Two soldiers competing in the international sniper championship at Fort Chaffee on Thursday barreled up the stairs of a three-story structure, rested a sniper rifle on a wooden plank and took aim at their targets, which were 330 yards to 875 yards away.
After Staff Sgt. Jim Andres missed two shots in a row, his spotter, Sgt. Michael Carrasco, told him he was "way out" from the target.
"I got it," said Andres, laughing.
"Well, get a hit instead of guessing," Carrasco replied.
Andres hit the last two targets, and the team moved to the third floor, where it shot from an even longer range. Overall, the team did "pretty well," Andres said.
Carrasco and Andres, both in the Colorado National Guard, made up one of the 23 two-person teams competing in the 44th Winston P. Wilson Sniper Championship. The week-long competition simulated combat situations and tested the teams' marksmanship and other abilities necessary in combat.
"Each match we do is focusing on different scenarios or things you may see in a combat situation," said Sgt. 1st Class Randy Schnell, one of the competition's instructors. "No things in combat are the same."
On Tuesday, instructors simulated an attack on the teams' base camp. They had to evacuate their tents, run to battle positions and fend off the attack, Schnell said.
Competitors were done shooting by 2 a.m. and forced to wake up at 5 a.m. for the next event.
They were dropped off about a mile away from a mock base camp Wednesday and had to go undetected while attacking it. Andres called that part of the competition the "most emotional day out here."
"It's a day of no sleep," Andres said. "It's going to induce more stress on your body."
By the time the participants piled off a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter Thursday afternoon for a 10-minute match that required them to shoot at short-, medium- and long-range targets, most of the participants were running on only a few hours of sleep over the past three days.
"Real snipers out there can operate in all conditions, so these guys will, too," said Capt. Denise Douglas, public affairs officer for the National Guard Marksmanship Training Center.
The National Guard Marksmanship Training Center organized the week's competitions. The training center is based at Camp Joseph T. Robinson in North Little Rock, but matches were held at Fort Chaffee, which is also a National Guard base, because it's more than double the size of Camp Robinson. Fort Chaffee's 65,000 acres are enough space to fire long range.
The championship will end today with an awards ceremony. Although getting the top score is a goal, the training opportunity is the main reason most teams attend.
"It tests your skills," Carrasco said. "Shooting is a perishable skill, so coming out here once a year, it gives you an opportunity do something you wouldn't normally do at your units."
The mix of National Guard and active-duty teams, as well as teams from different countries, provides an atmosphere in which participants can learn from each other, said Sgt. 1st Class Jon Plummer, another instructor.
Teams from Canada, Denmark and Germany participated in the matches along with troops from the National Guard and active-duty Army and Marines. More than a dozen states, from Hawaii to Iowa to New York, were represented.
"It's good training," Schnell said. "They get to run through a lot of different exercises here that maybe they don't have the resources or the time to set up and do themselves at their home units.
"They're picking up some of that stuff from us, and we're also picking up things they do that maybe can help us."
Another international competition, called the Armed Forces Skill at Arms Meeting, will be held at Camp Robinson next week. It tests combat skills and includes shorter-range matches.
Douglas, of the Marksmanship Training Center, said 85 to 100 teams will compete in next week's events. Participants are coming from 45 states and territories, and there will be an estimated eight teams from foreign nations.
Metro on 04/24/2015