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imgabe parent
Everyone in the military should be trained with weapons. If it comes down to it, even the guy who mops the floors is going to need to pick up a rifle if the situation is dire enough. It helps if he held one before at least.
stackedinserter
How much will you "train with weapons" in one week?
dmoy
I mean.... enough to make shots on target at about 300-400 yards with a sling, and enough to make shots on target at about 50 yards while standing up.

I do competitive bullseye rifle, and I've done some basic marksmanship coaching. That's about what I'd expect for maybe 6-12 hours of total training on a rifle for someone with zero prior experience with guns.

The basics of rifles is very, very simple. In competition world we just get overly focused on stuff that doesn't matter - our benchmark is like 10/10 shots at 400 yards in an 8" circle. For someone getting basic instructions, 5/10 shots at 400 yards in a 16" circle is probably fine, and that is an order of magnitude easier to teach.

It took me like 3 hours from zero experience to get to that, and another 300+ hours to get to competitively decent at prone (I might be good now but I'm not particularly skilled so it took me a lot of practice). And we're not going to talk about standing because in the competition world what we do is so far removed from reality that it's not worth talking about in this context lol. Someone with run&gun experience can talk about that, I don't know anything about that.

stackedinserter
Shooting from comfortable sitting position at a range != modern combat.
dmoy
Agree totally, which is why I just said "make hits at 300-400 yards", because I strongly suspect they won't cover anything beyond basic marksmanship in a total of a week.

If we're nitpicking, I'm talking about lying in the dirt in a big empty field, not sitting at a bench.

asdff
It would probably take you a week just to be competent maintaining the rifle let alone shooting it.
dmoy
Ok, it does not though. I have taught people with no experience and it takes <10 hours to get to making hits at 300-400 yards. Basic maintenance takes even less time to teach
dmoy
Anecdotally it can take more time to teach someone who has non-zero experience if that experience has bad habits attached
asdff
That isn't really what happens. The unit would just surrender. That's how it went down in WWII early in the pacific campaign. Western nations don't go down to the last man.
dragonsky67
Don't count other nations the way you do the US, and don't compare the behaviour of troops defending some piece of jungle on the other side of the planet with those defending their homes.
asdff
I mean being given the prospect of the possibility of being treated fairly as a prisoner vs committing suicide I think many would end up being a prisoner. There is no rampant idealism in Canada like say Imperial Japan that would make someone resist their own inherent pragmatism.
fatbird
In the Battle of Kapyong, Korea [0], Canadian forces refused to retreat from their position, delaying advancing Chinese forces long enough to cause them to regroup. The Canadian forces were encircled, and several times called down artillery on their own positions to clear the assaulting Chinese troops.

The fighting helped blunt the PVA Spring Offensive and the actions of the 2 PPCLI and 3 RAR at Kapyong were critical in preventing a breakthrough against the UN central front, the encirclement of US forces in Korea, which were at that point in general retreat, and ultimately, the capture of Seoul.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kapyong#Canadian_2_P...

I-M-S
The average cost of a home in Toronto is $1.2M CAD. The only home young able-bodied Canadians are defending is their landlord's.
mcny
> Western nations don't go down to the last man.

This may be true but we want any adversary to think that we will! We at least ought to be all able and willing to do so. I hope our generals and military command know better but I want them to have multiple options and I want any adversary to have to think twice before breaching our shores.

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