U.S.M.C. no longer teaching the fundamentals?
 

I just recently saw a picture that concerned me. Marine Corps recruits during rifle portion of boot camp learning to use reflex sights as opposed to iron sights. Have they gotten away from teaching the fundamentals of iron sights? Anyone know?
If you have Facebook, here are the pictures.
https://www.facebook.com/ParrisIslan...type=3&theater

I'll be there March 15th, will get the latest.

Sigh. Girls, then queers, then Glocks, now this.

I quit

My guess would be that they've already trained on irons. I doubt the sky is falling ;)

I've had young Marines at my SC house who couldn't zero irons at 25 yards. Optics could just be the way to get them on target without all the training.
See dot, put dot on target, pull trigger. If dot is broke center target in optic and pull trigger. In all honesty most of them will never utilize a firearm.

Maybe. I've thought of this as well, but boot camp is finite. It is still 13 weeks. So, if this is what's happening then the fundamentals are still being shortchanged.

Acog
 

I was speaking with a Marine PMI from Parris Island at my Marine Corps League meeting. Marines have not trained with open sights since 2011. I was floored. There are units being sent to Afghanistan that aren't even issued BUIS........They are killing us.

http://archive.marinecorpstimes.com/...rifle-training

Greaaat...
So that begs the question, what happens if the scope fails? :mad:

The rifle range Quonset huts were the first taste of some freedom after about 8 weeks, as I recall, of hell week, non stop. Also the first time for one on one coaching with the exception of our DI comprehensively kicking my ass all over PI while demonstrating to the rest of the Gen. A A Vandergrift Platoon how to win a Pugil stick/bayonet fight...about 5 separate times. I think he liked me. :) He always went out of his way to prove he had no favorites. I did a little better each time. The last time I either put him down or he took a dive. He put his arm around my shoulders and told me I just might make a Marine after all. Gunny Floyd was a good man and a hell of a DI. Oh, we sure never had weapons like that and most certainly did not have starched and ironed utilities. Check out the covers. :D That is NOT wash rack stuff. PI have house boys now?

Or if you have a damaged rifle and have to pick up an enemy combatants rifle.

That explains why the young men didn't have a clue about irons. Still, I wonder what the training will be for Marines who are, say, jet engine mechanics vs a Marine who might actually utilize a weapon. I suspect I will hear that all Marines train alike and have the same skills. Come to my SC house for next Thanksgiving's Marine Appreciation Day, they are not all alike. I have said it before, I have Marine friends in their 30's who left the Corps, calling it pussified. Things have changed rapidly and I doubt those in charge are willing to talk about it.

The military, fortunately and unfortunately, changes with the times. They become a reflection of that particular generation. I'm seeing the same thing in law enforcement.
Scary to think that I've become that guy. You know, the old crusty SOB.

I agree with timely change, but I suspect the last few years of changes have been less than timely and more political/ideological. I know quite a few Marines in their fifties, sixties, even a few in their eighties. The stories they tell me don't resemble what I see today. So, "old", or " crusty " to me translate into experienced in reality on the job.

I agree. Why the "unfortunate" part of my post.

I remember "snapping in" for a week without firing a round at the range. We qualified out to 900 meters with iron sights. The Marine Corps was always based on marksmanship and the tenet that every man is a basic infantryman from the Commandant right down to the lowliest private. Chesty must be rolling in his grave!

Absolutely. I remember my DI sitting on my shoulders to get me into a proper sitting position. I left the range with a black and blue right thumb,:) a black and blue right cheek bone, a very sore shoulder, an expert rifleman qualification and extra swagger on the grinder. I had been positive before but the hell, yes, I can do this really kicked in at the range. I am sure that todays new Marines in training have the same feelings we had then and will shake their heads at training regimen down the road. I am a lot more concerned that we seem to have developed the art of getting a whole slew of good young men and women killed to no good end. It is not the troops, they are as good as ever. It is gutless weasel politicians who waste those brave men and women and an electorate chock full of useful idiots who vote those weasels into office over and over.

this is sad to hear but it doesn't surprise me.

when my Dad went to the island in 75 he was a top shot, so much so the senior DI got him to qualify for some of the other recruits who couldn't do it.

some folks just can't shoot worth a sh#t no matter how much training you give them.

I'd heard a few years ago from a jarhead who told me they weren't being trained on irons anymore.

Part of the Corps tradition has died.