The Far Ambush

American Mercenary
VERBATIM POST

Rifle Marksmanship is the basis for fire and maneuver. You can't maneuver freely unless the enemy is pinned down. Secondly, if you are doing fire and maneuver correctly the enemy is dead by the time you get to where the enemy is. John Mosby is a big fan of closing with and destroying the enemy, that is the role of the Infantry and how you decisively win an engagement. Lets take a few lessons from their tactical toolbox.

First lesson in "fire and maneuver" is that fire is the harder part. Anyone can run towards the enemy, not everyone can lay down a good effective base of fire.

I'm a fan of long range marksmanship because is builds the skills necessary for setting up a good base of fire. A lot of people think that you need "volume of fire" to be effective at suppressing the enemy. Ask anyone who was part of a fire team pinned down in an urban area for a while if that sniper put down a volume of fire, or just put accurate fire to keep them pinned in place. Suppression is defined by the effect it has on the enemy, not the volume of fire going out.

Nothing in the tactical toolbox is a silver bullet. Not extreme range rifle marksmanship, not explosives and demolitions, not indirect fire, not fire support, not civil engagement, not propaganda. Everything you do needs to be put into the context of an effective whole. Any single tool in the tool box will be rapidly countered by the enemy. You need a mix of tools so they can't easily predict your next move.

I stress marksmanship over CQB not because CQB is worthless, but because in terms of value added training it is worth less than long range marksmanship. In my experience taking a skilled rifleman and training on CQB will waste less rounds than taking a lesser skilled person and training them on CQB. It is a lot easier to teach someone "ready up" drills on a short range during active conflict than train them in long range marksmanship with facilities that are no longer exist for your side.

If you get caught in a long range ambush you need to be able to accurately return fire and assault through (or break contact from) the ambushing force. If you get a chance to conduct a far ambush accurate rifle fire is the best augmentation for a machine gun that you can get without having an IDF asset of your own. Train to shoot to the maximum effective range of your weapon system first, worry about CQB later.