Page 2 of 2

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:25 am
by Bill Poole
Unfortunately, there is a great similarity in NAMES between the NRA Marksmanship Qualification program where there is Pro-marksman, Marksman, Marksmanship 1st class, Sharpshooter, Expert, and Distinguished Expert and being an NRA-classified Shooter classified as Marksman (usually below 85%) Sharpshooter, Expert, Master, and in some disciplines, High Master. Master is usually above 95%.
given the significance of and level of difficulty to acheive the CMP/military DISTINGUISHED RIFLEMAN or DISTINGUISHED PISTOL SHOT badge, I think it is CRIMINAL that NRA used the word "distinguished" in their childrens shooting program.


Poole

Army Quals

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 12:42 pm
by Lanning R. Hochhauser
I don't know about you boys, but when I qualified with the M-14 it was raining and overcast, the range was in the woods, and it was soooo dark that it was hard to see the silhouettes against the background. I missed expert by 1 pt. The range NCO made me wear my steel pot and the water was dripping off the pot onto the rear sight. The peep held the water so you had to blow it out every couple of shots.
On a bright sunny day the course of fire (80 shots back then) would have been easy.

DoctorD

Direct comparison difficult

Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 3:53 pm
by Lee Sellers - Guest
Back in the late '70's, when both the Marine Corps and Army used known distance courses of fire for qualification a direct comparison of the skill levels / classifications was much easier.

At that time the scores necessary to earn the Army Expert classification ranged from just below to above the scores necessary for a Marine to earn Marksman. In other words you could shoot a low expert (Army) score and not score high enough to classify as a marksman in the Marines. A high scoring Army expert was bumping up close to the Marine sharpshooter range.

This is not to say that there were not excellent shots in the army, it is just a comparison of the two qualification systems then in place.

Another issue as to training every Marine to be a rifleman as opposed to the Army’s “efficient” use of training time: For a non-combat arms Marine the total time in small arms training amounts to only a few days per year. Yet they are still able to keep high levels of readiness and skill when compared to the “big army”. I find it difficult to believe that an MLRS crew (as was used as an example) would really suffer a high degree of skills degradation by utilizing a few days per year to learn how to maintain and fire their personal weapons.

FWIW - Lee

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:19 pm
by Jose Rossy
Bill Poole wrote:
Unfortunately, there is a great similarity in NAMES between the NRA Marksmanship Qualification program where there is Pro-marksman, Marksman, Marksmanship 1st class, Sharpshooter, Expert, and Distinguished Expert and being an NRA-classified Shooter classified as Marksman (usually below 85%) Sharpshooter, Expert, Master, and in some disciplines, High Master. Master is usually above 95%.
given the significance of and level of difficulty to acheive the CMP/military DISTINGUISHED RIFLEMAN or DISTINGUISHED PISTOL SHOT badge, I think it is CRIMINAL that NRA used the word "distinguished" in their childrens shooting program.


Poole
Bill, I am not a DR yet, but I am halfway there and fully expect to earn it next season.

That said, I also feel that the NRA's use of the word Distinguished to qualify one of their Boy Scout-like activities makes the uneducated think that they have achieved some sort of higher plane of marksmanship expertise.

In reality, anyone achieving just the US NRA Distinguished Expert Marksmanship Qualification is barely at the level of an NRA Highpower Rifle Sharpshooter and nowhere near good enough to finish in the points in any Excellence In Competition match.

What's worse, some kid thinks he's hot to trot because he got all those badges from the NRA, goes to a Highpower or Smallbore match, and has his ego crushed when he finds out he's not nearly as hot as he thought.

Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 4:26 pm
by Jose Rossy
Sparks wrote:
Jose Rossy wrote:Jessica Lynch and her buddies could neither maintain nor shoot a rifle to save their lives. Nor could they navigate either. Those are basic skills of an infantryman, and the outcome of their trip might have been different had their CoC had taken a different attitude towards such skills.
How would better rifle skills have prevented her from crashing the truck?
You missed the point by a mile. Knowing how to maintain and shoot weapons would have given the troopers in that convoy a much better fighting change.

Having an officer than knew how to navigate would have kept them out of trouble to begin with.

Both are basic infantry skills, and should be basic SOLDIER skills. The US Marine Corps thinks so and trains all their members to be better than familiar with both. The US Army does not.

Army marksmanship

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 2:24 am
by 2650 Plus
I was the command sergeant major of a tank battalion.I shot better with pistol and rifle than any member of the unit. My wife a chief warrent officer ,did to. But I really want to tell a combat story. A platoon sergeant named Bailey was charged with refusing to re distribute his ammo during a fire fight. At the trail information was developed about enemy KIAs There was one by a building, two beside a machine gun and one under a tree. Guess what happened when Bailey was asked how many rounds he had fired and who he shot. His 4 rounds had accounted for 100% of the effectiove fire power of his platoon. Bailey is a distinguished rifle man and a high master in NRA high power rifle. The target is immaterial . Only hits count. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 10:17 am
by jhmartin
You missed the point by a mile. Knowing how to maintain and shoot weapons would have given the troopers in that convoy a much better fighting change.
FWIW ... the book "COBRA II" by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor has a pretty good account of that incident.

