Why the Marines have failed to adopt a new sniper rifle in the past 14 years

bbrown said:

Nah, Carlos' shot was a one shot, one kill. Can't say that about the Warthog, as much as I like the airplane.

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Then a lot of the snipers would lose their longest kills since it took multiple shots to get on target. Not that matters to me either way, just having some fun.

Besides the Army has 1st and 2nd safely locked up under the one button press 90,000 kills.

ericoak said:

Maybe the Marines don't need a gun that shoots as far as the Army because they don't shoot as accurate as the Army?

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You got that backwards, besides the Army needs a Medal for just showing up...or the promise of libo...

You can only use what they give you or what you can aquire...

Whats the Rifle Range distance for the Army 300 yards/Meters...oh and the Army doesn't re-qualify on a "regular" basis...

Marine Corps 500 yards...every year until your an E7...then you can go whenever you like for Rifle and Pistol is still manditory for SNCO...

TheGunnyRet said:

You got that backwards, besides the Army needs a Medal for just showing up...or the promise of libo...

You can only use what they give you or what you can aquire...

Whats the Rifle Range distance for the Army 300 yards/Meters...oh and the Army doesn't re-qualify on a "regular" basis...

Marine Corps 500 yards...every year until your an E7...then you can go whenever you like for Rifle and Pistol is still manditory for SNCO...

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Marine Corps re-qualifies at 500 yards every year, every Marine...

Regardless of MOS, every Marine's Primary Job is to be a Rifleman...

And every Marine strives to be an Expert Rifleman...

Here is the gun writer David Petzal's response to that article.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/the-gun-nuts/rot-and-evil-at-the-washington-post

BTW if you don't read Petzal currently, you should really start. Great writer and knows his stuff.

TheGunnyRet said:

You got that backwards, besides the Army needs a Medal for just showing up...or the promise of libo...

You can only use what they give you or what you can aquire...

Whats the Rifle Range distance for the Army 300 yards/Meters...oh and the Army doesn't re-qualify on a "regular" basis...

Marine Corps 500 yards...every year until your an E7...then you can go whenever you like for Rifle and Pistol is still manditory for SNCO...

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I thought we were talking about snipers?

ericoak said:

Maybe the Marines don't need a gun that shoots as far as the Army because they don't shoot as accurate as the Army?

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I thought the marines didn't need to shoot so far because they tend to end up alot closer to the enemy when it's time to shoot.....

As an army combat vet and having spent time at parris island in JROTC in high school. I feel that that army never cared how accurate you were. I was a combat engineer and although not an infantryman we still had to be right next to them. Having said that we spent so little time at the rifle range and all of our time in the motor pool. I can't speak for 11Bs of the same time period as me. My time at "mini boot camp" in high school I shot the M16A2 before I had one in the army 3years later. We spent a whole day at the range. We shot from all kinds of different positions than the army basic course.

kstone803 said:

Here is the gun writer David Petzal's response to that article.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/the-gun-nuts/rot-and-evil-at-the-washington-post

BTW if you don't read Petzal currently, you should really start. Great writer and knows his stuff.

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Thanks for that

kstone803 said:

Here is the gun writer David Petzal's response to that article.

http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/the-gun-nuts/rot-and-evil-at-the-washington-post

BTW if you don't read Petzal currently, you should really start. Great writer and knows his stuff.

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I agree with the general premise but he went way overboard.

“The Marine Corps is known for fielding older equipment. In the 1991 Gulf War, when the Army was driving (Just driving? Or did they get to shoot the guns, too?) the brand-new M1A1 Abrams battle tanks, the Marines crossed into Kuwait with the aging Pattons...

The army drives tanks, the air force flies planes, the navy sails ships. Yes they do more, but that is inferred.

The Marines used to snrokle their tanks. They didn't have a way to get m1a1's on shore.

The Marines do have the Barrett!

Racer Doug14 said:

The Marines used to snrokle their tanks. They didn't have a way to get m1a1's on shore.

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LCACs...

Marine Corps has MPS ( Maritime Pre-Positioned Shipping), 1st Gulf War the Army was caught holding their UKW while the Marines were Ready to go from the MPF offload...BTDT...

Actually the army was loading us, 24th ID(rapid deployment forced),on merchant ships on the first day. And our vehicles where already painted sand colors. Our theatre over deployment was the middle east. We had just came back from Egypt a few months before. The Marines were the speed bump before Big Army got there truthfully the Marines didn't want the Abrams in the beginning..too costly.

