Training Shooting - Special Forces v. Gun Nuts

[airboy]

This is a very interesting article on how to train shooters.  A special forces troop, representative on the US Olympic Shooting Team, decided that civilian competitive shooters and shooter training may be better than some aspects of US military shooting training.

I found it to be an interesting trade-off.  The US military shooter thinks that training should have much more of an element of target identification, and shooting a moving target while moving instead of so much focus on shooting stationary targets at a range.
see: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/top-army-marksman-explains-why-gun-nuts-shoot-better-469f8dfd917f

I cannot tell if the article is on target or not.  Personally, I found shooting at stationary targets to be so easy with a scope from a rest at anything short of very, very long distances that it got boring fast.  Instead, shooting at moving targets (sporting clays with a shotgun, wobble trap, 5 stand, etc....) was far more interesting.  I've also found that shooting live targets improves my accuracy about 30% over normal (hunting).  My buddies tell me that this is a combination of complete focus and reaction shooting while hunting.  You can think on a range - even one with moving targets.  Can't think it out so much with an animal on a hunt.

Since I've never served in the military, I'm interested in the opinions of those who have.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Good article, thx for posting it.

I'm curious to know if people think only elite military, like the subject, should have flexibility in their training to explore their ideas? I expect that if you learn from the best, the chance you will come up with something profound is very small compared to the chance you will make a mess. On the other hand, it is training. You can learn from mistakes. You also need to learn to think for yourself to handle unexpected situations.

[LongBlade]

Good article, thx for posting it.

I'm curious to know if people think only elite military, like the subject, should have flexibility in their training to explore their ideas?

That's about the same thing I was thinking.

To me the most important lesson wasn't that the military could learn from civilians but rather that (to quote from the article:

His commanders trust his judgment.

[Con]

Part of the military training is to try and have muscle memory take place when under fire.  Being under fire is an inherently stressful situation and many studies showed that a high percentage of new to combat recruits did not fire their weapons.  Additionally there is a very different tactical element of working with firearms as part of a team.  I suppose the best way to say it is fundamentals on shooting (range) and then a lot of training on situational aspects.  Otherwise I think its a bit apples to oranges to compare target (even hunting) shooting to a combat situation

Just my two cents

Con

[jejo68]

Part of the military training is to try and have muscle memory take place when under fire.  Being under fire is an inherently stressful situation and many studies showed that a high percentage of new to combat recruits did not fire their weapons.  Additionally there is a very different tactical element of working with firearms as part of a team.  I suppose the best way to say it is fundamentals on shooting (range) and then a lot of training on situational aspects.  Otherwise I think its a bit apples to oranges to compare target (even hunting) shooting to a combat situation

Just my two cents

Con

Havent you seen the new squirrel liberation army. those nasty crittys got mini guns and shoot back at you.

[airboy]

Part of the military training is to try and have muscle memory take place when under fire.  Being under fire is an inherently stressful situation and many studies showed that a high percentage of new to combat recruits did not fire their weapons.  Additionally there is a very different tactical element of working with firearms as part of a team.  I suppose the best way to say it is fundamentals on shooting (range) and then a lot of training on situational aspects.  Otherwise I think its a bit apples to oranges to compare target (even hunting) shooting to a combat situation

Just my two cents

Con

Con - nobody disputes that having people shoot back utterly alters the situation.  The question is - in training is it better to have more range time with moving targets, while you are moving, etc...... vs downrange shooting at fixed targets. 

[Boggit]

Part of the military training is to try and have muscle memory take place when under fire.  Being under fire is an inherently stressful situation and many studies showed that a high percentage of new to combat recruits did not fire their weapons.  Additionally there is a very different tactical element of working with firearms as part of a team.  I suppose the best way to say it is fundamentals on shooting (range) and then a lot of training on situational aspects.  Otherwise I think its a bit apples to oranges to compare target (even hunting) shooting to a combat situation

Just my two cents

Con

Havent you seen the new squirrel liberation army. those nasty crittys got mini guns and shoot back at you.

Those would be pre-2005 Belgian squirrels fed up after years of hunting by Belgians with automatic weapons. They know what they're up against and have developed tactics to deal with it. >:D :o

(The pre-2005 refers to the change in Belgian gun laws - previously you could go hunting with automatic weapons - and many did! Not very sporting though is it?)