Army qualification standards vs NRA clasification

Posted: Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:05 pm
by 2650 Plus
I dont believe there is any correlation because the army believes it is training soldiers to kill people and the NRA sponsers competition shooting . The army has never understood that only hits count and the target is totally immaterial. Makes no difference what the target looks, like or how far away it appears every thing the shooter does to fire the shot happens at the shooters position. Volume of fire has been the military buzz word for many years. The idea being that as long as our soldiers. are firing more misses than the enemy we must be winning. Perhaps I'm just a contrarian but I have never been able to understand that concept. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Posted: Tue Jun 26, 2007 1:34 am
by Asa Yam
Most rounds fired in combat are suppressive in nature - most shots are fired to keep the enemy's heads down, and not deliberately aimed.

The US Army once did a study, and found even the most skilled marksmen had a difficult time engaging man sized targets at 300 yards - assuming they saw them at all. With the introduction of optical sights on rifles, this trend has reversed slightly. While a less precise aiming system than the traditional iron sights, electronic dot sights allow for faster acquisition and alignment of the "pipper" with the target, thus reducing engagement time.

The Marine Corps analyzed data from Iraq, and found nearly all rifle rounds fired (including sniper rifles) occured at distances of 300 meters or less, with the overwhelming majority occuring under 50 meters.

Having said all of the above...
When on a range, the skills needed to attain "Expert" on a military qualification course pale in comparaison to the skills needed to shoot Expert level scores (usually 90-93.99% on courses of fire for centerfire rifles) on NRA bullseye targets. A large part of this is because the x, 10, and 9 rings on NRA bullseye targets are often smaller than the silhouette targets used for military qualification.
Steve Swartz wrote:Better example? Navy/Air Force pilot. Hey, their secondary combat arms skillset is to surrender, and then absorb enemy medical and logistics capability as a POW. We don't really train them to use the M9 stuck in their ruck except as a signaling device or potentially as a source of protein in game rich environment (holding up a gracery store, not hunting live game!
As a former Student Naval Aviator, I can assure you that key portions of your statement above are decidely untrue. The secondary combat skill of an aviator is to evade capture for as long as possible, hopefully until rescued by friendly forces. This is why Land Survival and Survival/Evasion/Resistance/Escape (SERE) schools are requirements for all military aviators and high risk (i.e., Special Forces) personnel. The schools teach skills, but most importantly, they teach a mindset bent on surviving and resisting the enemy as long as possible. As part of this mindset, firing a sidearm may be low priority (it attracts unwanted attention), but the schools teach there are lots of other tools in a survival pack/kit which may be used as weapons, including:
  • Parachute cord (used as bowstrings, garrottes, tripwires, or snares);
  • Wire saws;
  • Survival knives;
  • Pen flares (which may be fired at an opponent);
  • Conventional flares (burn your opponent with a 3000*F+ flame).
You see, the downed aviator is usually outgunned, and certainly outmanned by his/her pursuers. Fight or escape blindly, and you get caught - or worse. Resist/evade with a plan, and the dynamic changes. The combination of training, luck, and - most importantly - will to fight makes a downed aviator a potentially dangerous opponent. The fact that rescuers seldom operate alone, and usually bring significant amounts of firepower to the party makes it even more difficult for would-be captors.

A gun is a very handy survival tool, but the amount of ammunition carried (usually less than 50 rounds) makes it a somewhat dicey proposition to hunt with one. In a survival situation, it makes more sense to use less energy intensive methods of gathering food than stalking prey. Snares, traps, and nets can gather more food in less time than by shooting game. By the way, your example of holding up a grocery store is flat-out dumb. First, it exposes the location of the downed aviator, and second (and more importantly), it annoys the locals - who are more likely to turn said aviator in to the authorities as a result.

Equipment Differences

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 12:43 am
by boz27606
The discussion of marksmanship between NRA and miliatry has to take into account other factors. The M16 I was given for Basic Training had a worn ejector that stovepiped every third round between the multiple feeds. I don't want to think of all the dirt, sand and water that had been put through that action by the countless soldiers issued that rifle before me. There is no way that the rilfe was close to match grade even brand new and it was suffering from abuse.

I was the only one in the company that got 38 out of 40. Many troops were more experience marksmen.

boz

NRA vs ARMY Marksmanship skills

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 5:13 pm
by 2650 Plus
I am a 30 year vetran, Decorations include silver star. Bronze star w/3 oak leaf clusters and V device,Purole heart medal [Kind of goes with silver stars] Numerious 'glad you came medals and one undeserved good conduct medal. In all my fire fights a heavy volum of misses never succeded in keeping my head down or interfering with my ability to return accurate fire on the enemy. Its training, folks, thats how you do it! The Army once had 103 Hours of basic marksmanship training' Over 20 hours of that training was diverted to chaplains hours and race relation training while I was First Sergeant of a basic training company.and the veit nam war was in progress. As I have said sometimes I don't understend all I know about how the Army comes up with this stuff. Good Shooting Bill Horton

Army qualification vs NRA ratings

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:38 pm
by 2650 Plus
I've just remembered something else that happened while I was First Sergeant of the basic training company. My conpany and every other basic training company on Ft Polk were reporting 99% expert qualification rates for the trainees. Trainees were scoring trainees and pencil hits were the order of the day. Then a range update occured and computer scoring was introduced. Half of every company failed to qualify and were required to be recycled back for re-training. I left my company and set up a training program for the Drill Sergeants to teach them how to conduct initial marksmanship training because that was the twenty hours we lost to non marksmanship activities. In a thing called leadership for the 70's trainees were asked what was the most boring training they recieved in basic and the trainees said the part where they were taught how to shoot.See how it all ties togeather. Non shooters at the top results in non shooters at the bottom. Good Shooting Bill Horton