A good read for the military guys.

[RRCo.]

wait what? there is close air and gunships and accurate(ish) artillery and 25mm auto cannons and mk19's and 50's that all fill those two roles.... how is we have other weapons for that not an answer?
Im not arguing the article or even your point im just wondering how anyone of these or combo of these weapons isnt a repllacement for the two ww1 or earlier tactics you mentioned

Because:

1. We should be training and equipping for wars against serious, comparably equipped and trained enemies, not rag-bag militias who have mostly AKs, PKMs, RPGs and an occasional SAM thrown in.

2. For every technology, there is an antidote. You field a helicopter, the enemy fields SFSAMs (I hope that's a current acronym!?), you field artillery, the enemy fields his own, plus counter-battery radar, and so on and so on. You try to call up support, he jams your signals. King KISS still reigns: your best response is the one you can get down range on target fastest, and the one your enemy cannot stop or divert once you have fired it. The one that will reach him before he has time to move out of the area, go to ground etc.

3. Furthermore, what can be seen on the battlefield can be destroyed, and the larger the weapon and the larger its volume of fire, the more attention it attracts and the shorter its lifespan will be as a result.

4. The balance of power on the battlefield tips back and forth due to technological advantage, terrain, available resources etc. The best insurance against defeat is redundancy: overlapping weapon capabilities. Sure you can call in an air strike, but if it takes ten minutes to get there, your enemy can do many things in ten minutes. Again, your best response is the one you can get down range on target fastest, and the one your enemy cannot stop or divert once you have fired it. The one that will reach him before he has time to move out of the area, go to ground etc.

5. Bearing that in mind, effective small arms fire is still one of the fastest, most effective, and certainly the most cost-effective, ways to neutralize your enemy. A man with a rifle is hard to find on the battlefield and what is hard to find is hard to destroy.

6. And then there are all the other factors such as the soldier's faith in his weapon, the dependence of his morale and effectiveness on that faith etc. And of course, soldiers don't have faith in ineffective weapons for long.

7. Ineffective fire is just a waste of time and money. Even if you're only trying to keep their heads down, 10 rounds on target will do it better than 100 that miss. Remember how a sniper can paralyze a company or even a battalion at times with just a few well-placed shots delivered from a concealed location. Now imagine a platoon or a company shooting to that sort of standard and remaining as concealed as possible while doing so. It has happened in the past and it is absolutely deadly; it kills the enemy and it demoralizes the survivors while not causing vast collateral damage, or obscuring the battlefield.

 

[RRCo.]

Do you really think our most likely enemies have the skill, ability and (most importantly) the time to train every soldier to own a 500m-1000m zone with small arms? That is is ludicrous statement.

The common jihadist can no more own that 500m-1000m with their standard suite of small arms than could a country outfitted along the same lines as us.

Owning a 500m bubble with every weapon in a platoon would be a solid bedrock to form further actions on, unlike now where essentially only the LMG's and C6's can effectively engage.

Which enemies do you mean? Let us suppose that the predictions of the Chinese Minister of Defence should unfortunately come true and the USA one days comes in conflict with PLA forces. Do you think they will not be well-trained in rifle-handling and marksmanship? On the contrary, due to their lack of technological distractions, they will focus on the basics, and rifle handling is the basics.

Do you think it is impossible to train soldiers to shoot accurately up to 1000m? I can tell you that target shooters are shooting up to 800 & 900 metres with .223/5.56mm routinely. Is there any reason why in this day of fancy optical sights on every rifle soldiers should not do the same?

And my comment stands: if you tell your potential opponents that your soldiers can't shoot past 500m and don't train them to do that, your potential opponent will not be so stupid as to fail to make use of that. Particularly one as observant and astute as the PLA.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say in your last paragraph; it sounds like you're agreeing with me...?

 

[Greg_VP]

Do you think it is impossible to train soldiers to shoot accurately up to 1000m? I can tell you that target shooters are shooting up to 800 & 900 metres with .223/5.56mm routinely. Is there any reason why in this day of fancy optical sights on every rifle soldiers should not do the same?

