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Improving Army marksmanship: regaining the initiative in the infantryman's hale kilometer
Infantry Magazine, July-August, 2006 by David Liwanag
* Limited basic rifle marksmanship (BRM) knowledge. Limited diagnostic skills, and
* Inability to conduct effective remediation.
A 1980 ARI report found that "there has been a demonstrated loss of institutional knowledge over the years in fundamental marksmanship training skills. Observations of drill sergeants who were unable to correctly diagnose trainee errors or more simply to recognize improper firing positions were not at all uncommon during the test. To assist in correcting trainee errors, the drill sergeants themselves must be adequately trained. The U.S. Marine Corps uses highly qualified instructors in a ratio of one to two students at critical fundamental skill acquisition times. There is evidence that this has much to do with the excellence of their marksmanship training program. It remains to be seen what gains would occur for the Army as the ratio of student to qualified instructor drops from as much as 20 to 1, as now exists, to a smaller ratio permitting greater individual attention per student."
Steps to correct the loss of marksmanship instruction proficiency led to some Army self-examination. The ARI noted major problems in 1980: "poor quality of instructors (often having to work with high ratios of trainees to instructor, when individual attention is needed), little opportunity for practice of necessary skills, and insufficient feedback of where bullets were landing so that correction of problems was difficult."
In 2005 very, very few (if any) staff NCOs can train precision marksmanship to 600 yards from experience. Our Army is not trained to shoot to the doctrinal maximum effective range of our service rifle (M16A2-550 meters, M16A1-460 meters) and carbine (M4-500 meters). Army assumptions that combined arms, crew-served weapons, and the infantry battalion's six organic snipers would dominate the infantryman's half kilometer have not proven true in recent mobile expeditionary warfare.
To improve marksmanship scores and training, and to provide some sort of timely, quality precision feedback for marksmanship trainers, the Army has invested in five different shooting simulators: the Accudart, Weaponeer, Multipurpose Arcade Combat Simulator, Engagement Skills Trainer, and Beamhit Laser Marksmanship Training System. Despite this investment in research and simulators, the quality of marksmanship instruction remains stagnant. Only 31 Regular Army, 15 Army Reserve, and 20 Army National Guard riflemen representing the entire United States Army fired in the National Rifle Championship Matches in 2003. There are no STRAC ammunition allocations for rifle and pistol competition training, and Army Subject Schedules for advanced marksmanship training and competition are obsolete.
Infantrymen maneuvering in urban battlefields need realistic close-range shooting training. Special Forces units met close-quarters marksmanship skill requirements in the 1970s and '80s by forming unit-level schools, notably Special Operations Training (SOT) and other specialized courses. Major General William G. Boykin, commanding general of the U.S. Army Special Forces Command, instituted Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat training at group level in the late '90s.
