Recently SOFREP.COM posted this article
SOFREP article

presenting the idea that the Marine Corps has an opportunity now in this climate of drawdown and budget cuts to lean out its fighting force.  
And this
Taking back the half k

Published some time prior by MAJ Ehrhart.

The authors of both pieces bring up excellent points of how overburdened soldiers with approach loads reaching 2/3 of their overall body weight, fighting loads being equally unrealistic in weight, kit functionality severely limiting a soldiers fighting ability, the failure to utilize the modularity of the M4 platform and the obsolescence of some military training. We have to get away from this idea that if you strap enough gear on a soldier, they will be a better fighter. A soldier becomes a better fighter when the Military focuses on training him – or her, now -- to be a better fighter.

With money not being spent on combat operations, resources should be put towards weapon familiarization in elevated and uneven terrain, using different zero’s specific to your AO, utilizing the modularity of the M4 platform so soldiers can outfit with the appropriate weapons system and caliber necessary to conduct operations, and updating BRM qualification to teach a soldier how to utilize his weapons system instead of pushing him through an process that was designed for a conscripted force.
Why not consider contracting training to private companies like EAG, Magpul Dynamics, etc. The military has handed over housing, much of its food service and various staffing responsibilities to the private sector. Most of my AIT instructors were civilian contractors who themselves performed various duties for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan as PMC’s.

Soldiers in BCT spend RIDICULOUS amounts of time scraping firing pins, bolts and star chambers. We are experts at getting our rifles “parade ground clean”, but few can describe the ballistic capabilities of the round that their life depends on, and even fewer can tell you the holdunder/over specific to their weapon at relevant distances. A block of instruction and a couple of days at the LOMAH range will square that away real quick.

With everyone from Field Ordinance to Human Resources getting pulled to do patrols in Iraq, the “Well that kinda stuff is just for the Benning boys” mindset is insane! How can you claim to train the greatest fighting force in the world, if most of that force can’t tell you how to adapt their weapons system to their environment?

All moot points I know, however as I sit here guarding locked doors, getting my sideburns measured while doing the third equipment layout this week, of the same equipment; I can’t help but daydream.

Is there a list anywhere of all the crap they carry?

2/3s of body weight? Are they crossing the Great Plains?

article is uncomfortably true. We have thousands upon thousands of Americans that want to close with and destroy the enemy, but institutional limitations (brought on from the top down) is fucking us up.

The .mil always prefers hardware solutions (gear) to software (training).

I learned more about BRM through the Appleseed program than the Army or AF ever taught me.

Should have joined the Marines if you wanted marksmanship training then.



 

Armor:
With the Interceptor body armor, E-SAPI plates (10.9 pounds), ESBIs (7.75 pounds), DAPS (5.03 pounds) and with the neck, throat and groin protectors installed the armor is significantly heavier at 33.1 pounds (15 kg).
MICH Helmet:  3 lbs
M4:  7.5 lbs w/ mag
7 mags of 5.56:  ~7 lbs
Two liters water:  4 lbs

That's 55 lbs before you've touched mission specific gear or other "essentials" (radio, lights, etc), and with the lightest primary weapon.  The dude with the SAW or M240 is carrying a lot more.

We undoubtedly have the mot dedicated force in the world, a few reallocated resources and that force could be used to it's full potential!  



It's absurd how much DOD spends on R&D for all our fancy gear, it would be pennies on the dollar to offer better "software" to our force.

yea, no.
We spend a shit load of time training.  The gear needs to be tested because it needs to work.  That should be a no shitter.





 

That's disgusting.

A low profile plate carrier with a steel front plate and 3A soft pads everywhere else is less than 10 pounds.  Mags gets you to 17/18.  Balance the front weight out with a light backpack with a few pieces of mission gear and water bladder, you're up to 25-30 pounds.  That level of weight is in the light backpacking range and is humpable by anyone with good physical fitness, all day long every day, without much of any risk of injury.

You can do a lot with 30 pounds, and you can do a lot while wearing 30 pounds.

If its the same article (lunch too short, didn't read) about taking back the half kilometer, it doesn't state when the Corps gave it up. Last I heard, Marine KD still have a 500yd target. But I've been out since before Ronnie Raygun left office.
As far as the Army, I have no clue what their qual is.
As to the weight issue, the modern battlefield requires GPS, NV, Rifle optics, and a bunch of goodies we didn't have in the early 80s, if you want to survive and win. But, I didn't like humping shit then and even less now that I'm old.

