Originally Posted by Ken White
I didn't say that the Army does not train snipers. I was responding to someone's post about the necessity of having DMs available in a platoon for high precision urban sniping in close proximity to friendlies. That is a highly specialized type of sniping that is not taught in the conventional sniper school, as far as I know. I fully agree with your statement about keeping snipers at battalion level and keeping 7.62.
SFC W
Sorry, didn't mean to misquote.
No excuse, just got lazy -- I think (but am not sure) the 82d is running a course???
Don't know about anyone else but I'd be really surprised if no one was -- to include in theater...
Benning, of course, is still running their course. I think that most of the divisions have some sort of internal course although I don't know what specifically they are teaching. I imagine it is more of an advanced marksmanship class than a sniper course, which is fine. Somebody here said that 5th Group is running some advanced marksmanship classes for their big Army counterparts at Cambell. I would not be surprised if 1st Group was doing the same for the 25th ID at Lewis. Of course, most senior officers in the 82nd would rather hack off a limb with a rusty butter knife than ask Group for anything.
SFC W
The internal course at Ft. Bragg in the '80s was the XVIII Airborne Corps AMTU school. It was five weeks long and was a true sniper course at that time, although I think it might have started out more or less as an advanced marksmanship course and developed into a sniper course over a period of years.
The POI contained a considerable amount of fieldcraft in addition to marksmanship. The marksmanship instruction was good but we were limited to a 600 yard KD range facility. We used M21s. Mine had the first generation Leatherwood ART.
I believe the school closed it's doors when the official Army program started at Ft. Benning in the late '80s. IIRC, the last NCOIC of the AMTU school at Bragg was one of the first instructors at the Benning school. I believe he was SSG (SFC?) Raitt (sp?).
"Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen." - Jeff Cooper
What goes around comes around...
During the build of the Groups in the early 60s, the 82d provided about half the people to form 3d, 5th and 6th Groups, the other half came from the 101st and the rest of the Army. Needless to say, since the Groups had priority, the Division lost about 35% of their NCOs (some of the best and some of the worst, few mediocre) over a two year period. Later, requests to the Hill for any support for the Div were -- and I hear, are still -- met with a "Sorry, too busy on real stuff..." answer. Yet, when the Hill asks for Division support, they generally get it
A Beret is a good weapon if you sew a silver dollar behind the flash, without that addition, just waving it around does not endear one to others. There's a tendency among the younger tigers in the Groups at Bragg to do that. At other posts with earthling populations, one can be super cool Supertrooper-- doesn't work nearly as well at Bragg, too many old guys around who've been in the Groups -- or other units (and some of those guys can be really dismissive of excessive swagger).
Plus the Div has been deployed in both theaters recently and most of the Officers and NCOs have seen up close what other elements really do and some of the minor boo-boos made by said other elements. I have one fascinating story about an abandoned Suburban and a bunch of goodies...
As I've said, plenty of errors on both sides...
Excessive parochialism by too many in the Army is a disease and is dangerous. It does no one any favors.
To my knowledge, the current major Army programs are:
US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center School (USAJFKSWCS) Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC) Level 1
US Army Sniper School
National Guard Marksmanship Training Unit Scout-Sniper School
The DM programs are a hodge-podge, some generated in-house (often informally run by qualified snipers or, if USAR/NG unit run someone whose regular job is as a police marksman), other COI have been run by US Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU), by US Army Sniper School's parent command, and by various major police SWAT units for geographically collocated deploying military units. I believe some SFG(A) have made SOTIC Level II courses available to other units, in the tradition of 10th running the SHAPE International Special Training Centre Sniper for NATO. Assistance with both materiel and POI have been provided by many and various unit-contracted private-sector firms.
Many M-14s have had the cosmoline scrubbed off and an ACOG slapped on. Other units have paid to have completely remanufactured M-14s equipped with HSLD stocks and scopes.
I think AMTU Ft. Bragg sniper school went through 2 iterations, first in '76-'78 under Emerson, and then from about '82 to '87 between the revival of interest in sniping by the exploits of the Rangers in Grenada/USMC in Beirut and the centralization of AMU people at Ft. Benning/creation of US Army Sniper School? Something like that.
First: who you are infusing those skills into? Are they already 19D/scouts or 11B/regular infantry?
Second: what do they need to do? Precision shooting, observational skills, penetration skills (stalking/infil/exfil methods), generalized scouting skills, intelligence-gathering skills, eclectic and wide-ranging sniper-specific skill sets (i.e.: anti-tracking, how can you use only glass and not dial? if you have M80 and not Lake City ammo how do you sort-select or even improve the issued rounds, where do you find the patterns to construct armored loophole plates and what are the methods of disguising loopholes in long-term hides, who makes the best trench periscopes, etc., etc.)....
Probably Occam's Razor is: will the DMs always be in the role of supporting the squad/platoon/company, or will the squad/platoon expect to occasionally support the DM in specialist activity? If the first, then shooting/observing, and if the second, then a low-attrition mini-scout-sniper course might be required.
depends what you want to accomplish. Run small kill teams? Engage enemy HMG/LM teams? Different weapons for different situations... The 7.62 and 12.5 regular issue are handy when things go to hell, but the problem is also that because they're handy supply can't be bothered to stock the good stuff and M33 is going to render that 12.5's long-range potential ineffective.Keep the weapon something of the 7.62x51mm variety.
