U.S. Marksmanship Unit instructors conduct first master trainer course at Fort Drum

By Spc. Osama Ayyad, 10th Mountain Division JournalistMay 21, 2015

Marksmanship Master Trainer Course
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Marksmanship Master Trainer Course
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Marksmanship Master Trainer Course
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FORT DRUM, N.Y. (May 21, 2015) -- The U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit has represented the United States in every Summer Olympic Games the country has participated in since 1960, earning 24 Olympic Medals and winning 40 world championships. The USAMU has many sectors of fire, and raising the standard of marksmanship throughout the Army is one of them.

In the past, USAMU provided a team of instructors to train a small group of Soldiers in one of the courses the unit offered, but that training typically stayed with the few who attended the course. In an effort to propagate marksmanship, the USAMU has begun instructing a new course that makes Soldiers more proficient marksmen and allows them to be a link in a chain of instructors and trainees.

These subject-matter experts, marksmanship master trainers, were given the skills to assist unit leaders in the planning and implementing of small-arms marksmanship training.

The first iteration of the Marksmanship Master Trainer Course to take place outside of Fort Benning, Ga., occurred at Fort Drum from April 13 to May 15, and all 28 XVIII Airborne Corps Soldiers who attended the course completed it, giving the course its first 100-percent passing class.

Twelve USAMU instructors supervised the trainees during the five-week course. The MMTC was designed to give commanders constant access to experts in marksmanship training, which allows units to improve Soldier marksmanship skills with resources they already have.

The course began with the fundamentals. At the range, seven trainees fired at a time, which gave seven others an opportunity to follow closely for coaching and safety supervision training. With such a high ratio of trainers to trainees, safety was easy to maintain.

Instructors primarily focused on precision marksmanship. Marksmanship is a perishable skill that needs to be developed separately from war fighting, said Staff Sgt. Brian Schacht, one of the USAMU instructors. By making Soldiers expert marksmen first, commanders save time and resources during combat fighting training.

Over years of continuous Army Forces Generation cycles and combat deployments, Army mark-smanship skills have atrophied, according to Brig. Gen. James E. Rainey, U.S. Army Infantry School commandant.

Since World War II, the number of rounds necessary to kill an enemy has increased dramatically, said Schacht. That is not a logistical issue as much as it is an issue of safety. The more rounds Soldiers have to fire to kill an enemy, the longer it takes to eliminate them, which means greater risk to Soldiers and others in the area.

"When we train Soldiers to become more efficient marksmen, more of them come back home alive," Schacht said.

During his time as commander of the 10th Mountain Division (LI), Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, XVIII Airborne Corps commander, made marksmanship one of his top priorities. The division implemented a marksmanship recognition program that encouraged a standard of marksmanship higher than what is required by Army regulation. Townsend often reminded his Soldiers that they couldn't "re-fire their first fight."

The MMTC taught MMTs to use all of their assets available such as Engagement Skills Trainers, which they called a great way to get to gauge a Soldier's marksmanship skills. The course forced Soldiers to begin without the aid of advanced optics. Soldiers also fired at known distances, so they could study and understand the trajectory of rounds. MMTs understood why, on Army qualification courses, the 150-meter target is the one most often missed. At that distance, assault rifle rounds are at the highest point of an arc, and Soldiers have to fire lower than center mass to hit their target.

While the USAMU is currently assisting with the re-write of Field Manuals 3-22.9 and 3-23.35, rifle marksmanship and combat training with pistols respectively, the MMTC provided trainees the references they would need to help their commanders train their Soldiers. After covering the basics, trainees were allowed to use some of their optical equipment. One of the exercises where optical aids were permitted was a nighttime qualification, which the trainees said should be a regular part of marksmanship training, because "some fights happen at night."

Throughout the course, trainees practiced, coached and supervised basic, short-range and medium-range rifle marksmanship exercises. They studied from Army field manuals and training circulars, and took written exams on training doctrine. Trainees were constantly coached and certified by their peers and two different instructors at each level. During the final week, MMTs had to plan a marksmanship exercise, anticipate commanders' concerns and educate them on Army marksmanship training doctrine.

The greatest responsibility these MMTs have is to share their knowledge of Army marksmanship training by certifying other Soldiers within their organizations as Level 1-3 training instructors. Because it trains MMTs to spread marksmanship throughout their units, the MMTC may prove to be a self-propagating solution for improving marksmanship throughout the Army.

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