VIDEO Soldiers from Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) Brigade (BDE); 317th Brigade Engineer Battalion (317th BEB); 3rd Brigade Combat Team (3rd BCT), 10th Mountain Division, hit the range to qualify for the M4 using the new Army standard, which more closely simulates a contact scenario.

Soldiers take a shot at Army’s new marksmanship qualification

By SGT Dustin D. Biven

Soldiers assigned to Headquarters Support Company, 100th Brigade Support Battalion, 75th Field Artillery Brigade, Fort Sill, Okla., conducted the Army’s new M16 rifle and M4 carbine qualification on Fort Sill, Jan. 23, 2020.

The new course has been designed to replace the Cold War-era marksmanship qualification course requiring Soldiers to engage targets faster, in a variety of firing positions they may be required to take during an enemy engagement.

“The goal of implementing a new marksmanship standard is to increase weapons proficiency in real terms; translating to combat lethality,” said 2nd Lt. Luke L. Hamann, field feeding platoon leader assigned to Headquarters Support Company. “The legacy qualification proved to be satisfactory at the tactical level in the Global War on Terrorism. However, the aim of the new qualification tables is to elicit stress, and to force the Soldier to utilize processes such as firing position transitions and magazine changes to more closely simulate combat.”

The new qualification is comprised of four stages: Day fire. Day fire with Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) equipment, Assisted night fire and Assisted night fire with CBRN equipment.

The new marksmanship qualification still requires Soldiers to engage with 40 individual targets at varying distances.

Soldiers begin the qualification in a standing position, once the Soldier engages with the first target, the Soldier is required to fire, change their position and engage with additional targets in a timely manner.

“There was an opportunity to create a fundamental change in regards to marksmanship that more closely aligns with what was done and learned over the past 10 years of combat, making it to where it fits the entire Army as a collective and makes a more proficient marksman,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Robert K. Fortenberry, head of the Infantry School’s marksmanship revamp project during an interview with Army Times. 

“You’re employing your weapon system in a more tactical environment or scenario, versus the more traditional way of doing it. And by doing so, it creates additional rigor, using all of the elements of critical thinking, sound judgment, adapting to change, all of those non-tangible attributes … The clock doesn’t stop. So, you have to know – Boom! Got that exposure. Okay. I should be transitioning to the kneeling position now. Transition. There it is! – Boom! And then you’re engaging as you go.”

Soldiers can earn three different proficiencies in marksmanship: Marksman, which requires a Soldier to shoot 23 out of 40 targets. Sharpshooter, which requires a Soldier to shoot 30 out of 40 targets. Expert, which requires Soldiers to shoot 36 or more out of the 40 available targets.

“The advice that we give to Soldiers when there are multiple targets is to shoot the closest target first,” said Hamann. “If that Soldier misses the close target, they reach a decision point – shoot another round at the close target, and being short ammo to have an attempt at every target; or to skip it and attempt to hit each target. In that sense, it’s not much different than the legacy qualification. I believe that the Army implemented multiple targets to elicit the critical thinking required while shooting.”

All of the information about the new course of fire can be found in the new manual, TC 3-20.40 “Training and Qualification Individual Weapons.”

Soldiers take a shot at Army’s new marksmanship qualification

By SGT Dustin D. Biven

In October 2017, the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team, or CFT, began work to narrow the capability gaps that affect Soldiers — particularly the 100,000 close-combat Soldiers who close with, engage and destroy the enemy.

This is a critical task, as civilian and military leaders alike recognize that the Army is losing the near-peer advantage by being out-ranged, out-gunned and increasingly outdated. Potential adversaries and even private industry have been fielding new capabilities much faster than the Army.

The team has had some early success with the implementation of the Infantry One-Station Unit Training transformation and the requirement approval for the Enhanced Night Vision Goggle-Binocular, or ENVG-B, device. In particular, the ENVG-B requirement was written and approved in 30 days. The average time it takes the Army to approve requirements is two to three years.

The Soldier Lethality CFT is doing exactly what was intended at the outset: to have warfighters and developers work together to prepare capability documents that enable the rapid delivery of capabilities to the warfighter, and to inform a potential program of record.

