Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

[threefeathers]

Several of us old NCO's at Ft. Huachuca have decided that good old fashioned Service Rifle competition would be the best way to get our soldiers to learn the basics of long range combat shooting. I've been tabbed to teach handguns through the Warrior Transition Unit so I'm writing up a brief to give to the 1st Sergeant tomorrow and see if we can get this thing going.

 

[Parallax]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Well... that should up the survivability of anyone participating greatly. Especially useful for anyone heading to the mountains.

I've been very surprised at the lack of experience the young troops I've met have with distances over ~200 yards. I think the emphasis on "urban" warfare has perhaps negated some training opportunities along those lines. (My daughters significant other is a 19D just back from Iraq and now instructing their version of urban tactics for a year at Ft Knox)

LE has a fascination with urban tactics too, sometimes at the expense of other important skills. Somehow we coppers forgot that almost 70% of us work in rural areas... dynamic stairway tactics don't mean crap to a guy driving up a 1 mile wooded driveway approaching a meth cooking site.

 

[InTheHills]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Dan.

As always I am up for doing any manual labor or grunt work required to make this, or any other, training happen for these young soldiers. Tag me when you need an extra set of hands and if I am in the country I will be there.

Maybe we should try and expand beyond the WTU. Offer voluntary remedial training for soldiers who have issues with their qualification or advanced training to those who excel during qualification.

Most of the units @ Huachuca are 60 rounds a year type units so they need all the help they can get!

GM

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Look up the Appleseed program in your locale. Talk your situation over with the organizers. Seriously; no sense trying to reinvent the wheel, and/or competing with an already successful program. As a readymade lead-in to your program, it hones proficiency and range discipline while allowing time to work out the bugs in your own Service Rifle Comp program. Start your comp on 100yd reduced size targets, then stretch it out if and when it's warranted. Also, understand, 100yd for a Service Rifle is SR, but 200yd with a Rimfire is LR.

Greg

 

[Chris2152]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

That is one of the problems we have everything is focused on urban war fighting and CQB. SWome of us have been out trainning with our weapons and have been teaching and have taught soldiers how to employ and use their ACOG's like they are supposed to.

They have been taught how to use the ranging retical and the BCD that are present in the TA31 and TA31 RCO's that we have been issued.

We have taught them how to use the BCD to engage targets out to 800m with the ACOG's and how to engage targets that fall in between the BCD marks on the reticals.

I have found that it would be good if everyone was also taught how to use a regular scope like you find on a long range rifle. I am new to the long range shooting platform myself and I am trying to learn this way of shooting for myself.

 

[Scatt_Nasty]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

lol youre here at hookah too ? What unit are you in ?

 

[Urimaginaryfrnd]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

It always blows me away how much time and ammo is spent at 25 meters. What I realy dont get is why the hell we dont have them shooting thousands of 22 rounds at 25 meters if we are going to practice that distance. I'm wondering in battle how many are forgetting to make corrections with their sights on the A2's to correspond to the distance they are shooting. Not just everyone has ACOGS both my CSM and SGM have A2 rifles and they are off to WAR real soon.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Exactly and believe me the Army will forget how to shoot a year after this conflict is over. I 'm going to take your advice on the Appleseed folks and I have gotten ahold of former LeClerq shooters. Good old Service rifle will do it, but is slow to go through.

 

[HillbillyfromAL]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I just have to ask why would you teach this at WTU? It's a great idea but not for guys getting med boarded. Good luck getting others on board for teaching guys about to deploy. Alot of higer ups think that what they are doing works great and the M4 can't hit a target past 300m anyways. I wish You well with Your endeavor, and hope that you succeed.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Ya might want to contact the USAMU Service Rifle Section, and make arrangements to take their SDM course. The course is a TTT, so you can take what you get from it back to your unit to show them how to do it. The course covers principles of marksmanship, positions, wind and weather, shooter/target analysis, range estimation, zeroing (BDC irons and ACOG), movers, and slope shooting.

 

[81Z4ME]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I can pass on the e-mail address of a guy in the Appleseed program who is either at, or close by, Ft. Huachuca.

If it helps any I can tell you that last year a two groups of South Carolina Army NG soldiers were trained by a couple of groups of Appleseed instructors at Ft. Stewart prior to deployment over seas. The first week was a group of guys who where the better marksmen in the battalion and were going to be the designated marksmen.

Here's a quote from one of the instructors on that one: "Day 3 started out with classes on range estimation and target detection and then a finishing of long distance zeroes. Since their ACOG scopes contain a BDC with hold-offs marked out to 800m I wanted them to shoot that distance just for familiarization to see that it can be done. They then fired two groups at 700 and 800m’s. At 700m’s 16 of 18 firers put rounds on target. At 800m 7 of 19 firers connected with the target."

