Rod B said:
I wonder if it is lack of marksmanship; or possibly the smaller .223 as compared to .30caliber?
I remember reading an article by Col Jeff Cooper where he stated that the military no longer spends adequate time to train soldiers in the art of marksmanship.
His theory was that the present day armies put a lot of lead into the air in hopes that some poor SOB will stumble into it.
At 275000 round per kill it looks like Col Cooper was correct.
Sadly, Cooper and the rest of the "spray and pray" sneer crowd know remarkably little of which they speak. Most have never actually taken part in a section attack, or defended a fixed position. I would invite them to think back on their experiences (assuming they actually did this) of working in the pits on the range with fire ripping up the berm over their heads - and then imagine themselves popping up into that to cooly and carefully squeeze off a few well aimed shots.
"Winning the firefight" (aka "spray and pray" to the unknowing) did not start in Vietnam, or the 70's, or the 80's. It was learned the hard way in WWI and WWII. Section battle drills for the modern soldier are not all that different than they were for our fathers and grandfathers - the only difference is both sides can put a lot more rounds downrange faster. Supress the enemy by either killing them or forcing them to take cover to avoid the near certainty of being hit; either way, once you have fire superiority then you close with and destroy them. It works - our fathers and grandfathers proved the concept in dozens of nameless little battles all over the world.
The idea of a marine (or whatever) marksman calmly picking off the enemy from a distance is all very glamorous. However, if you check out the war footage from Tarawa, Iwo Jima, etc., you will see a lot of Marines using "spray and pray". Either they suffered from not having Cooper there to show them how, or they had learned a few lessons themselves on the hard road through the Pacific on how to win those nasty little firefights. And whether you look at Americans, Rhodesians, Brits, Canadians, etc... it's all been pretty much the same. If it didn't work, everyone wouldn't do it that way.
There's a few other issues as well. First, if you're facing similarly equipped conventional forces (as was often the case up until now), while you're busy trying to calmly demonstrate superior battlefield marksmanship, they're going to be busily calling mortars and whatever else they have available down on your calm ass. Troops need to close the distance as fast as possible, to the point where support weapons cannot be used against them. There is also the small problem of the enemy having the nasty habit of setting up defence in depth with overwatch - another reason for not pissing around in the middle ground instead of getting in close and into their lines as fast as possible.
Finally, there are assorted related problems. Like the fact your heart rate is about 200 bpm, which isn't too conducive to Camp Perry accuracy. And you're gasping for breath after your third or fourth bound. Like the fact that you are probably going through a movement cycle every 10 - 15 seconds, so really solid firing positions are mostly a fantasy. Like the fact a battlefield does not resemble Camp Perry or Volkes Range - there's all this smoke, and dust, and dirt, and crap flying around to obscure your vision, not to mention a helmet half over your eyes. Like the fact there tends to be bush and grass and stuff in front of you and between your objective - feel free to stand up for a better view of your target if you wish. Like the fact the enemy tends to have a nasty habit of concealing their positions and masking their weapons signatures as best possible so you don't have much of a target in the first place - just like we do. Etc, etc...
Yeah, most soldiers probably aren't getting the opportunity to practice with their weapons as much as they should. But there are good and solid reasons why infantry fights the way they do, and it has nothing to do with "spray and pray", no matter what He Of The Royal We postulated.