In his article, MAJ Ehrhart describes marksmanship deficiencies experienced by Marines and Army due to the inadequacies of current training. Specifically, how we are trained to shoot at stationary targets and that a "hit" is equivalent to a kill. Just because one wears an expert badge doesn't mean they killed their targets, and it definitely doesn't mean they can do the same from up in a building, in OP on a mountainside or up a ridge at moving targets.

Currently there's too much focus on scoring of standstill targets instead of developing skills to engage enemies in realistic environments.

Almost 100% of what we teach our soldiers today is left over from the Draft Army of Vietnam and Cold War era theory.  

We have the ability, the resources and the time now to implement some real improvements in America's fighting force.

Also ..

Not saying that vetting gear, or developing new gear is a bad idea, but when we fail to refit our training like we constantly refit our gear .....

tag

I'd rather not see combat related training contracted out.  I think that's a critical skill that must remain in house even if it's more expensive that way.  Sending instructors to schools to keep them fresh and updated? Sure. But not the 0311's.  I'm talking out my ass though. Just kind of looking at it from a business & USMC Dad perspective.

Don't you fucking dare have any carbon fouling in a rifle designed to work by coating the insides with carbon using burnt propellant.

Realize most of the gear is procured and designed for a mechanized infantry force.

If you're riding in trucks 87% of the time the you can give up mobility for more armor.  IEDs suck donkey balls and stuff like side plates, groin protectors, etc helps mitigate the blast.  The problem comes when you fail to change the gear loadout based on METT-TC.  Dismounts or light inf have different requirements than mech inf riding in an MRAP.  On my last deployment I did start to see different types of armor (i.e. simple slick plate carriers with a chest rig, no side plates or soft vest) on some of the folks who did more walking so maybe we are finally getting there.

Don't you fucking dare have any carbon fouling in a rifle designed to work by coating the insides with carbon from burnt propellant.

 

Look guys. We start doing shit like these two suggest and we'll start actually winning wars.

And we can't have that, now can we?  

Seriously. I submit that's the real issue: facilitating perpetual warfare as opposed to accomplishing a given mission.

These articles ain't telling us anything we didn't already know.

If you want quality training and gear, you have to find it and go get it yourself. No way in hell the DoD is ever going to allocate funds to train/equip la-de-da-de-everybody to an ideal standard when they can save money by training/equipping most to "good enough" and reserving the high intensity training/gear for those who will actually need it.

Most people in the service aren't even interested in this kind of stuff, anyway, and if you gave them improved weapons or gear, they'd either break it or lose it.

That being said, I'd like to see more emphasis placed on actual combat shooting instead of the Army's KD pop-up Ivans. Instead of running pain in the ass, lowest common denominator ranges for qualification, send the Soldiers out to a local three gun match and let them compete in real time. I know it'll never happen in a bazillion years, but one can dream.

A lot of the problem with the Army's marksmanship program is that they've turned marksmanship, which SHOULD be fun, relevant and accessible, into a colossal pain in the ass that no one wants to mess with. Even the "All Army" and other assorted marksmanship programs are only accessible to the "golden children," leaving other talented and interested Soldiers out in the cold.

We need to revive the culture of marksmanship that made our riflemen the best in the world for decades, and the way to do that is by encouraging it at every level.

I remember going out to shoot with our German sister unit and picking up my first G3.  

The damned thing was dripping with oil.  I had to spend several minutes wiping it down just to hold it with a reliable grip.  

Know what?  Fookin thing worked perfectly.  

[/thread]

Fuck leadership for thinking that "contractors" are the way to go in the military. It's bad enough soldiers don't know their jobs because AIT and everyday experience gets distilled down to "call help desk/take it to the contractors". Now that jackwagon wants to take away marksmanship training from NCO's too? Even if the Army went that route, TRADOC would still fuck it up and nothing of value would remain of the overpriced and overhyped training.

As for the pop up range being insinuated as the only type of marksmanship training received, perhaps the author should wander by BCT lately? We received training in villages, uphill fire, downhill fire, night fire, reactive fire, etc. Only the dumbest private thought that knocking down a target meant a kill. Ballistic information was instilled the same way every other bit of trivia was learned.  Get the answer wrong in the chow line and you go to the rear. But after just a few years unless you keep that information fresh, you lose it, so that's not a BCT shortcoming.

I remember my NCO when I was lance taught us ballistics and everything else on his own accord. I just wish command and the structure of the military would support this motivation monetarily instead of us paying for it out of our own pockets on our own time. I like this bottom up perspective instead of top down where the boot Lt. squanders training on non-basics and trying to execute complicated platoon movements which just eat up time which rarely go correctly.

Hell, we practiced fire and maneuver, single envelopment, reaction to ambushes ( get on line and assault through),shot unknown distances and pop ups, and did night fire, etc at ITS (now called SOI) at Geiger in '83. And the Assaultmen humped a flak jacket everywhere, in the heat, in the sand and bitched about it. Mortarmen humped tubes or plates or tripods. Gunners humped M60s or ammo or spare barrel bags. And we ALL bitched. Because it sucked. And then I shipped over to the Wing and promptly forgot all that shit.
But again, I'm a fossil. Does the Corps not still teach these fundamentals?  

I guess it's not de jour to recall that we're really fucking good at killing bad guys, have put down hajji's and muj by the tens and tens of thousands, took a capitol city in ground combat faster than anyone in history, and generally have one of the most flexible, trained, experienced and equipped force in pretty much history.



To think that major changes are going to be made by sending a few grunts to a magpul class, instead of changing the political machine and how it uses the US Military's capabilities, is pretty ridiculous.

All that and more.
But then again, the article written is my some Recon dude, so thinking that he has a day to day grasp on what the crunchies are doing is questionable.



 

I've been blessed with a CO, 1SG and Training NCO that love to shoot. Our range days are truly enjoyable (once the headaches are addressed). Contrast that with BCT/AIT where we would be smoked if we talked too much while waiting our turn to shoot or not range walking fast enough or whatever offense we committed.

Ordnance.

I doubt they sent some field lawyers on patrol, or maybe they were civil affairs guys helping the local village pass a goat storage law?

I like your style.

You are never going to get that cush retirement job with that attitude, mister.

I mean....
If we don't contract dynacorp to sub contract every prior .mil training company in the country to teach our military how to shoot, the terrorists win!



 

Now we're talking.

Look, budgets are getting cut, gravy trains are running low, and there are only so many seats on those lifeboats.  Can I get an Oooh Rah!

I have a feeling that there are a lot of things wrong with your assesment of what the Lt. was trying to do.  But you are correct with regards to the importance of the fundamentals.

1).  The Military loves its standards so why can't there be across the board access to training like this. Isn't the idea that every soldier is a rifleman first?
2).  It was MAJ Ehrhart's article that spoke more on training, but I was mainly speaking from personal experience. Also not claiming to be a SME -- especially on the Marine Corps -- just read some stuff, related to my Army experience and figured I'd drop it in GD and see where it rolls right?
3).  It means almost everything that I learned in TRADOC came from doctrine that was written during a draft and was structured around pushing through as many bodies as possible regardless of quality. That would also suffice as an adequate description of my BCT experience.
4).  Yes sounding cool by keeping comments vague and mysterious is the only way to go. Though It is really hard to try and sound awesome when you're not a Marine and haven't received every block of training ever necessary to fix and kill enemies.
5).  Just saying what I've seen bud.

here I go trying to sound cool again, the military could benefit form some "out of the box" type thinking. At some point we have to look at how we're gonna deal with defense budget cuts like a normal person, instead either paying too much for less than par or just adopting the mindset of "oh well, that's budget cuts".

Good on you mate for your experience with training, but if there are soldiers out there not getting the training they should, wouldn't the logical reaction be to try and remedy that deficiency instead of claiming that the only place anyone says that is in a SOFREP article!?

Before I deployed to Kuwait my predeployment training consisted of round robin with stations for loading radios.  I'm not sure what else we had, because I had to leave to do other stuff and didn't make it to that training.

I fire, on average, 116 rounds a year.

Infantry units may get all the training they need, but the rest of the Army does not.

Also, for those frustrasted with how slow a military institution is to adapt its training now, wait till you see how slow it is when that training is done under contract to a private company.

THANK YOU

We aren't failing to 'win' COIN type operations because we cant kill badguys standing in the open and shooting at us. Thats probably the single thing we are BEST at.

Lack of training is a huge lack of leadership.  We trained hard, we trained a lot, we did SOTG packages all the time, FTX, CAX all the fun acronyms.