The second week was a whole battalion. They went through the training (only some of what you get at an Appleseed) at the rate of 2 companies each day.

Talking to the guys out there is just talking. You can still make your own decision about the direction you go. I can tell you the instructors were very proud and thankful of the opportunity to help those soldiers out prior to their deployment in harm's way.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

A Soldier learning basic rifle marksmanship needs a coach who can very quickly analyze and identify the source/s of the Soldier's shooting errors. Quite often the Soldier will have a multitude of problems, and, with such little time on the firing line to get it right, errors must be resolved without much more than a heartbeat passing. Since the Soldier cannot be expected to troubleshoot misplaced shots, a talented coach is essential to the Soldier's learning. Yet, good coaches are the bottleneck of good training--there simply are not enough of them, it appears, to go around.

Since Drill Sergeants may only have a few minutes worth of shooter/target analysis training, which can be demonstrated to be ineffective, the solution is employment of distinguished marksmen who, comprehending all matters of marksmanship, have the skills to lead, aid, and/or assist Drill Sergeants in their training of Soldiers. With such supplement, Soldiers will come to the battlefield as capable with the rifle as may be needed.

 

[lysander6]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I am the Appleseed RWVA Red Hat Instructor down here in Sierra Vista near Fort Huachuca. PM with questions, we would be very interested in training soldiers.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Hi I made contact with the fellow who I hope is Lysander6 and I'm looking forward to our meeting.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Hey guys,I was trying to do this through the Sportsman's Center, I had Marilyn convienced. I finished Mas Ayoob's LFI I, LFI II and LFI III and told him what I wanted to do. I've trained with Marty Hays, Kathy Jackson, and everyone else at FAS. I want to teach young soldiers and I don't care about being paid.
The folks who have supported me are three of the JAG officers, Marilyn and Charlie at the Sportsman's Center, and 1st Sgt Kim of the WTU. I volunteered through Robin Marsett of the Wounded Warriors organization to teach wheelchair bound vets how to shoot from a wheelchair. Mas gave instruction in this at LFI III and I bounce enything off him I want and he responds in an hour at most.
In preparing for that the The powers of the WTU began to support my efforts. A good number of the folks there are want ing back in the army and this training is perfect for them.
But, WTU is sponsering it and a JAG officer will be the OIC. ANY soldier at Ft. Huachuca can sign up. For the first class we'll have two JAG folks, 3 WTU, and an MP. In addition I talked to a sailor on the phone who is a Corpsman with the M C and I accepted him so I'll add one more. I'll be putting Gypsy and Ken through private training to get them up to speed as assistant instructors. Ken's wife was one of my army wife students last week.
As I'm doing this Erwin Ballarta is doing a similiar thing at Ft. Hood and I'm planning to go ther and instruct in April and probably May.
Ballarta will be here (S Vista) to attend Ayoob's course in his new organization, I', the person setting it up.
massadayoobgroup.com
Thanks's guys there is the story.
Let's make one commitment, no one dies because we can't roll our sleeves up and get some intense training going that will add to what they are already getting.

 

[ZLBubba]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

What we've started doing in my unit is simply trying to get soldiers more time with their weapons, practicing in various positions, and getting time to put rounds down range. It sounds obvious, but those of us that are active duty right now know how tough it is sometimes to get ample range time and rounds. You cannot underestimate the necessity of trigger time. A good number of the lower enlisted in my unit don't shoot more than 100 rounds between infrequent ranges and our deployment cycles.

Frankly, when we've got extra time, we draw weapons and do dime drills and practice various positions and getting a consistent sight picture. Obviously that's for rifles. If you're doing pistols as well, shoot me a PM and I'll give you our training regimen for pistol marksmanship.

 

[Downzero]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

A simulator that was actually effective could really go a long way.

 

[ZLBubba]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">A simulator that was actually effective could really go a long way. </div></div>

+1

Yeah, I don't even consider those damn things training any more.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ZLBubba</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Downzero</div><div class="ubbcode-body">A simulator that was actually effective could really go a long way. </div></div>

+1

Yeah, I don't even consider those damn things training any more.</div></div>

The Raytheon Simulator is awesome. Remember, any training requires shooter/target analysis, and that means a knowledgeable coach is somewhere around who can step in to advise the shooter of the likely sources of error, during either live fire or simulated exercises. It's not enough that the simulator can identify shooters who do not get it. A coach must be at hand to suggest what the shooter may want try out to correct errors. The simulator operator is not to be confused with a coach at hand.

