Friday, September 24, 2010

Fifty-Eight Rounds

That is how many rounds of rifle ammunition that the Army expects each soldier to shoot in order to qualify with their rifle prior to going to war, in combat that is increasingly a war of riflemen. (PDF)

Note that the live-combat ranges in Afghanistan are 500 meters and up while the Army trains its shooters for a maximum of 300 meters.

I'll defer to the experts on this, but it sure seems to me that popping off 48 rounds every year for qualification is a pretty insignificant amount of training-- 1 day of rifle training a year and 364 days of green horseshit?

4 comments:

  1. I suspect they stop at 300yards as the average battle arm (m16/m4 carbine) is not very accurate at further without it's owner spending time on the target range evaluating that specific rifles capability.

    Rifleman class shooting takes practice, lots of it. I'd expect
    someone properly trained would only need 58 rounds to actually shoot the qualification. Assuming they spent a few thousand rounds to get that good
    and stay that way.


    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can reach out there with a decent M-16 (not the M-4). The Marines use M-16s; M-4s are carried in the Corps by people who are expected to either lead or support, not be the trigger-pullers.

    That 58 rounds is apparently what they get to shoot *each* *year* for live fire on a range. So they go through basic, learn to shoot a rifle at fairly close ranges, and that is it. That 58 rounds may be fired on a 25M range using reduced silhouettes (like Appleseed does with .22 rimfires). That may be challenging for aiming small, but it does bupkus for training on wind drift, bullet drop and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Appleseed target works for pellets at 25yards! But that is with practice
    say about a few hundred shots and far more often than once a year.

    Once a year I'd feel really unsafe with anything I didn't shoot regular.


    Eck!

    ReplyDelete
  4. From what son said, before his first unit deployed they did a lot of live-fire practice; I think the 58 rounds is for the qualification shoot only.

    ReplyDelete

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