Proposed rifle marksmanship program didn?t pass muster with the top Marine

[thedrifter]

Issue Date: March 08, 2004

Range change shot down
Proposed rifle marksmanship program didn?t pass muster with the top Marine

By Gordon Lubold
Times staff writer

Blame it on the high op tempo, or say it simply was a bad idea. Regardless, the commandant put on hold a new rifle marksmanship program intended to reinforce shooting skills among Marines.
Training Command officials at Quantico, Va., announced Feb. 20 that they will not implement a revamped annual requalification program, which eliminated the field-firing portion and represented a significant departure in the way Marines requalify on the range.

The heart of the range change, which was to take effect last October, was a return to the old days of rifle ?requal,? when recruits and fleet Marines shot the same course of fire. The move was seen as a way to reinforce basic marksmanship skills in a shorter, more standardized program.

But after meeting with his top generals, Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee decided against implementing the program. Hagee and other generals like the current system, in which recruits shoot an entry-level program and Marines in the fleet fire a ?sustainment? course.

Adopting the new program might have represented an ill-advised break in tradition, said Col. Gordon ?Buck? Bourgeois, commanding officer of Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico. The deployment of more than 25,000 Marines to Iraq this spring also makes such a change difficult, he said.

?We don?t make changes to this training without a deliberative approach,? said Bourgeois, who was enthusiastic about the new marksmanship program when it was first announced last summer. By not making the change now, ?we?re reflecting the more deliberative approach here.?

Bourgeois said because senior leaders did not like the idea of returning to one course of fire for all Marines, then the rest of the program changes seemed to not make sense, either. Too many elements of the marksmanship program are interrelated, and improving one part of the program would mean sacrificing others, he said.

?Because that single course of fire was not approved by the [general officers], that prompted a ?let?s take a look at everything again,?? he said.

Adding to the complication is an ongoing discussion about whether the infantryman?s rifle should be equipped with an optical scope. Marines who used the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight during the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom last spring were enthusiastic about the advantages it offers. That, too, could have had an impact on the program, because Marines likely would need to train both with iron sights and the optic.

?If we?re going to permanently go to an optic sight, that would be something to consider,? he said.

Bourgeois didn?t rule out the possibility of future changes to the marksmanship program, but hinted that changes wouldn?t happen soon, given the current pace of operations.

Shorter, better?

The push to reinvigorate marksmanship, the most basic of Marine skills, began under former Commandant Gen. James Jones.

There were rumblings at the time from fleet Marines that the Corps? traditional emphasis on marksmanship skills was waning. Training officials were charged with finding a way to reverse that trend and met in November 2002 for a marksmanship conference at Quantico. Representatives from major commands, bases and stations hashed out the new qualification package and sent it up the chain of command.

The new program seemed like it would do the trick.

It standardized prefiring training by shifting the responsibility from unit commanders to range coaches and condensed that coursework to one day. To accommodate this change and others, the field-firing portion was dropped from the requalification program. That course is conducted on the fifth day of qualification week. It involves firing at moving targets, firing while wearing gas masks and the like, and was to be conducted at the unit level apart from the requal program.

Though some Marines believe field firing is a waste of time because it isn?t scored, other Marines see it as a way to reinforce rifleman skills. By giving the responsibility for this training to the unit, it was in effect relegating it to a lower status, some said.

The new training package would have been three days shorter than the current course, a shorter schedule would have allowed Marines to get off the range and back to their jobs more quickly. Some commanders have expressed concern that while marksmanship is important to every Marine and some enjoy the break from the work routine, a full eight days is too much time away.

More coaches

In the end, only one element of the new program will be implemented, but even that has been tweaked.

Given long-standing complaints from commanders about the lack of range coaches, training officials planned to create a military occupational specialty, basic known distance coach (8529). Now, the only Marines who teach on the rifle or pistol ranges are marksmanship coaches (8530), marksmanship instructors (8531) and small-arms weapons instructors (8532).

Officials hoped to improve the shooter-to-coach ratio on the range and curb the standard practice of forcing Marines out of their jobs to pull range-coach duty.

But new coaches instead will be made by creating a one-week certification program under which Marines will receive training to instruct in specific range areas. Units will train their own coaches, allowing them to deepen their pool of Marines who are able to instruct during annual requalification.


http://www.marinetimes.com/story.ph...PER-2676170.php


Sempers,

Roger