About 1980 when I was the Army Small Cal Lab a guy I worked with and me were invited to come to the US Military Academy (West Point) to act as rifle instructors/watchers for I believe it was called the Military Affairs Club???? We knew a retired Colonel (Wil Piznak) who loaded ammo all winter long and in the spring he loaded up his van with about 20 different military rifles/calibers and went to the Point.
The range was a 75,150,300 meter pop up target range next to a KD range with pits that had pine trees 6" in diameter growing up all over it and the 2x4s in the carriers were warped and broken as were the number boards. That immediately put doubts in my mind about weapons instructions they were getting. Read on my worst fears were confirmed.
Piznak was having trouble getting 30.06 ammo and he commented he really wanted the Cadets to shoot a Springfield and I told him I had a 03A3 converted to 7.62 and he asked me to bring it. I also had it equipped with a Redfield micrometer rear sight and a Lyman 17A front sight so it was for all practical purposes a poor man's course gun.
I also took my AR180 and before the Cadets arrived I was zeroing it on a piece of 2X4 laying on the 300 meter target berm and I noted a van load of cadets arriving and thought nothing at the time so I loaded another mag and a few more rounds to confirm I was making toothpics from the 2X4 and stopped.
I finished and sat up and looked back at them and Col Piznak yelled to me, "Mr Humphreville would you demonstrate for these gentlemen what a rifleman is capable of?" So I topped off a 20 rd mag and still had the sling on and rolled back into prone position and I shot my target, then three to the left and three to the right and by that time the first targets had reset and of course a E silhouette at 300 meters is nothing and I got 20 for 20 in about 20 seconds and I looked back at them and half the cadets were standing there with their mouths open and Piznak said in his best professor's voice "Gentlemen, THAT is what will happen to you if you ever run up on a rifleman."
Several more van loads arrived and we got underway and we had about five firing points each to monitor to show them how they were loaded etc. One of them was my 03A3 and they were shooting and I walked up and down my section and I see this Cadet with my 03 and he had taken the sling off and it was laying on the ground and he was trying to shoot sitting and it was obvious he had just seen it done but had never done it. At the point the only thing he was doing right was he had his rear end on the ground.
I walked up to him and he glanced at me and went back to trying to figure out what to do sitting and I opened the conversation which went along these lines:
Q. Got a question for you.
A. Yes Sir?
Q. Why did you take the sling off the rifle?
A. Blank look at first and finally he said, "I didn't need it."
Q. You don't need a sling?
A. I wasn't going to carry it anywhere.
Q. Let me get this straight, you are a Senior right?
A. Yes Sir
Q. And you are going to graduate in a couple of months?
A. Yes Sir!.
Q. And you don't know the other use for a sling?
A. NAFC look.
So I picked sling back up, put in on 03, showed him how to adjust it and got him into a stable cross leg sitting position showed him how to get a natural point of aim at the right angle. Picked up a 5 round stripper (M14 but would feed into the 03) and loaded him up and told him to close the bolt and said: "OK you put the target in the middle of the front sight (aperture) and the middle of the front sight in the middle of the rear sight and you squeeze the trigger slowly." He indicated he understood and I pointed down range and said, "OK 300 meters, knock him down." He immediately told me with all the authority he could muster: "You can't hit a man at 300 meters!"
I was dumb founded and all I could muster was I pointed down range and said, "Do it." He got into position, pulled the trigger and the target went down and I looked at him and his mouth was open and the expression on his face was priceless. "OK do it again." He shot again and it went down and when the target did not come back up immediately so I told him to squirm a bit and shoot the target on the left and then the target on right and got him on a roll so I stood up and walked off.
About 30 minutes later I heard this Cadet ask another, "Have you shot the Springfield yet?" "No" "You can miss with it!", "That's what I hear."
We finished up and I went down to my Springfield and they had emptied a 460 round can of 7.62 M80 and opened the second can and went through two bandoleers on that one. Needless to say that barrel is well broke in.
After we finished the "Advisor" for the Cadets came down. He was a Infantry Platoon Commander in Nam and stayed in and was a Major in 1980. He came down from the tower and he was ecstatic and said he had never seen so many 300 meter targets knocked down in his five years of running that event. This was a significant event because in Nam they were on a sweep and this guy fires a few shots their way and gets up and starts running away across open ground and the whole line was blasting away at him at about 300 yards and no one was hitting him. He fired a couple standing and missed and it dawned on him what was wrong. He had a M1 cotton sling on his M16 and he opened the bottom loop , quickly slipped his arm through it and sat down and got a cross leg sitting position and dropped the guy with one shot. He had been taught the "OTHER" use for a sling as a kid.