I don't know your background, but having been in a few gunfights and been responsible for training soldiers, I can tell you bench rest shooting and real world combat marksmanship are very, very different.

My comment was meant as follows: if every weapon in a platoon can engage and destroy enemy targets in a dynamic, fluid combat environment out to 500m, you will have an solid foundation to conduct any type of operation. Expecting precision fire from riflemen at 500m plus in combat is ridiculous.

Thinking you can field an infantry force capable of 1000m+ combat marksmanship, that can also flow into combined arms operations, FIBUA, airmobile, airborne, beach assaults, as well a operating in a myriad of terrain possibilities is ludicrous.

In the infantry, we were lucky to shoot 3 or 4 times a year, and guys still failed their personal weapons test that had a max range of 300m. You want an entire military's infantry soldiers to be capable of 1000m combat engagements? Good luck. Infantry soldiers train to be proficient in dozens and dozens of disciplines, you want a force capable of engaging at 1000m? Awesome, but now they have no time to train in FIBUA or winter warfare. It's always a trade off. Always.

 

[RRCo.]

I don't know your background, but having been in a few gunfights and been responsible for training soldiers, I can tell you bench rest shooting and real world combat marksmanship are very, very different.

My comment was meant as follows: if every weapon in a platoon can engage and destroy enemy targets in a dynamic, fluid combat environment out to 500m, you will have an solid foundation to conduct any type of operation. Expecting precision fire from riflemen at 500m plus in combat is ridiculous.

Thinking you can field an infantry force capable of 1000m+ combat marksmanship, that can also flow into combined arms operations, FIBUA, airmobile, airborne, beach assaults, as well a operating in a myriad of terrain possibilities is ludicrous.

In the infantry, we were lucky to shoot 3 or 4 times a year, and guys still failed their personal weapons test that had a max range of 300m. You want an entire military's infantry soldiers to be capable of 1000m combat engagements? Good luck. Infantry soldiers train to be proficient in dozens and dozens of disciplines, you want a force capable of engaging at 1000m? Awesome, but now they have no time to train in FIBUA or winter warfare. It's always a trade off. Always.

Yes, I realize combat is not target shooting and vice versa, except for snipers and marksmen, who apparently have the skills, weapons and discipline to engage specific targets rather than a general direction.

I don't think it is ridiculous to expect marksmanship from soldiers beyond 500m because they were doing it 150 years ago.

The standard of marksmanship is obviously pretty abysmal if soldiers can fail at 300m with a superb optical sight, and a highly accurate round and a rifle that has practically no recoil. I just don't understand how that is possible. I question whether people with that level of physical incompetency have any place in the infantry, or the combat arms in general. If they can't shoot, what the hell use are they as infantry?

The round is potentially lethal at 1000m, the rifle is still accurate and with an optical sight like the Elcan products, this kind of doctrine I just find bizarre.

The political and military leadership doesn't provide the weapons or the training time? Fair enough, but that is a choice, nothing more. I happen to think it is a mistake. That's all I'm trying to say.

 

[Winz]

Do you think it is impossible to train soldiers to shoot accurately up to 1000m? I can tell you that target shooters are shooting up to 800 & 900 metres with .223/5.56mm routinely. Is there any reason why in this day of fancy optical sights on every rifle soldiers should not do the same?

Sure it's possible the train troops to do that. Moreover, it would be a change of TTPs and doctrine to incl IBTS.

However, good as this staff college candidate's paper is(and it shows he's been through the tech staff crse), it is also narrow focused towards the infantry rifleman's capability(although he simply refers to it as infantry). The US has different MOS for the various infantry sub-trades(eg machinegunners).

His paper concentrates only on individual effective ranges rather than the effective range as a collective, at the squad(section) level. The perfect plan too late is still too late. An effective plan that isn't perfect can still get the job done. The same goes for the perfect shot at 1000m.

Furthermore, this candidate focuses solely on the ballistics yet provides nothing with regards towards describing the basic combat load, the frontline ammo for which a soldier should carry. One might say that a better bullet means a soldier can carry less, but the reality is that not every bullet will hit a specific target and that bullets are still useful to create an effect, if not actually hitting the enemy.

