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One of my biggest gripes I had as a Platoon Leader was having Soldiers that could not qualify with their assigned weapons, mainly the M4 and M9. Now I can understand that a lot of people join the Army and have never fired a firearm, and the first time they picked up a weapon was in basic. But after sitting on a range, for what seemed like forever, for a Soldier to just zero their weapon it seems like they didn't learn much of anything from basic about the fundamentals of marksmanship. Now I'm big on firearms, I own a few pistols and rifles and am at the range all the time so I expect Soldiers to be able to shoot as well. Do I have to high of expectations for Soldiers, or are they just not getting enough training?
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Weapons
Weapons
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 10
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I have noticed that we don't put the same emphasis on marksmanship
as we do on many other tasks in the Army.
Ranges are more of a "check the block" rather than a training
and developmental opportunity. I would
like to see marksmanship treated like PT with remedial training and then
sustainment training to improve and maintain skill run by master gunners and
distinguished marksmen. If we don't put emphasis on
training we won't improve the soldiers who need it.
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Unfortunately not every unit is a fortunate as mine, seems as if we do a range every other week, but still we have Soldiers who fail to even zero their weapon let alone qualify. Some of the ways I and my fellow NCOs have adopted to combat this issues is actual PMI classes. That is to say bringing back the old shadow boxes, bore sighting, advanced optics classes and basic fundamentals like washer drills and partnered silhouette drills. We have also instructed coaches in ways to identify mistakes while the soldier is firing and make corrections before more rounds go downrange. This has had great success resulting in a 97% qualify rate during our last 2 ranges. There are still those Soldiers who cant hit the broad side of a barn and mostly it has to do with the old " this is the way I've always done it" mentality, but you can't help all of them.
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SFC (Join to see)
Sadly no. I have seen units not care all year about weapons for certain units till a 2 months before a deployment and then they get to go zero and qualify once. . To many other things going on such as down vehicles. So soldiers a/b/c don't get to go to the range. Or cause they are PLL clerks so they don't need to go to the range as much. Yet ten they are picked to man guard towers, run clips.
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SFC (Join to see)
I agree beeing in a line troop often the focus is on boots on the ground Soldiers instead of those that sit in the headshead or supply shop, as far as additional taskings I feel your pain seems like every day the list gets longer. I just attempt to ensure those Soldiers are identified early and give them additional training as required, on a positive note one of our support shops has one of the 3 40\40's in the troop.
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There is no such thing as enough weapons training. Too many unit are only concerned with what they "have" to do rather than what they should be training to do. Weapons training should be a once a year qualification and live fire exercises quarterly.
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SFC (Join to see)
SSG R, You are correct that units do not put enough time into weapons training. Shooting is a VERY perishable skill. It makes little sense for an institution that's very mission is ARMED combat to only do what is reuqired. It would be like a swim team only getting in the pool twice a year. Obviously specialized units train more often because they see the importance of the "trigger time". As long as unit leaders dont make it a priority it never will be and the end result are tactically less effective Soldiers. I personally shoot 2-3 times a week, but that is because I never want to be caught short in a gunfight. There is no prize for second place in a shootout.
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