for another billet or not."

I think we could resolve so many of our instructional systems design and training deficit issues with the flexibility to do that, as well as allow our best and brightest to stay within those field without career impairment simply because they did not get their ticket punched by one of the big three of drill field, recruiter, or MSG duty.