Military Caliber Choice

[frreed]

02ta,

The Marines qualify on an actual 500 yd range. I have seen marines aim at the left side of the paper to counter for 40+ MPH crosswinds.

[macktruckturner]

The blame doesn't just go to the lower enlisted for being generally sorry sacks of .... well.. I'll cut that short. The NCO Corps by and large is a disgrace to their own creed, but all of this is an entirely different discussion hardly related to any rifle or pistol cartridge we use. For what it's worth, numerous relatives, and my best friend are all Marines - they report the same level of pencil whipping recruits through training as I see here in the Army. Range time here in theater with forces of every branch, makes it pretty clear that such is in fact the case. The "standards" all look great on paper, but that's about where it stops. For that very reason I added another task to the list of things I do and became one of my Brigade's marksmanship instructors. If the recruiters can't enlist shooters, and the drills aren't allowed to conduct effective training - I'll handle the problem on my end. What are they going to do, fire me?

[frreed]

Mack,


It makes my heart glad to hear that you are taking the issue of marksmanship for your soldiers seriously. The culture of our military needs to go through a genuine transformation. Too long we have been a social experiment where "notional" bullets and bombs were seen as sufficient. 9-11 changed that. Today's Al Qaeda will be tomorrow's Nicaraguan insurgents and we will need to be ready. I claim no perfection in the USMC, but they are unique a force in their warrior mindset. I do see that changing in the Army as new officers are minted. One of the kids from my church graduated West Point last year and you can see a difference in his attitude and vision of how he will lead his soldiers.

[macktruckturner]

Gotta know my guys will hit their target, both for their own good, and mine. I'm not going to pass off any untrained soldiers to other units, those NCOs have enough to deal with themselves. I just wish more people were focused on being solutions, rather than problems. While I am separating from the military after this deployment, I'll never stop teaching people to shoot, or providing "purpose and direction" to those in need of such.

[LarryH]

Caution: off-topic thread drift --

God bless you guys and keep you safe.

Thank you very much for your service to our country.

[casingpoint]

Caution: off-topic thread drift --

This thread has certainly gone OT, but as the OP, I can't think of a better drift than a heartfelt thanks to those who are serving or have served in the U.S. Armed Forces.

[macktruckturner]

Since I'm pretty much entirely responsible for the topic drift, I'll expand on my initial answer that was actually halfway on topic. Also, thanks for the kind words - they mean a lot, particularly while I'm deployed.

There is no such beast as a 100% pistol round. It just does not exist, and until we manage to come up with mini-nuke bullets, they won't. The logistical nightmare that would result from a break back to .45ACP will likely prevent any such thing from happening. The politics is also a tangled mess, and requires one to "follow the money" as with anything else in our rat's nest of red tape.

That said, those who have their aorta shredded by a 9mm projectile are just as dead as those who are shot with .45ACP. Hollowpoints may not expand, and this has been debated and tested to the point where you can't read three magazines without seeing ten articles on the subject. That said, they expand more often than they do not, and even without expansion, a bullet is a bullet. The ballistics game has been overplayed at the expense of marksmanship, but that's just my $.02. Personally, seeing how we are not engaged with a uniformed Army of any nation, I say we stoke all our weapons with the hottest expanding/frangible bullets Hornady/Nosler/Barnes/Sierra/etc can cook up. Sadly the troops on the ground don't get to make policy, we just have to do our best to stay alive in light of the idiocy that comes from higher.