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LMTS Supporting Defense Initiatives
Steve Baines
With the U.S. fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan and a significant increase in live-fire training at home, a considerable shortage in small arms ammunition has occurred.
"Dan Murphy, chief executive at bullet supplier Alliant Techsystems Inc., said the company's Army ammunition plant in Missouri has gone through its fastest increase in production since the Vietnam War. It has hired 1,000 workers in the past three years, and some production lines are running around the clock," wrote Joshua Freed in an Associated Press article on June 07, 2004 entitled "Producers Struggle To Keep U.S. Soldiers in Iraq Supplied." The U.S. Army has also hired additional contractors to address these shortages, including the Winchester Division of the Olin Corporation and Israel Military Industries LTD. Other contractors are being sought out to meet the increasing small arms ammunition demand.
Demand for small arms ammunition has more then quadrupled since the year 2000 and is expected to increase even further for 2005 and 2006. "Maj. General Tallman, an Army spokesman, said the armed services needed 300 million to 500 million rounds this year alone, beyond the 1.2 billion already being produced, to provide enough for a military whose active-duty force had increased because of the two wars," wrote Brian Wingfield in the May 29, 2004 New York Times article "With 2 Wars, U.S. Need of Munitions Is Soaring."
While combat demand for small arms ammunition is being met, demand for at-home training ammunition is on the increase, as the focus of combat training centers on effectively replicating real-world situations and on making every soldier a "rifleman first". William Matthews and Megan Scully in their June 7, 2004 "Army Times" article "Ammo Makers on Overdrive" quote Gen. Paul Kern, the Army's chief logistician as saying, "The military is using more and more bullets in training-more than in combat. One reason is because supply and transportation units are getting more live-fire training since they're become targets in Iraq. The attack last year on the Army's 507th Maintenance Company, which killed nine soldiers and led to the capture of Pfc. Jessica Lynch, was one of the reasons for extra training for support units."
Users of MPRI's Laser Marksmanship Training Systems (LMTS) understand the need to reduce ammunition use and still provide quality training to the U.S. military. "What we learned from the 507th Battalion's experience in Iraq is that we need to overcome our weaknesses in marksmanship and maintenance. LMTS is part of the steps in addressing those problems and has made a significance difference in the way we train and the success of that training," says Army SGT William R. Berger, Battalion Master Gunner in charge of marksmanship training at Fort Bliss, in El Paso, Texas. "Not only have our scores gone up significantly since we started using the LMTS, but we're also reduced our training time and our ammo use as well."
Berger says he runs soldiers through the four exercises on the LMTS before taking anyone to the live-fire range. "I'll run soldiers through the four exercises on the LMTS equipment before taking anyone to the live-fire range. They have to 'qualify' on the LMTS stuff before they go to the live-fire range. I also have them pre-zero their weapon using a LMTS calibrated laser. This really saves time and ammo, especially on the live-fire range, and I got the company commander to allow us to pre-zero all our weapons before live firing. Prior to that we had to do the standard mechanical zero drills whenever we transitioned to the live-fire range. If we had range saturation, it would often take us three days just to obtain zero. We've knocked 39% of that time off by eliminating mechanical zeroing and using a LMTS calibrated laser."
Berger says it's on the live-fire range where the success of LMTS becomes evident. "The live-fire range tells it all. Prior to the use of the LMTS, our Battalion had a no-go rate of 35 to 40 %. Now we have an average of 14 %, and 18 % of our soldiers are now qualifying as experts, up considerably over the previous 5 %. We've also saved a significant amount of ammo."
The LMTS line of marksmanship training aids has proven to be an effective method of teaching and maintaining basic marksmanship skills that is both successful in training and economical in two most important resources: time and ammunition supplies.
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