Army Small Arms Standards
Failures in Individual Weapon Qualification standards.
IWQ Standards
BLUF: U.S. Army small arms training routinely fails to bring the majority of personnel up to even the minimal levels that standards direct and most personnel and leaders are misinformed about it to the point they are unable to even comprehend the extent of the problems. This incompetence has been the norm for over a half-century. Every formal, published study conducted by multiple agencies confirms this.
Examples:
Lack of Institutional Training for Leaders on How to Instruct Marksmanship
Here’s a report from one person in range operations that does understand.
I am concerned with an anomaly that I have since seen in Army units with regards to knowing, understanding, and complying with the qualification standards IAW with TC 3-22.40.
The following examples all occurred within the last six months and are a common trend: Units arriving to train without in-depth knowledge of how the ‘Gates to Live Fire’ corresponds with both the live fire portion of qualification table VI and with how to effectively use the EST Simulations to conduct Tables II, IV, V. I wonder if senior Army leadership knows what is really going on during training.
Example #1: Unit arrives for a BA (drill) weekend to conduct both EST Simulations and Live fire record qualification. Unit finds out that to properly conduct Table II to standard IAW TC 3-22.40, it takes approximately 1 hour/10 Soldiers. Unit has live 5.56 ammunition sitting on the range and commander decides to pull all Soldiers from the EST to shoot live 5.56 prior to Table II. Unit sends Soldiers who successfully qualified live back to the EST to conduct Day CBRN, Night Limited Visibility, and Night CBRN. All other Soldiers stayed on the live fire range attempting to qualify the minimum standard of 23/40. Unit is fully aware of the new standard but what Company Commander wants to explain to his or her Battalion Commander that live 5.56 was turned back into the ASP in bulk and never fired?
Example #2: Unit arrives to EST without proper PPE and wants Range Operations to print a score card.
Example #3: Unit arrives to the EST with junior enlisted Soldiers who do NOT know how to properly handle a weapon let alone load a magazine into the magazine well. Unit does NOT have competent NCOs nor a Master Marksmanship Trainer. The EST operator has to stop training to conduct a hasty weapons PMI.
Example #4: Unit (a Training Division, no less) disregards the TC standards for Table IV basic that states all soldiers must achieve 4/5 hits during the Confirmation at Distance and Application Hold-Offs.
End State: A majority of U.S. Army units do not fully grasp nor comply with the Army standards for qualification and there is NO excuse, period. It is rather difficult for a Company or Battalion to conduct both the EST Simulations portion of the Gates to Live Fire and actual live fire qualification during one single Battle Assembly. Units are not conducting Tables I and III correctly.
<Name Witheld>
Training Instructor
DPTMS, Training Support Branch
Unfortunately, there are too many examples of military personnel that aren’t up to speed on small arms training (including snipers) as these examples indicate. While there are some Soldiers and Range Operations that are well-versed, too many are not.
The Department of Army has no formal mechanism to identify the difference between Soldiers that have a good understanding of current small arms training doctrine and those that don’t. There is no MOS (Military Occupational Specialty), ASI (Additional Skill Identifier), or other means to identify if the personnel conducting qualification have even read the current manuals, much less understand them:
“There is no current training available within the institutional base that instructs leaders specifically on ‘how to’ instruct marksmanship.”
- Lack of Institutional Training for Leaders on How to Instruct Marksmanship
“This thesis examines the current inadequacy of small arms training for all military occupational specialties (MOSs) in the conventional Army and the lack of focus on weapons training.”
Trainer-the-Trainer Issues
“The US Army has forgotten how to shoot. Current recruits are much less experienced in the handling of firearms than those of a few years ago. Better marksmanship training techniques are needed as the current military marksmanship qualification approach is an incompetent and dishonest approach to merely meet a quota.
“The most serious obstacle to good marksmanship training is the incompetance of current Army marksmanship instructors - the officers and non-commisioned officers that don’t know rifle marksmanship. The existing situation can be corrected but it will require a true shooting renaissance, a revival of the spirit of the rifle.”
- "Can US Troops Still Shoot? Part IV: Ways to Improve US Marksmanship", The American Rifleman, December 1969. Lt. Col. John O. Cooper (U.S. Army, ret., member of the original Trainfire team. )
“Prior to being shipped out to Vietnam, our marksmanship training was poor. This training consisted of issuing the weapon, firing two three-round shot groups to sight in, firing thirty-five rounds on a proficiency range to ‘qualify’, and then turning in the weapons. No further training was allowed upon our arrival in Vietnam. These limited rifle orientations have resulted in a totally unnecessary waste of lives.”