I don't think it matters where quality coaches come from, organization or geography. What matters is that they're highly qualified. In other words, you need folks who have demonstrated they know how to do it. You need folks who, watching the shooter, have some sort of an idea about why groups may be generally vertical, dispersed, horizontal, and/or other when the only thing for sure was that the rifle was pointed in the direction of bullet impact. If the coach can't do this, there's no place for such a helper on the firing line no matter the intent.

Finally it's not anywhere near enough to have volunteer coaches who can come about occasionally to train the trainer. Permanent, employed coaches are needed everyday at every range where Soldiers are learning basic marksmanship.

 

[ZLBubba]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Quite frankly, when we come up for the shooter trainer, the unit usually gets an hour long window to get everyone through and "qualified". There's rarely any trainers there (beyond the NCOs), and the focus isn't on teaching people good fundamentals, it's always getting everyone on their bellies to zero and shoot one iteration at the little pop-ups. Hell, I'm guilty of this too; there's so much command emphasis on checking the box that everyone received the training, instead of everyone understanding and internalizing the training.

It's a neverending source of frustration... until I go downrange. Then I'm working with guys who are forbidden to go to the range because they've already got their yearly allotment of ammo (120 rounds or so). I always have to remind myself that no matter what the US military's deficiencies, we are still by far the most effective fighting force in the world. Then I'm just grateful for what ammo and equipment we do get.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

One thing I think you and other interested folks can appreciate is that the USAMU's BRM class is so well written that Soldiers having taken the classroom sessions can go out and get the job done without much practice.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Right, and I can read one of Mas's books and defend the innocent without any range time. Boy oh boy I really must have been a terror as a young soldier because I had read Rex Applegates Kill or Get Killed.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

The point is the USAMU's BMR class is outstanding, and, indeed, folks can leave it for 25 meter zeroing and get very good results. Practice, as well as good coaching can help any who struggle with any aspect of it.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I agree with that. I don't agree with anything that doesn't involve range time.

 

[lysander6]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I look forward to meeting TF today and hope we can get a program instituted for the soldiers at Fort Huachuca.

There is a lot to be said for dry fire practice also.

Does anyone have a PDF for the USAMU BRM available? I have AKO access.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I'll find out.

 

[Sterling Shooter]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: threefeathers</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I'll find out.</div></div>

Anybody can download it from the USAMU's web site. Go to Service Rifle, scroll to BRM class, and click. Note that the "principles of Marksmanship" session may not download correctly, the sight picture slides may not be complete, so, you may want to download the SDM class too. Its principles of marksmanship slide show is identical to the BRM show.

 

[81Z4ME]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I won't say that it works everytime on every PC but its a powerpoint presentation. Some of the slides look funny unless you switch to slideshow presentation once you call each file up. If you look at it one page at a time (not in slideshow) there are some slides that will look like something go copied over them and makes it impossible to read the text. Putting the file in slideshow allows you to advance by clicking the mouse button or the down arrow key. On some slides the picture will remain the same but each click adds to the text or adds other features to the picture.

Hope that helps anyone having problems with it.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

I'm doing that as we speak. I'm also going to publish the old LeClerc combat course as I get 'Slick' Harleson to get his notes out.

 

[threefeathers]

Re: Teaching Young Soldiers Long Range shooting

Hi Here is how WTU got involved. When I was studying with Mas Ayob and Marty Hays at FAS we had several vets including a retired USMC SGM who is one of my closest freinds. We got to talking about wounded guys coming home and we were worried about some of these guys being victims of thugs as someone in a wheel chair or on crutches have limited means of self defense. So we started working on techniques that these guys could use to defend themselves.
I got home to Sierra Vista and I have a couple of buddies who are in wheelchairs, and my MIL is in a chair so I developed these techniques pretty darn effectively.
Then a buddy of mine, Robin Marsett who teaches fly fishing at WTU said, "Hey TF, why don't we hit the 1st Shirt on you teaching defensive shooting and CCW to the folks in WTU?"
We did and 1st Sgt Kim said, "Hell yes."
From there we had a bunch of requests from the cadre and guys who are transitioning BACK to regular units for training.
WTU sponsered me and other units got on board.
Then I met Erwin Ballarta a former Texas Ranger and head of the Texas NG traiing section and he decided to bring me on board with him so we intend to get these classes going at Ft. Hood.
Now Ayoob himself is with us and the three of us will train different folks in Texas and AZ.
I charge civilians so I can make it free to the guys deploying.
So, that's how it is moving west.