“for the 20-year-old six or eight months out of OSUT at Ft Benning or Polk, not so much.”
I was 22 and not far out of AIT when I got mine.
It’s a poor workman who blames his tools. Just saying.
Best,
L
So true. Nevertheless, Michelangelo did his best work with a fine sable brush, not an airless paint sprayer. Just sayin'!
There are good, qualified E2 and E3 snipers, usually with previous shooting experience, working effectively at 20 or 21-years of age. I too was sometimes working with a scoped boltgun at 21, picked because of my experience as a tank gunner familiar with a 10x telescopic sight and night vision equipment and having shot in the National Matches at Camp Perry and the LeClerc matches in Europe; my coming-out party announcement was made through the sights of a PVS-1 atop an M14 in early 1968. But I had been in almost two years by then, had made E-4 and still had two years to go. Back then almost everyone had gone through basic with the M14 and most of could shoot effectively out to at least 300 meters, usually 450. That is no longer the case and may not be necessary; my old logbook shows one of my long-range hits made at the scoped rifle bragging distance of eighteen feet. But you live longer if you work from longer out. And so do guys with a couple of years in, instead of a few months.