- "Vietnam Vet Confirms M16 Training Needed," The American Rifleman, March 1970.
“While serving as Army Chief of Staff, General J. Lawton Collins stated that the primary job of the rifleman is not to gain fire superiority over the enemy, but to kill with accurate aimed fire. Proper marksmanship training is probably the best way to ensure that the U.S. combat soldier can deliver accurate aimed fire against the enemy encountered on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the level of most U.S. marksmanship training in time of war hardly goes beyond the educational equivalent of kindergarten.”
- Moving Personnel Targets and the Combat Infantryman, Bruce E. Wilson, 1971
“Regarding pre-deployment training, leaders indicated that units either sought or designed special courses to ensure Soldiers had the needed marksmanship skills. Some courses / training were provided by the unit, but typically they were specialized Army courses or private courses. It appears that units perceived they did not have the necessary or desired internal trainer expertise.
“The other trainer comments came in response to meeting the training challenges associated with a Marksmanship Skills Proficiency Test and other requirements. The primary concerns were that NCOs were not sufficiently knowledgeable, not current with training techniques, and/or not proficient with new equipment such as sighting systems. This may not be a recent concern, as Wilson (1971) [see above] referenced comments by leaders in the 1970s who stated that a major barrier to good marksmanship was the incompetence of marksmanship instructors, both officers and NCOs.”
- Research Report 1988, Marksmanship Requirements from the Perspective of Combat Veterans
“The Army is training masses of men and women on ranges which provide at best only hit/miss feedback with a limited number of untrained instructors (the U.S. Army may be the only major military force in the world without a formal marksmanship instructor training program). The typical soldier receives no assistance during live fire. He shoots at the 300 meter target and at least 7 times out of 10 the bullet goes some place else. He does not know where. There should be no surprise that little learning occurs.”
- ARI Research Note 86-19, Analysis of M16A2 Rifle Characteristics and Recommended Improvements
“Units do not know how to, or are not conducting boresight prior to arrival at the range. This leads to at least 10 percent of Paratroopers not being on their zero target due to loose optics, not flipping up the BUIS, etc. with wasted rounds spent trying to get them onto the target.
“At least 20 percent of Paratroopers are not zeroing their weapon in 20 rounds. This indicates that Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction and Dry-Fire drills have not been conducted prior to coming to the range.
“Units are not conducting PMI with their soldiers. Simple things like weapons manipulations and changing positions rapidly are challenging for our Paratroopers to do in a timely manner.
“Paratroopers either do not have confidence in their ability to engage targets at distance, or are not engaging the targets thinking they will still qualify with those ‘extra’ rounds saved. (e.g. 300 meter targets).
“The average ‘cold-qualification’ first iteration scores of Paratroopers on range 43 is a 25.44 [63.6% hit rate, 23 (57.5%) is the minimum passing score]. This means that under new qualification standards as a part of the Integrated Weapons Training Strategy, the average Paratrooper would not meet the qualification standards for Marksman.”
- Enduring Range Reports, 82nd Airborne G-3, Div. Small Arms Master Gunner
Drill Sergeant Incompetance
Formal, published evaluations of Drill Sergeants have found they are frequently misinformed about small arms doctrine and marksmanship:
“[A] common theme identified was that many drill sergeants misunderstood parts of rifle marksmanship doctrine and/or inconsistently applied training techniques and procedures”
- Research Product 2011-07, Rifle Marksmanship Diagnostic and Training Guide
The only marksmanship skill assessment done by the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy is to conduct the same qualification course as used with raw recruits, and sometimes they even waive that.
Worse, there is no proposal of how to even attempt to rectify any of this. The majority of U.S. Army units do not fully grasp nor comply with the Army standards for weapons training and qualification and there is no mechanism to detect which ones do or don’t. Army leadership for the past half century is either unaware of all this or just doesn’t care.
One of the Senators in my state is on the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services. I have contacted him about this and was told this issue is “not even on our radar.” If you’re reading this (and if you care), contact your elected officials and your senior leadership (if currently serving) and share this.
Video series to help your Soldiers: