What size is the target?
And it’s not necessarily just the shooting, it’s the rifle work in general. I’m shocked when a former army guy can zero his rifle at 50 yards without help, much less hit anything at distance.
An E-Type is approximately 20x40 the inches. It is huge. It’s also interesting when people bring up Marines and shooting at 500 yards.... their target is 6’x6’. Yes- 6 feet by 6 feet.
The military is garbage at shooting, and the only reason they don’t know it is because they shoot massive targets, with ridiculous amounts of time to do so, and they don’t compete in the civilian world in action matches.
And no, the special people aren’t any better. They only way someone will be truly good at shooting is if they compete- military or not.
Formid...
I consider myself to be one of the "special" ones. In a short bus, helmet, window licker sort of way.
I recognize what you are saying as a truth of sorts. But I think the larger truth is that the military is well served by clerical types who can use their primary weapon to engage a target and perform basic fire and maneuver exercises after 3 days of rifle and 3 days of ground combat training.
I was in a unit that took every opportunity to enhance marksmanship in those who showed any proclivity for it. At least with 2 of the 3 COs I saw come and go. Open competition would have been way better, but difficult to set up and impossible to pay for by the unit.
Those who were were truly good got there on their own.