Racer Doug14 said:

Actually the army was loading us, 24th ID(rapid deployment forced),on merchant ships on the first day. And our vehicles where already painted sand colors. Our theatre over deployment was the middle east. We had just came back from Egypt a few months before. The Marines were the speed bump before Big Army got there truthfully the Marines didn't want the Abrams in the beginning..too costly.

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Somebody has to get there fast and hold the barbarians back so that you Army guys have enough time and room to get all of your heavy and slow equipment from CONUS into the fight. You are welcome!

All love brother! ^ I spent many months in the middle of no where. Only 4 units can say they were in the gulf war the whole time. 101st, 82nd,24th and the Marines. Not in that order, but my time was like 8 months.

Personally. I love the 308. My favorite rifle round.

bigdv said:

Personally. I love the 308. My favorite rifle round.

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Same here, seems to be the forgotton round when it comes to this 2A stuff...

MC didn't like the M1A1 range issues/fuel usage...the doctine dictates to be able to go inland and last for 30 days with what we bring...MAGTF...don't get me wrong you Beret Boys are ok...

The Military Acquisition System is SLOW unless senior commanders are interested

The reason that the Marines don't have a .300 WM or .338 Lapua sniper rifle is because the military acquisition system is slow (and there are some good reasons for this), unless an urgent needs statement is provided to the system by senior level commanders. The Marine snipers apparently haven't made a compelling argument to the senior levels of command that would cause a more powerful sniper rifle to be fielded. I don't believe that sniper course qualified officers are common in any service, so perhaps it isn't surprising that this would be a difficult case Marine snipers to make.

Also, there are about 4-5 times as many soldiers as there are Marines, so the Army has a larger budget and more money to spend on things like new sniper rifles or conversions. Also, the Army Acquisition system had the forethought, which doesn't always happen as much as one would like, to order their Remington 700's with long actions, which facilitated the change to a larger round. The Marines have short actions so the common larger sniper rounds will not fit. Also, the fact that Marine sniper rifles are made by Marines is apparently important to the Corps. The Army doesn't have this requirement or interest, and can call on industry for things like conversion to a more powerful caliber. So the rate at which the conversions are done isn't limited to the capabilities of an existing, in-house shop.

The best solution for the Marine snipers is to get the command involved and to get an urgent needs statement validated. A second solution might involve getting a Marine sniper association (I'm assuming this exists) involved with industry directly. This may facilitate a solution that can be cost-effective that can be shown to the command that would get the wheels of change turning. I'm aware that the Quantico Precision Weapons guys used to be in the business of making 1911 pistols for MARSOC, but ultimately they could not provide enough pistols. So I believe the current solution is that new pistols are sourced from industry. So, it seems that out-sourcing is possible.

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When it comes Marines qualifying at 500 yards, I happen to know that the target that is used is a lot larger than the standard Army "Ivan" pop-up target. When soldiers qualify they shoot at "Ivan" out to 300m, granted a different target is used for 25m. The target exposures and transitions between targets are also timed more stringently than on the Marine course. I don't mean to imply that firing at 500 yards is a bad thing, but it doesn't necessarily in itself produce a better practical marksman than other methods. Also, it is not the case that the Army never uses paper targets on know-distance ranges. This does occur, it just isn't a part of the standard rifle qualification course. A best-case scenario would involve both firing at extended ranges and pop up targets, but each service has its own methods and requirements for qualification.

If we're going to compare service weapon qualification solely on the basis of range, the most impressive qualification I've heard of was a Navy qualification. A friend described a Navy weapons qualification to me once that went like this. The sailor was brought out on deck and provided a .45 and rounds for same. The target was the horizon and a successful score was achieved by all rounds hitting the ocean. So, with a point of aim of the horizon, the target hits were certainly farther than 100m, with a pistol! The sailor in question hit the target 100% of the time. Certainly the target was larger, but if we're just considering range those are impressive hits!

ericoak said:

Maybe the Marines don't need a gun that shoots as far as the Army because they don't shoot as accurate as the Army?

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More like the Army guys don't want to get too close to the bad guys or they might get hurt.

Drmsparks said:

I thought the marines didn't need to shoot so far because they tend to end up alot closer to the enemy when it's time to shoot.....

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There are soldiers and there are warriors and they aren't the same thing.