Consider the recent Vanity Fair article via AM. ROE requires only the armed may be engaged. Said shooter only engages from house that withstands 30mm cannon fire and of a sort of construction that has withstood 500 pound bombs in the past. Start dropping the really big bombs and you'll have lots of civilian casualties. Another situation: soldier killed at half-mile with HMG fire and LR HMG fire common:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/f...hanistan200801
Time to STFU/STFDI can just see that I'm not going to win anyone over to the idea that if it was my full moon hangin' in the breeze scouting I'd much prefer the HK-21E 7.62 LMG fitted with optic to an XM-110 SWS, and as long as I'm dreaming freely give my spotter a suppressed krinkov with a tishina low-noise-signature grenade launcher so we can look kewl plus he'll needs to be able to hump my extra ammo
http://www.world.guns.ru/assault/aks74u-ts.jpg
Kiwi Fruit and Kumquats, I think...
Hodge podge is good; no one has all the right answers. Many units also use contract training at Blackwater, Gunsite and so forth.
Which is more than adequate -- most of those are used far more for their range and penetrating power rather than for their accuracy.Many M-14s have had the cosmoline scrubbed off and an ACOG slapped on. Other units have paid to have completely remanufactured M-14s equipped with HSLD stocks and scopes.
A Designated Marksman is nothing more than a particularly good shooter in a Squad; he is NOT a Sniper and there should be no attempt to make him one and / or to burden him with exotic gear.
Who had little to do with it. Emerson, I mean. Hatchet Hank was many things, a good, much less superlative, tactical and technical guy was not one of them.I think AMTU Ft. Bragg sniper school went through 2 iterations, first in '76-'78 under Emerson,...
By definition.First: who you are infusing those skills into? Are they already 19D/scouts or 11B/regular infantry?
They support the Squad. Period. The other things are sniper tasks.Second: what do they need to do? Precision shooting, observational skills, penetration skills (stalking/infil/exfil methods), generalized scouting skills, intelligence-gathering skills, eclectic and wide-ranging sniper-specific skill sets (i.e.: anti-tracking, how can you use only glass and not dial? if you have M80 and not Lake City ammo how do you sort-select or even improve the issued rounds, where do you find the patterns to construct armored loophole plates and what are the methods of disguising loopholes in long-term hides, who makes the best trench periscopes, etc., etc.)....
Probably Occam's Razor is: will the DMs always be in the role of supporting the squad/platoon/company, or will the squad/platoon expect to occasionally support the DM in specialist activity? If the first, then shooting/observing, and if the second, then a low-attrition mini-scout-sniper course might be required.
It's thread-drift, but I vaugely recall someone telling me he backed the program as Corps commander because of Hackworth's snipers' success in Vietnam. My memory is shot -- I just re-read my post and realized I was thinking 12.5x99 (versus 12.7x108), but they're both 12.7 (.50 cal).
Ken White wrote:
and:A Designated Marksman is nothing more than a particularly good shooter in a Squad; he is NOT a Sniper and there should be no attempt to make him one and / or to burden him with exotic gear.
The DM/LRR/Sharpshooter/Rifleman concept has morphed over the course of this thread into something much too close to the role of the Sniper. As Ken says, the DM's are there to support the Squad, and I'll add to provide longer-range fires against enemy Heavy Weapons and depth targets while the lads in the Squad deal with the enemy immediately to the front. An automatic rifle with heavy barrel, regular ACOG-type scope, and bipod is all the special equipment he needs; a slightly glorified assault rifle. Maybe not even that. If he can put single shots or even short bursts out to maybe 800 m, that should be quite sufficient I imagine.They support the Squad. Period. The other things are sniper tasks.
Ken, it seems like you do not think this discussion is useful. If we subscribe to your view then we accept the status quo.
The legitimate and interesting argument here is, as I see it, how do you improve the platoons close precision attack capability?
@ What weapon and why?
@ What training is required to employ it effectively in support of platoon operations? (...and squads are part of platoons
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I do not see the discussion as not useful, I do see
it as mixing missions or terms. You call often for a common lexicon -- Designated Marksman as a term is, IMO, pretty well established as I have described it. I suggest that the DM is and should be capable of highly accurate aimed fire -- not precision fire; there is a difference
Most terminology variances come from a person deciding that a given usage is not the way he would say it -- so he corrupts a well used term or invents a new term for an old well understood function. That, it seems to me is what's happening here.
Why didn't you say that? You started the thread with "Sharpshooter (archaic but acceptable term) / DM" (a current usage and well defined IMO term)...The legitimate and interesting argument here is, as I see it, how do you improve the platoons close precision attack capability?
@ What weapon and why?
@ What training is required to employ it effectively in support of platoon operations? (...and squads are part of platoons
A DM is a DM. Thus I suggest clarity was lacking...
Seems to me the question is
If that's the case, my answers would be:"Does the Platoon need an improved close precision attack capability?
If so, what weapon and why?
What training is required to employ it effectively in support of platoon operations?"
Rarely -- but METT-T always applies; Generally a 7.62x51 should be adequate but a .338 or even a .50 might be occasionally desirable or necessary; Such support should come from the Battalion sniper squad on a mission basis; both PL and PSgt training should include employment of supporting weapons to include sniper teams.
Your thoughts?
I think that the army has addressed the DM issue by issuing more optics. The active duty unit that replaced my company in Iraq in Oct-every single NCO had an ACOG. I used an aimpoint the entire tour and there were times when I would have given everything I owned for a scope that magnifies. Even mounted on an M4 I think that an ACOG gives some capability past 300M.
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