I wish I could say they were not graduating cadets that only knew one use for a sling but alas I suspect that is not the case and with some of the designs I read that are being considered you can't put a marksman's sling on, so it seems rather unlikely Marksmanship will return.
The range was a 75,150,300 meter pop up target range next to a KD range with pits that had pine trees 6" in diameter growing up all over it and the 2x4s in the carriers were warped and broken as were the number boards. That immediately put doubts in my mind about weapons instructions they were getting. Read on my worst fears were confirmed.
Piznak was having trouble getting 30.06 ammo and he commented he really wanted the Cadets to shoot a Springfield and I told him I had a 03A3 converted to 7.62 and he asked me to bring it. I also had it equipped with a Redfield micrometer rear sight and a Lyman 17A front sight so it was for all practical purposes a poor man's course gun.
I also took my AR180 and before the Cadets arrived I was zeroing it on a piece of 2X4 laying on the 300 meter target berm and I noted a van load of cadets arriving and thought nothing at the time so I loaded another mag and a few more rounds to confirm I was making toothpics from the 2X4 and stopped.
I finished and sat up and looked back at them and Col Piznak yelled to me, "Mr Humphreville would you demonstrate for these gentlemen what a rifleman is capable of?" So I topped off a 20 rd mag and still had the sling on and rolled back into prone position and I shot my target, then three to the left and three to the right and by that time the first targets had reset and of course a E silhouette at 300 meters is nothing and I got 20 for 20 in about 20 seconds and I looked back at them and half the cadets were standing there with their mouths open and Piznak said in his best professor's voice "Gentlemen, THAT is what will happen to you if you ever run up on a rifleman."
Several more van loads arrived and we got underway and we had about five firing points each to monitor to show them how they were loaded etc. One of them was my 03A3 and they were shooting and I walked up and down my section and I see this Cadet with my 03 and he had taken the sling off and it was laying on the ground and he was trying to shoot sitting and it was obvious he had just seen it done but had never done it. At the point the only thing he was doing right was he had his rear end on the ground.
I walked up to him and he glanced at me and went back to trying to figure out what to do sitting and I opened the conversation which went along these lines:
Q. Got a question for you.
A. Yes Sir?
Q. Why did you take the sling off the rifle?
A. Blank look at first and finally he said, "I didn't need it."
Q. You don't need a sling?
A. I wasn't going to carry it anywhere.
Q. Let me get this straight, you are a Senior right?
A. Yes Sir
Q. And you are going to graduate in a couple of months?
A. Yes Sir!.
Q. And you don't know the other use for a sling?
A. NAFC look.
So I picked sling back up, put in on 03, showed him how to adjust it and got him into a stable cross leg sitting position showed him how to get a natural point of aim at the right angle. Picked up a 5 round stripper (M14 but would feed into the 03) and loaded him up and told him to close the bolt and said: "OK you put the target in the middle of the front sight (aperture) and the middle of the front sight in the middle of the rear sight and you squeeze the trigger slowly." He indicated he understood and I pointed down range and said, "OK 300 meters, knock him down." He immediately told me with all the authority he could muster: "You can't hit a man at 300 meters!"
I was dumb founded and all I could muster was I pointed down range and said, "Do it." He got into position, pulled the trigger and the target went down and I looked at him and his mouth was open and the expression on his face was priceless. "OK do it again." He shot again and it went down and when the target did not come back up immediately so I told him to squirm a bit and shoot the target on the left and then the target on right and got him on a roll so I stood up and walked off.
About 30 minutes later I heard this Cadet ask another, "Have you shot the Springfield yet?" "No" "You can miss with it!", "That's what I hear."
We finished up and I went down to my Springfield and they had emptied a 460 round can of 7.62 M80 and opened the second can and went through two bandoleers on that one. Needless to say that barrel is well broke in.
After we finished the "Advisor" for the Cadets came down. He was a Infantry Platoon Commander in Nam and stayed in and was a Major in 1980. He came down from the tower and he was ecstatic and said he had never seen so many 300 meter targets knocked down in his five years of running that event. This was a significant event because in Nam they were on a sweep and this guy fires a few shots their way and gets up and starts running away across open ground and the whole line was blasting away at him at about 300 yards and no one was hitting him. He fired a couple standing and missed and it dawned on him what was wrong. He had a M1 cotton sling on his M16 and he opened the bottom loop , quickly slipped his arm through it and sat down and got a cross leg sitting position and dropped the guy with one shot. He had been taught the "OTHER" use for a sling as a kid.
I wish I could say they were not graduating cadets that only knew one use for a sling but alas I suspect that is not the case and with some of the designs I read that are being considered you can't put a marksman's sling on, so it seems rather unlikely Marksmanship will return.
