Not at all. My point is that as a Military Acadamy graduate he should be getting proper training, but he isn’t. If their best officers are not getting trained to shoot properly, imagine the lower soldiers. Now imagine the farmers turned militant.
These people don’t have the background (like hunting) or the proper training. Upthread it was mentioned that illiteracy plays a part in how a person learns to shoot and assimilates his training. I never thought of that before, but after reading it, it does seem like it may play a part as well. If I grab a new weapon system, I can just read the technical manual and find out the proper zero procedures, target off-sets, minutes of angle for the adjustment knobs, etc. A person who can’t read does not have this advantage.
I am not saying they are a stupid, faceless, enemy. However, they do lack proper training and the ability to learn on their own. If that officer went through a Basic Training cycle in the US Army, he would come out knowing how to shoot. If I had him for a couple hours each day for a week, I could teach him to shoot.
But for whatever reason, Afghanis are not learning to shoot. And much of the time, they don’t see the need. They think they are shooting to the fullest capability of their weapon. They are surprised when I take an AK and shoot a tight group with it by actually using the iron sights.
Well, let’s give credit where credit is due, okay? Even in the North where they only had limited occupation by the Taliban, lack of stability and security kept a lot of people from school, and many of the teachers fled. The Soviets and warlords also contributed to a sizable number of brain-dead people. And I say that as someone who would have preferred the Soviets to stay, after all… still, you can’t say it’s only religious fundamentalism.
War (though not necessarily occupation) is the worst kind of fascism.
You’d be amazed how popular Ahmed the Dead Terrorist is amongst normal (i.e. non-fundamentalist, liberal) Muslims. Heh.
I’d hate to shoot without eye protection. I’ve had shell casings bounce off my glasses. It can’t feel good to have a casing bounce off your eye. Having a 9mm casing go down the front of my shirt left a nice rectangular burn mark.
IANAS, but my brother once described it (and I have read it in many other locations) as “train how you fight”. If you aren’t stopping as soon as the bullets fly to put on your ANSI rated goggles, than you don’t do it in training.
He noted that ears and eyes were the norm for basic and AIT, and most other places he ever fired his weapon… until he actually went to war. Any training or firing he did there was sans ear and eye.
Well far be it for me as a layman to question the opinions and experiences of experts but prima facie, this book disagrees with the assertions made here.
Of course, a book entitled “Obama’s War” (nevermind that it was really Bush’s War) has no axe to grind, right? :dubious:
But those books are talking about trained snipers on the Taliban side, which are not the norm. The article I posted mentions them as well, how they have improved over the course of the war. But most of the Afghani soldiers and Taliban are more the “point in the general direction and fire” type, as seen from most sources. The article I posted talks about how they fire (read: “ambush”) from longer ranges, having learned that the 5.56 round doesn’t have enough punch to be a threat at those ranges, and how American troops have taken to outfitting more soldiers with larger caliber weapons to be able to shoot back effectively.
I only had time to briefly read those links. Ill read them this evening but in the meantime I want to mention a couple things.
Most Taliban snipers are mercanaries recruited from outside Afghanistan.
As for their indirect fire capabilities, I would not criticize that as harshly as their rifle marksmanship but I will say that on one day alone our COP received over three dozen rockets and mortars. The COP is at least 400-500 sq meters and only a small percentage landed within the perimeter walls. That’s a pretty big target to miss consistantly. In the course of a year the misses vastly outnumbered the hits. And of those hits, none hit anything but ground.
The case of Wanat more proves the point than disproves it. 200 Afghani Taliban firing down on 40 soldiers and only managed to kill 9.
This isn’t Afghanistan-related, but it is an anecdote about bad artillery practices. At one point years ago, I saw a news story that “unknown forces” on Syria’s border with Israel launched a rocket attack. This wasn’t those home-made rockets you sometimes hear about – this was a unit of Katyusha-type rocket launcher trucks, presumably with accompanying supply train and so forth (leading me to conclude it was probably state-sponsored and not individual yahoos).
Anyway, they let fly a good salvo of artillery rockets, but they all missed.
Israel.
They missed an entire country.
The rockets apparently fell into a neutral/demilitarized zone, according to the AP report.
It isn’t problem for me, since I already wear glasses. I notice a high percentage of the pictures of soldiers in Afghanistan show them wearing sunglasses in the field.
I also read that hearing loss or tinnitus is the #1 disability claim for soldiers. Apparently the British troops are being issued issued smart earphones that don’t interfere with normal hearings, but suppress loud noises. They are expensive, but a lot cheaper than disability claims.
Eye protection is mandatory for Soldiers in the US Army. It must meet certain standards and must be worn on patrols. That, and flame resistant gloves. Ear protection is still optional though.
This image is of a soldier (specialized commando unit?) of a 980,000-strong 2nd-world, ostensibly trained Army: India. It was taken during the response to terrorist slaughter in Mumbai on 26/11.
IIRC, the image was reprinted and ridiculed so often in Israeli media that a government type mentioned that the exposure might piss off the Indians–a strong ally and huge military trader–particularly given that a contract would assuredly soon be tendered for training by Israeli special forces in anti-terrorist operations.
He was surely literate, knew left from right, etc.
I’m shocked, you can learn beter marksmanship from Sylvester Stallone movies, how do people NOT know not to shoot that way? It’s mystifying.
When I first fired a handgun I had problems with keeping eyes open and not flinching, but I at least knew the proper way to hold the gun instinctually and from watching movies, it’s hard to believe a professional would do something like that…
Same as other poor shooters mentioned. Minimimal exposure to proper marksmanship growing up, and poor, inadequate, improper, or lax tactical training from his profession.
Being illiterate and/or stupid may exacerbate the issue but it certainly isn’t necessary for the condition to exist.
Watching movies would be the worst possible way to learn to hold a handgun. You would end up holding it sideways. I loved when I was watching “Person of Interest” and the protagonist ridiculed his opponent for holding his pistol like that.
