The Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) represents the Army in national and international shooting competitions, but also has the mission of improving marksmanship Army-wide.
To that end, they conduct "train-the-trainer" events, aimed at improving the marksmanship skills of non-commissioned officers (NCOs), who will then pass their knowledge to junior soldiers in their formations.
AMU recently deployed a team to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, where they helped the 25th Infantry Division implement the new M7 rifle. The M7 is intended as a replacement for the M4 (M16 family of weapons) rifle, and fires a 6.8mm round, larger than the previous 5.56, as the Army projects that enemy soldiers in future conflicts will be wearing body armor.
The AMU instructors taught the infantrymen in shooting competition techniques that test their skills and focus on the fundamentals of marksmanship.
"It's hard to say what fundamentals matter the most. They're all equally important, but establishing a consistent and stable position, consistent head placement, proper sight alignment, and trigger control are going to make shooting a new weapon system a lot easier," explained Sgt. 1st Class Alexander Deal, who headed the AMU team.
Following the train-the-trainer model, the AMU team focused on working with the unit's non-commissioned officers.
"The NCOs are getting familiarized with the weapon systems and optics so they can go back and train other NCOs, officers and their soldiers, and begin proper marksmanship training," Deal said.
The training takes place within the framework established by the Department of Defense, calling for the military to constantly increase lethality.