The ongoing efforts of the Soldier Lethality CFT will be the focus of a Warriors Corner presentation on Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 3:20-4:00 p.m. Eastern time, as part of the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

“The Army’s fundamental responsibility is to equip, train and field Soldiers with the tools and resources to engage and destroy the enemy,” said Brig. Gen. David Hodne, Soldier Lethality CFT director. “Soldiers must have capabilities that increase lethality, mobility, situational awareness and protection while countering threats. New systems will be designed to employ emerging technologies to ensure our Soldiers have a decisive advantage over potential adversaries.

“Our CFT has been given the task to develop requirements informed by experimentation and technical demonstrations — through teaming, agility and rapid Soldier feedback,” Hodne explained. “This enables informed decision-making by Army leadership for potential programs of record in order to regain our overmatch over near-peer competitors. We have all the right people in the organization; from warfighters, program management, finance, testing, science and technology and others. That was the original intent for the creation of the CFTs.”

Currently, the Lethality team is working on three lines of effort: the ENVG-B, the Next Generation Squad Weapons, and the Adaptive Soldier Architecture. Of the three, the ENVG-B program is closest to fielding, with devices expected to be in the hands of Soldiers in 2019.

“The ENVG-B was developed based on an urgent operational requirement from U.S. Army Forces Command,” said Col. Chris Schneider, project manager for Soldiers Sensors and Lasers. “They were seeking a capability that provided both night vision and thermal sensing capability with stereoscopic binocular depth perception to increase mobility and improve visual confidence in varying lighting present on the modern battlefield during day and night operations. It also had to give Soldiers increased mobility and situational awareness through a heads up display of friendly and enemy locations.”

The ENVG-B is a digital system that allows for significant capability growth and the ability to network sensors and other situational awareness systems such as NETT Warrior, Small Arms Fire Control, range finding systems, and any information transmitted across the tactical network.

“The ENVG-B utilizes the same wireless technology to communicate with the Nett Warrior system and is designed for full compatibility with future synthetic training systems to facilitate Soldiers training and fighting with the same equipment,” said Col. Travis Thompson, Soldier Lethality CFT chief of staff. 

To meet future warfighter needs, the CFT has made significant progress in the development of the Next Generation Squad Weapons. The first of these weapons will be the Next Generation Squad Automatic Rifle, or NG-SAR. The NG-SAR is the planned replacement for the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon for the 100,000 Soldiers of the close-combat force.

To meet future warfighter needs, the CFT has made significant progress in the development of the Next Generation Squad Weapons, or NGSW. The first of these weapons will be the Next Generation Squad Weapon – Automatic Rifle, or NGSW-AR, which will be followed by the Next Generation Squad Weapon – Rifle, or NGSW-R. The NGSW-AR will replace the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon, or SAW, in the Automatic Rifleman Role, and the NGSW-R will replace the M4/M41 Carbine in Brigade Combat Teams.  

“The NGSW-AR is the first in a series of capabilities to modernize the weapons of the dismounted maneuver force,” explained Col. Elliott Caggins, project manager, Soldier Weapons. “NGSW capitalizes on advancing technologies to provide increased performance at range, integrated Squad Fire Control (S-FC) systems, improved ergonomics of the weapon, lightweight case technologies, signature suppression capabilities and Intelligent and powered rail designs through systems integration.”

The goal of NGSW is to improve lethality, mobility and situational awareness of the dismounted infantryman, scout and engineer to overcome our nation’s adversaries and win on the battlefield.  

“By incorporating frequent Soldier touchpoints in the development and acquisition strategy of the system, the Army is ensuring the Soldier, weapon, ammunition and fire control combined-system function as needed and are optimized,” Caggins finished.

The most complex effort ongoing for the CFT is the work being done with the Adaptive Soldier Architecture, or ASA. 

The architecture is a concept of treating the Soldier as a system much like a tank or an aircraft. It ensures that systems are integrated with the Soldier rather than added to the Soldier.

“With this new architecture, we want to provide adaptive and responsive leap-ahead capability to our Soldiers that results in an innovative, collaborative, and cross-functional culture to drives advanced capabilities into the squad to support current and future priorities,” explained Thompson. 

The ASA establishes power, data, connection and transfer standards to the Soldier and their equipment, treating the Soldier the same as an integrated combat platform.

“What’s vitally important about the architecture is that it facilitates technology insertion and Soldier integration through enhanced communication with industry that will enable the advanced capability that our Soldiers require to defeat our current and future threats, and facilitate future technology growth and capability integration across the Soldier and squad,” Thompson added.