A View from Canberra: Shoot straight, shoot once... | ADM August 2011

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

A commando crony of your correspondent once observed that no Taliban-initiated contact in which he was engaged opened at a range of less than 300 metres. A new army discussion paper by Warrant Officer Anthony Pratt from the School of Infantry says most contacts have been initiated at ranges in excess of 400 metres with the average around 600 metres.

That’s launched a debate within defence about the adequacy of soldier training to shoot accurately at those sort of distances. The consensus is that most couldn’t deliver accurate fire at anything like those ranges, even though the weaponry on issue is more accurate than ever before.

So why does this matter when there are abundant means of obliterating targets at extended ranges, including artillery and close air support?

Insurgents invariably launch such attacks from residential compounds because these structures are everywhere and provide good protection against small arms fire, although limited protection against a JDAM. There’s plenty of evidence that some Taliban attacks were solely intended to invite retaliation and cause civilian casualties.

Whether by Taliban design or coalition stuff-up, a succession of such incidents has resulted in large numbers of dead Afghan civilians. That has led to a coalition-wide tightening of rules of engagement, limiting use of the coalition’s one big advantage.

There was plenty of grumbling about this, especially from US troops, but that’s the reality of counter-insurgency warfare.

The Australian army has recognised this increase in engagement ranges with greater use of the 7.62mm MAG-58 LMG and SR-25 sniper rifle at section level. That gives a hit capability out to 800 metres but Pratt makes the fair point that increasing weapon calibre does not increase marksmanship ability.

On the plus side, the army has wholeheartedly adopted close quarter battle shooting techniques, giving Australian troops, especially special forces, a very significant advantage in instinctive shooting at conversational ranges, as occurs in built up areas.

Pratt says initial recruit shooting training is sufficient for a soldier to arrive at his unit with a satisfactory level of skill. Most with jobs nowhere near the frontline need go no further and can maintain a minimum level of shooting currency with an occasional attendance at a WTTS facility.

But for others progress is slow and what’s needed, Pratt says, is a good logical progression of training in basic shooting techniques which encourages pursuit of fine marksmanship and which remediates those with problems and identifies those with talent for special development.

Pratt recommends minimum fortnightly live fire practices, conducted in small groups with each soldier firing just 20-30 rounds with an emphasis on proper technique and good record-keeping to track progress.

Pratt suggests a new series of live fire practices at short, intermediate and long ranges. The long range serial would concentrate on delivering accurate fire at 400-600 metres using the ACOG sight.

For those not familiar with military technology, the ACOG is the so-called Jesus sight, a four-power optic widely used by US forces and well-regarded by Australian troops.

Why Jesus sight, you might wonder? Engraved on the sights were what appeared to be obscure manufacturer’s codes such as JN8:12. It transpired that this really meant the Biblical passage John 8:12: “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

That reflected the fervent Christian beliefs of the founder of the ACOG manufacturer, US company Trijicon. Only in America.

Biblical references or otherwise, for a properly trained soldier the ACOG offers far better prospects of achieving long range hits than either the 1.5 power Steyr optic or traditional iron sights.

Pratt’s views appeared to strike a chord with a series of supportive comments on the army’s Facebook page.

“No doubt it will require an increase in resource allocation, but what is the point of having an Arms corp that can’t apply effective fire out to the average contact distances we are seeing in the operational environment?” said Travis.

Another, Steve, made the courageous observation that shooting skills were generally better in reserve battalions compared to regular battalions, mostly because reserve units were dominated by older more experienced soldiers.

“The regular infantry rifleman should be an expert with his personal weapon but believe me, he is not, at least most of them aren’t,” he said.

Some observed that most young men (and women) joining the services – unlike those who went off to two world wars – have limited or no civilian shooting experience.

John Howard’s 1996 guns buyback copped some of the blame, although it’s probably as much to do with the changing nature of Australian society and the declining rural population.

In his monograph, Pratt obliquely refers to an issue which is the subject of heated debate in the firearms fascinated USA – the adequacy of the issue 5.56 cartridge. He said ballisticians would argue about the effectiveness of the 5.56mm round at longer ranges.

“Let’s assume it will incur injury and prevent the enemy’s use of a weapons system and facilitate manoeuvre,” he said.

Curiously the 5.56 round has already been modified once, with the projectile mass increased from 55 to 62 grains to increase long range performance and to assuage mostly European concerns that the original higher velocity loading produced excessively nasty wounds.

Two decades of US combat in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq has produced an abundance of reports of enemy combatants taking multiple hits and still managing to fight on. The American military and gun press is chokka with articles decrying the 5.56.

One consequence has been the development of a variety of alternative cartridges by various manufacturers, apparently in the hope that their particular design will achieve the holy grail – adoption by the US military. That would probably lead to its adoption by close allies such as Australia and maybe by NATO.

Given the enormous task of tooling for a new cartridge and adopting a new weapon system this wont happen any time soon, if at all, in Australia. The US moved to the 5.56 round as it escalated its operations in Vietnam in the mid-1960s while Australia could be said to have gone fully 5.56 with the issue of the Steyr F88 rifle in the late 1980s.   

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