Can soldiers see enemy soldiers in firefights typically, or do they just spray at them and hope...

I have never been in a firefight, but as a Marine with both training as a rifleman and experience as a range coach, I can say with certainty that you can't hit what you can't see. Not with a rifle anyway.

Very interesting. I think it comes down to your typical typical firefight is. There is not one. Are you in a urban, jungle, open, or mountain? Is it day or night? What kind of weapons are you working with? Is it an ambush? I have never been in 2 firefights that were ever the same. I have never "sprayed" anything, but I have put rounds down range it the general direction of the offending fire and they were not what you would call "well placed shots". I believe the amount of time I spent aiming was indirectly proportional to the amount of bullets coming at me to the amount going away from me.

I was always conscious of how many mags I had left after being in a long firefight and realizing we got a shit ton of bullets in the truck and no magazines to put them in. It is rather funny thinking about it now. I was in a long drawn out firefight and we were moving and shooting from cover to cover. At some point me and my battle were red on ammo and headed back to the truck to reload when we realized we didn't have any extra mags. I was shooting and my battle buddy would keep reloading the only 3 mags we had between us. We did that for about 15 minutes (It seemed like hours). After that I always carried a dump pouch. Not every empty mag made it in there, but I would try to save as many as I could. Sorry...rambling.

So as far as spraying goes. It may happen. It may not. It all depends on what Mr. Murphy dishes up at the time, where you are at, where the enemy is at, and any number of a million other things that come into play all at once when the lead starts flying. "The best laid plans all go to shit at first contact."

Having been in a couple TICs with enemy forces I would say its a little of both. Of course when you see an enemy target you want to get proper sight picture and alignment and take the shot (but this is not always an option). In Afg and Iraq it felt like we were fighting ghost sometimes, we would take short burst and than that was it, they were gone without seeing anyone. Then you would have the times where the stars aligned and the enemy slipped up and boom you got them literally. But you can use your fire in other ways as well. Like drawing an enemy out, or use it to recon to see if they are still in the area. I would say "spray and prey" could also be called suppressive fire a tactic used to gain power in a fire fight or to break contact. At least us troops put their rifle in their shoulder when doing this but I will say most ill trained army's shoot without looking down the sights.