Los graduados finales del curso de francotirador explorador no recibir\u00e1n la especialidad ocupacional militar de francotirador explorador, pero “desempe\u00f1ar\u00e1n un papel vital para garantizar que los batallones de infanter\u00eda conserven capacidades de exploraci\u00f3n y punter\u00eda de precisi\u00f3n mientras se finaliza el entrenamiento y el plan de estudios necesarios para cumplir con los requisitos de la flota”.<\/p>\n
The last eight Marines graduated from the course that trains scout snipers \u2014 an elite role\u00a0the Marine Corps has scrapped<\/a>\u00a0as part of broader changes to the force.<\/p>\n Eight Marines graduated<\/a>\u00a0from the last Scout Sniper Course at the School of Infantry-East at Camp Geiger, North Carolina, on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n The graduation marks the end of a long era that stretches back as far as World War I, when the Marine Corps first used scout snipers, according to retired Master Sgt. Tim Parkhurst, CEO of the USMC Scout Sniper Association.<\/p>\n The final graduates of the scout sniper course won\u2019t receive the scout sniper military occupational specialty, but \u201cthey will play a vital role of ensuring infantry battalions retain scouting and precision marksmanship capabilities while the training and curriculum necessary to meet fleet requirements is finalized and approved,\u201d Marine Corps Training and Education Command spokesman Maj. Joshua Pena said in an email to Marine Corps Times on Wednesday.<\/p>\n In February, the Marine Corps announced it was cutting infantry battalions\u2019 scout sniper platoons and replacing them with scout platoons specifically focused on reconnaissance.<\/p>\n Previously, Marine infantry battalions had scout sniper platoons, made up of formally trained marksmen who also had reconnaissance skills, along with\u00a0Marines who received on-the-job training<\/a>.<\/p>\n The change from 18-Marine scout sniper platoons to 26-Marine scout platoons comes as the Marine Corps is restructuring the force in preparation for potential conflict with a powerful, high-tech adversary like the Chinese military. One of the service\u2019s top priorities in this overhaul, called Force Design 2030, is to\u00a0improve the Marines\u2019 reconnaissance capabilities<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shift to a Scout Platoon will allow those Marines to focus their training and evaluations on scouting, providing commanders the right tools to accomplish their mission,\u201d Marine spokesman Capt. Ryan Bruce told Marine Corps Times in February.<\/p>\n The decision kicked up controversy in the scout sniper community.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been fairly widely recognized as one of the most cost-effective, force-multiplying assets on the battlefield for many, many decades,\u201d Parkhurst said.<\/p>\n But scout snipers have been met with a lack of top-down leadership and oversight for decades, according to Parkhurst, who noted he wasn\u2019t speaking for the USMC Scout Sniper Association. If scout snipers needed to get better at the \u201cscout\u201d aspect of their job, the Marine Corps should have provided more specific guidance to them along those lines, the veteran said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere wasn\u2019t some team from Headquarters Marine Corps that went around to all the sniper platoons saying, \u2018Hey, guys, this is Force Design 2030, and this is your piece of it, and this is what it needs to look like,\u2019\u201d Parkhurst said.<\/p>\n The Marine Corps isn\u2019t getting rid of snipers altogether: The service still will train snipers through the Reconnaissance Training Center and the Marine Raider Training Center, Marine Corps Times previously reported.<\/p>\n These reconnaissance snipers will be distributed within reconnaissance battalions, rather than infantry battalions, Pena told Marine Corps Times in October.<\/p>\n And some infantrymen will be trained as precision marksmen, for infantry battalion commanders to make use of as needed, Pena told Marine Corps Times on Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Service is confident this realignment of capabilities will produce a more capable, adaptable, and lethal deployable force needed to compete and to win against a near peer adversary,\u201d Pena said.<\/p>\n Parkhurst said he believes infantry battalions have lost effectiveness by giving up scout snipers.<\/p>\n \u201cA scout is half of a scout sniper,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n