Raymond Miller

Raymond Miller is the former Small Arms Master Gunner of the 82nd Airborne Division. He is leveraging his operational experience training soldiers in Weapons Mastery to address Human Systems Integration issues for the United States Army.

“But that’s the only chance we get to shoot? Why are you taking it from us?”: Humility is the New Expertise

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Note: This reflects the views of the writer and he encourages readers to go through the article, read the whole thing, and think of it from the writer’s perspective, rather than their own point of view. However he is fully prepared to defend his statements against the masses of naysayers as seen below: In 2017, … Read more

Systems Thinking Applied to the Shot Process

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In our previous discussion, we were talking about applying systems-thinking to the ‘fundamentals of marksmanship’ in an attempt to illustrate why the fundamentals are not as effective as the shot process. We showed how the Army had been applying detail complexity to what was a dynamically complex system; the individual firing their weapon. Now we … Read more

Systems Thinking and the Shot Process: Why the ‘Fundamentals’ Don’t Work

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Recently, I’ve been exposed to Peter Senge’s ‘The Fifth Discipline; the Art of the Learning Organization. Senge (2013) asserted that there are two types of complexity: dynamic and detail (p.71). Before 2015, the United States Army had been using detail complexity to help explain what is a dynamically complex task: Firing a weapon in combat. Headquarters, Department of … Read more

“But it’s on the Internet! It Must Be True: Why Most ‘Ballistic Test’ Videos Fail to Accurately Show Body Armor Performance

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We will now continue our discussion on Body Armor from an earlier article. Specifically, we addressed some common terms that are used in ballistic testing of body armor: V0, V50, and Back Face Signature (BFS for short). The purpose behind this was to inform our discussion for this week’s topic: Why body armor test protocols have been established, and why … Read more

How do we Defeat a Threat Projectile With Body Armor? Science of Course!

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Last week, we discussed that if we need to purchase armor, we need to start with the ‘why’ behind that armor’s need. This week, we are going to continue that discussion by addressing how armor defeats a threat, how it is classified by the National Institute of Justice, and what it does and does not do … Read more

‘Violence of Mind’ at the Macro Scale

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I’ve been reading Varg Freeborn’s excellent Book ‘Violence of Mind’ recently. And have enjoyed this thought-provoking text. The author does not pull punches, he tells it like it is. And in so doing, he has created a book illustrating how to notice, avoid, and prepare for situations involving extreme violence. One of the prime tennants … Read more

Cognitive Load: How Does This Affect our Shot Process?

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    “An intuitive user interface for a word-processing program will not, for example, make anyone a better writer… The phrase “make it intuitive” is a simplistic and potentially misleading “folk solution” to a more complex problem—a silver bullet approach to dodging the hard work associated with the introduction of new systems.” -Excerpt from ‘The … Read more

Training Tuesday: ‘Focusing on the Basics Until you are a Master:’ Dry-Fire

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“We don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan” -Denzel Washington For Training Tuesday, we will be reinforcing that we must incorporate dry-fire into our training plan. Leaders in the Army need to realize we have to make weapons mastery a priority in ALL units in the United States Army. This is important for 3 … Read more