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Improving Army marksmanship: regaining the initiative in the infantryman's hale kilometer
Infantry Magazine, July-August, 2006 by David Liwanag
"The primary job of the rifleman is not to gain fire superiority over the enemy, but to kill with accurate, aimed fire."
--General J. Lawton Collins
Combat experience in the mountains of Afghanistan, two wars in the Iraqi desert, and current fighting in cities reinforces the need for effective rifle and carbine training to shoot and kill enemy soldiers at all ranges. We have no doctrinal training courses for close combat (7 to 200 meters) nor for extended range (300 to 500 meters) M16/M4 precision shooting. Division-level schools like the 10th Mountain Division's Infantry Mountain Leader Advance Rifle Marksmanship course (briefed at the 2003 Infantry Conference at Fort Benning) provide 21-day programs of instruction to provide training in close-combat marksmanship, known-distance (KD) training for extended-range engagements, and the use of optics and night-fighting devices.
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The U.S. Army infantryman is supported by incredibly sophisticated all-weather weapons and arms notable for their precision, effectiveness, and lethality at extended ranges--yet he must close to within 300-200 meters to engage enemy soldiers with a rifle effective to 500-550 meters. This fight is in the "the infantryman's half-kilometer," the difference between the 200-300 meter range of the average infantryman's training and the 500-550 meter maximum point-effective range of an expert rifleman armed with an M 16/M4.
Today's accepted musketry standards are far lower than during WW1, when 600 meters and under were regarded as "close" range for a rifle.
Our current marksmanship training programs do not give Soldiers the confidence to control the infantryman's half-kilometer. Program Executive Office (PEO) Soldier interviews with Soldiers in Iraq found, "In the desert, there were times when Soldiers needed to assault a building that might be 500-plus meters distance across open terrain. They did not feel the M4 provided effective fire at that range. The 82nd Airborne Soldiers wished they had deployed with M14s at the squad level as the 101st did." Even had they done so, do the Soldiers know how to effectively use them at that range?
WWII observations made by Colonel (later Brigadier General) S.L.A. Marshall, as he documented U.S. infantry fighting experience in Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command in Future War, led the Army to change its training methods to get more infantrymen to fire their weapons during engagements. His analysis led him to several conclusions:
* "What we need is more and better fire."
* "What we need to seek in training are any and all means by which we can increase the ratio of effective fire when we go to war."
* "... weapons when correctly handled in battle seldom fail to gain victory."
* "... a highly proper doctrine which seeks to ingrain in the infantry soldier a confidence that superior use of superior weapons is his surest protection."
* "The rarest thing in battle is fire in good volume, accurately delivered and steadily maintained."
* The secret of mobility: "They moved faster because they could place their trust in the superior hitting power of relatively small forces."
* "The soldier who learns and applies correct principles of fire will always move."
* "The man who has the fire habit is looking always for forward ground from which to give his fire increased effectiveness."
The Infantry School at Fort Benning converted these observations into the Trainfire marksmanship program. The Known Distance (KD) marksmanship training system to teach recruits was abandoned for Trainfire instruction on reactive popup/knock-down targets to 300 meters.
General Willard G. Wyman, Commanding General of the Continental Army Command (predecessor of FORSCOM and TRADOC), wrote an eight-page article in the July-September 1958 Infantry Magazine titled "Army Marksmanship Today," to answer questions and assuage institutional doubts about the new system.
Traditionalists protested that Trainfire was a "short cut" to marksmanship proficiency. Advocates championed Trainfire's strengths--instead of learning to shoot at round bull's-eyes, recruits would shoot a combat-style course of fire. Soldiers would gain confidence in quickly detecting indistinct or fleeting targets, rapidly assuming steady firing positions, and hitting detected targets. An unintended benefit discovered nearly 40 years later was the mental training and immediate feedback conditioning derived from rapidly shooting humanoid-shaped silhouettes, analyzed by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman in his book, On Killing.
Extensive training center tests at Fort Jackson and Fort Carson showed that on the 112-shot/112-target qualification course then in place, over 12,000 Trainfire Soldiers hit 5 more targets, on average, than did KD-trained counterparts. The bottom line: KD produced fewer first-time qualified Soldiers but more experts; Trainfire produced more first-time "Go" riflemen faster and cheaper, but fewer expert shots.
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