Basic and advanced marksmanship has long been a part of the U.S. Navy going back to colonial times. Up until WWII, each ship carried enough spare crew (largely due to having to have big crews due to inefficient coal-fired steam boilers and labor intensive sails) to land a decent shore party of company to battalion size. This was commonly done when needed and reached its zenith in 1914 when the Navy landed a huge force of bluejackets in Mexico,where they engaged in a few rather sharp land-actions.
U.S. Navy and Marine marksmanship team aboard the old battleship USS Florida 1900s.
As such, sailors had to be proficient in small arms marksmanship and competitions and shooting events were staged at the squadron and fleet level in which each ship would send a team to compete. This led in 1907 to the formation of the Navy Marksmanship Team (USNST)
Today the Navy still needs well-trained trigger pullers to serve in Naval Special Warfare units, ship’s VBSS teams, riverine forces and base defense units. However, marksmanship training and competition is not funded these days by NAVSEA.
Once upon a time, a NAVSEA truck would show up at fleet matches loaded with 80 pistols and rifles and all the ammo they needed, but no longer…The Navy’s best marksmen foot the bill — amounting to thousands of dollars a year — for the lodging, transportation, fees, guns and ammo needed to represent the service at top competitions. And the cuts are making it hard to keep going, let alone recruit the next generation’s sharpshooters.
This while the US Army Marksmanship Training Unit travels the county and shows up at hundreds of events per year, fielding Olympic quality shooters.
Would it really cost that much to support two dozen Navy marksmen? Yes, DoD budgets are never what the brass really want, but not funding a program that can only lead to increased interest in both the shooting sports and the military seems foolhardy.