Comparing shooting matches of target shooters with effective engagements of troops in contact isn't possible. Target shooters are subjected to known, fixed scenarios with the freedom of time. Troops in contact have to deal with the chaos of knowing where the contact is coming from and deal with it.

Good soldiers and leaders know all the gucci kit and wpns systems available. Great soldiers and leaders understand the limitations of their kit and of themselves so they can work through the situation.

This can be talked to death really...if you think you can identify and solve the CF's problem, by all means you go write a paper on it....but be sure to send it over the dwan to global addresses.

Want to take this sidebar? Post your rank, unit and posn (no names, no pack drills, but whoever is interested can look you up on outlook)

 

[Greg_VP]

I don't think it is ridiculous to expect marksmanship from soldiers beyond 500m because they were doing it 150 years ago.



The political and military leadership doesn't provide the weapons or the training time? Fair enough, but that is a choice, nothing more. I happen to think it is a mistake. That's all I'm trying to say.

The problem is 150 years ago they were essentially teaching soldiers taget shooting techniques, with no time constraints, and shooting against large red ring bullseye targets. Not to mention using large calibre, long barreled bolt action rifles

As to your second comment that I quoted, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, even during the "boom years", when money was flowing in for the Afghan mission, I would argue this money was constantly going towards vehicles and equipment and less often to providing better training. Was this a mistake? Perhaps.... but that's almost a topic for a new thread!

 

[RRCo.]

The problem is 150 years ago they were essentially teaching soldiers taget shooting techniques, with no time constraints, and shooting against large red ring bullseye targets. Not to mention using large calibre, long barreled bolt action rifles

Yes, that's true, but doesn't marksmanship training always begin on the range against standard targets on a large frame? The difference seems to be that then you were expected to be able to translate your skill on the "target" range onto the battlefield without further training. But at least they made sure you had the basic skills. Of course I recognize that many of the best shots in those days were "naturals" who had long experience before they ever signed up. We produce less of those thanks to urbanization and our anti-firearms culture, so logically marksmanship training should be much more intensive where the basics are concerned to make up for that deficit in experience.

As to your second comment that I quoted, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, even during the "boom years", when money was flowing in for the Afghan mission, I would argue this money was constantly going towards vehicles and equipment and less often to providing better training. Was this a mistake? Perhaps.... but that's almost a topic for a new thread!

Agreed. And I think we had that thread a year or so back!

 

[Brutus]

US Army is slow to learn hard lessons, the Marines have been doing this for quite some time.
(qualifying at up to 500 meters with the full length M16A2)
Just because a currently serving US Army major suddenly sees the light, this is supposed to be some kind of revelation from god!

 

[Longshot]

Average soldiers can be taught to engage targets to 500m with minimal training. The problem in the type of conflict that Afganistan presents is identifying the target and getting a proper range estimation.

The most dangerous thing on the battlefield is a well trained rifleman with his rifle. What Commander wouldn't want guys that can dominate a 1km circle with just his personal weapon?

I'm wondering just where folks think advances in marksmanship, training and technique come from? It's not from combat. It's from Target shooting and always has been.

Anyone who believes that guys fail pwts because of anything other than ####ty training has swallowed the purple coolaid.

 

[blaxsun]

For all of the forward assist haters.

Don't do it...! For those that don't have a chance to read through the entire article, what's the short-version/consensus?

 

[KevinB]

I know the Author.

Part of the issue that a lot of folks miss, is the US Army issues the M4 (now M4A1) with a M68 CCO (which will be an Aimpoint CompM, M2, or now M4)

M855 has a current accuracy acceptance of 5 MOA.

The M4 is capable of engaging out to 500m, but the 5.56mm round in the form of M855A1 or M855 is not idea at those range.

The 1x CCO is impossible to get PID at those ranges. Additionally in a COIN environment you cannot always use your Support Weapons due to collateral damage implications.

What most Armies have done and the CF is currently proceeding with a 7.62mm Squad Marksman Position with a magnified option.