Photo By Cpl. Joshua Barker | U.S. Marines participate in a graduation ceremony for Advanced Precision Marksmanship...... read more read more
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MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. – Weapons Training Battalion – Quantico finished its first Advanced Precision Marksmanship course on May 9, marking a key milestone in the Marine Corps’ ongoing effort to modernize marksmanship and increase squad-level lethality.
Over six weeks, the course trained and certified 23 Advanced Precision Marksmen, Marines now prepared to lead, instruct, and sustain organic precision fire capabilities within infantry battalions. These graduates will return to their units as subject matter experts on the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System, equipped to increase precision fire capacity by up to 400 percent across the force.
“This is the Commandant’s vision. This is Lt. Gen. Watson’s vision,” said Col. Scott Cuomo, commanding officer of Weapons Training Battalion. “Your units selected highly competent Marines to attend this course. When you return, you’ll be the subject matter experts on the individual weapons you trained with here, ready to teach other Marines with the same professionalism and passion your instructors demonstrated.”
The APM course, designed to be scalable and instructor-led, directly addresses capability and capacity gaps identified during years of analysis and experimentation, including the Infantry Battalion 2030 Experiment and a 2018 directive by the Secretary of Defense to increase close-combat lethality.
PMs are embedded directly within infantry squads and platoons, where they deliver rapid, precision fires in dynamic combat environments at ranges up to 600 meters. Trained to support maneuver elements during both offensive and defensive operations, PMs are employed against hasty and prepared enemy defensive positions, utilizing precision fire to deny the enemy the ability to disrupt friendly forces’ maneuverability while also fixing the enemy in place for larger assets to engage, giving friendly forces a critical temporal advantage in the fight.
“We’re giving the capability of precision fire to the squad level, and that’s going to fundamentally change how we operate,” said Sgt. Trevor Hancock, an instructor with the Precision Marksmanship Course. “Instead of relying on a single platoon for that expertise, we’re equipping Marines across the battalion with the knowledge and tools to apply precision fires. As more squads adopt this capability, we’re going to see a noticeable increase in marksmanship and lethality across the infantry force.”
The course integrates the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System, MK-22 Advanced Sniper Rifle and uses tools like the Joint Marksmanship Assessment Package to validate training. Key performance indicators such as hit probability and time-to-lethal-shot now shape curriculum refinement, aligning training with operational outcomes.
APM is fully embedded in the Marine Corps’ Training and Readiness standards from the squad through battalion level and supports the shift toward distributed operations, where small units must deliver disproportionate combat power.
WTBn Quantico is scheduled to conduct two additional APM Courses in Fiscal Year 2025, training up to 72 more PMs. Five more courses are planned for FY26, yielding 120 PMs annually. Seats are prioritized based on unit deployment timelines. Mobile Training Teams will support units unable to send Marines to in-residence courses, ensuring every infantry battalion has access to trained precision fire instructors before critical pre-deployment training windows.
This graduation marks a new chapter in the Marine Corps’ lethality evolution, one built on rigorously trained marksmen, scalable instructor programs, and a data-informed approach to combat readiness.
| Date Taken: | 05.20.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 05.28.2025 12:58 |
| Story ID: | 498839 |
| Location: | MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 47 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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