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They had no right to win. Yet they did, and in doing so they changed the course of a war...even against the greatest of odds, there is something in the human spirit - a magic blend of skill, faith and valor - that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory.
Your sidearm gets bullets toward a target instead of slapping at a broken gun. I have few malfunctions on an M4 that SPORTS or TRB will even fix. It's usually double feeds which SPORTS won't help. Other than that my guns are pretty trouble free. I have never been in a unit that trained for IA on a primary since basic training. A Glock 19 has saved my life when a long gun went tits up. Do as you wish. I pull a working gun over messing with a broken one.
Yes, SPORTS works. No doubt. It will clear certain malfunctions.
I was an 11B for a long time. Sucks to not have a pistol. So here's a disclaimer: If you don't have a secondary, don't transition. It won't work.
The military is decades behind the curve on combat marksmanship. Most infantry soldiers have NEVER fired CMMS tables at a flat range. Rarely is military weapons training the best available. I find myself once or twice a year tasked to teach conventional units. It takes more time to undo poor weapons handling and marksmanship than it does to teach more effective techniques.
M4Guru,
Have you spoken to any who've returned as to what they would change in basic military training?
Basic training is out of my lane. They have so many limitations put on the training I don't know what's possible and what's not. I do know if it is possible to train stupid arabs combat shooting to a high level of proficiency, no US soldier should be without that training.
I think they do their best with the restraints they have on them. The Marines do it better than the Army in regards to both pride and fighting skills.
I was an 0311/0341 for 6 years (same as 11B but USMC), the Marine Corps was right on track with combat marksmanship. I did combat rifle training for 4 years in the FMF, and taught it for 9 months at Stone Bay, as a S.L.A.M. Instructor. Obviously it is not on par with SWAT or other combat marksmanship, but operational tempos often sacrifice good training for expedient training.
As far as a sidearm goes, I would rather have just my rifle than one of those POS M9's we had in our unit. They rarely worked, and were rattle-traps.
I think infantry units deserve all the best gear. Sigs or Glocks as secondaries, and better distribution of Benelli M-4's to grunt units. Not to mention M4's and SPW's, considering the amount of CQC going on in the sandbox. Things have improved, hell when I was in the sandbox in 90-91 everyone besides crew served team leaders, carried overused M16A2's
I haven't observed the army, so I cannot speak for them. But on the Marine side of the house we were doing the right thing on combat marksmanship for the last couple of years, but that tended to on the division side of the house. The wing and group were somewhat indifferent on the subject.
We had a good program going with EMP and MOCS. However, CMP seems to have turned the program around. Letting the same people who had run the shooting program prior to the war a hand at doing it the wrong way again.
An 0341 would be a 11C. The M9s I have had in the FMF were not all that bad, once we got rid of all the bad magazines they tended to work. The decision to field the A4 vice the M4 was again a choice by our rifle range mafia. The primary problem with the M4 was a higher failure to qual rate because of the 500 meter course of fire. Instead of asking the relevance of the course, we fielded a gun that most people would rather have the loser of the competition instead of. The M1014s seem a bit sand sensitive, it would have been better to just keep 870s.
I've managed to teach Iraqi's TRB and secondary transition.
I'm not a M9 fan -- besides I thought the G19, or 1911 was the issue sidearm these days
In the recent weeks - I've noticed a huge increase in convetional troops with pistols in addition to their primary.
edit: M4Guru said what I had initially posted in a clearer manner.
Last edited by KevinB; 05-03-07 at 05:08.
Kevin S. Boland
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Did anyone else watch "Personal Defense TV" this week?
Clint Smith was sharing some of his carbine knowledge, when lo and behold . . . he suggested not using the forward assist, but instead using your finger in the indentation on the bolt carrier to push it forward into battery.
That's suspiciously similar to using your thumb, which I mentioned earlier.
(and this is for administrative situations, like if you do choose to open the bolt to do a chamber check, then need to get the bolt back into battery, not a situation where the gun is firing and then stops out of battery)
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