But we also did platoon training, CONSTANTLY.  When it came to CQB/MOUT, us Senior guys in the Barracks bought cheap airsoft guns, and we'd hold FoF training in the Barracks since we didn't get to do sim rounds that often.
Lets not forget, Infantry shooting people is one of the lesser important things.  
 
 

And pay them 2-3 times what civilians do.



and it just replicates small unit training.





That should be done at the unit level...
Oh, wait...
I mean, hey, by using civilian contractors it allows a more flexible training regime.
 

Madcap72 holding skool!

Yay science!

Seriously.

That's crazy.

I don't think I've ever fired less than 800-1000 in training each year.

I fired about 5-10k per year, less pre-GWOT, more post.  Once they took the 2001-2003 data, and created new training, guys were shooting upwards of 15K as just a pre-deployment package.



It's all about the job field and roll in the unit.  

While contractors do get more up front pay, they don't receive the benefits that mil personnel do, nor are they required to go through the lengthy and expensive initial entry training process that military personnel are.

If our government were to be smart about this -- I realize I have already ruined this plan by saying that -- they could implement a fixed cost bidding process for certain aspects of the training regimen. NCO's still want to conduct training? Okay let them do the training and contract out the range and property upkeep. Much like how Blackwater started. On post housing has been handed over to private property managers who receive a soldier's BAH as "rent". Since this has happened, new on post housing has improved greatly from the older, military built and managed housing. Where you used to have wait for the normal work order process to go through to make various repairs in your home, now a private entity competing for your BAH pay is responsible for the upkeep. DFACS in all training posts like Ft. Jackson, Lee and Huachuca do not use the Army 92G, but rather contract the operation of those DFACS to a private food service. The efficiency and quality at a DFAC staffed by civilian contractors as opposed to the Army's 92G DFAC's is exponentially greater!!! I think we can use this model to bring the cost of training down, while improving it's effectiveness and increasing it's availability.  

***
I had some excellent NCO's who, in the middle of the night during their CQ shift while I'm re-mopping mopped floors, would explain to me the finer points of room clearing, weapons manipulation and small unit tactics. However when I asked them if they could teach these things to the entire company, they couldn't because it wasn't on TRADOC's menu or we couldn't secure range time, etc. At times the atmosphere can be very similar outside of TRADOC as well, if not worse. MAJ Ehrhart's article rang true -- and continues to -- on almost every level with my training experience.

During Advanced Rifle Marksmanship in BCT, we were supposed to learn maneuver and familiarization with our PAQ-15's and Aimpoints -- obviously I was already familiar with these systems before the Army showed me -- and It didn't take me long to find out that both pieces of equipment were broken, couldn't be adjusted and wouldn't zero. Leadership said "oh well" and at least 25% of my BCT company qualified with that M4. Mind you, they weren't hitting anything they shot at. Granted, most of them were going to supply rooms or human resource offices, but I and handful of other soldiers were not.

I'm not infantry, but unless I'm in some detainment/interrogation facility, I'm doing my job while on patrol, doing village stability operations, and otherwise put in a position where I will need to be just as proficient as the infantryman next to me. This being the case I can count on two hands the number of times I've been able to practice Battle drill 1A, and I have shot more rounds in one hour at home than I have shot in the past year at Army ranges.

I agree that our current combat loadout is ridiculous.  It should be about 55 lbs max. That is what the human body can carry over long distances, and fight in w/o breaking itself in the process. we have known this for over 2,500 years. (greeks)

About the KD courses. the article seems to make it out like the kd courses are the standard. In a way they are, they are the MINIMUM standard for the most REMF in the USMC. Combat arms units get much better and much more training with their weapons.
It is not just about money though. I was in Intermediate level avionics during my time in the USMC. My little brother currently is in the infantry. If I(the maintenance squadron)  had spent just 25% of my time that he does getting weapon training, good luck on having any airplanes actually be mission ready.

We did that with paintball guns...while drunk.

Fucking Airwingers always doing shit all fucked up

That's how it started with us.  My buddies and I bought cheap shitty airsoft pistols in Hollywood and chased each other around the Roosevelt hotel shooting the piss out of each other.  When we got back from libbo it caught on, mixed with motivation, and turned into a training/ competition thing.



 

I'm not generally a big fan of SLA Marshall but The Soldiers Load and the Mobility of a Nation is something everyone here should read.

I can haz lifeboat seat?