Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization distinguishes between two kinds of complexity: detail complexity and dynamic complexity (Senge, 2013, p. 71). Before 2015, the United States Army largely used detail complexity to explain a dynamically complex task: firing a weapon in combat.
A Linear Model of Marksmanship
Headquarters, Department of the Army (2011) identified four “fundamentals of marksmanship”: steady position, aiming, breath control, and trigger squeeze (p. 4-16). Those four fundamentals appeared within a 418-page manual—an example of detail complexity applied to the act of firing.
FM 3-22.9 presents the material in a largely linear format. That structure can encourage a soldier to perceive the “integrated act of firing” as a process with a defined beginning, middle, and end: establish a steady position, aim, control breathing, and apply a proper trigger squeeze. The manual then moves into other details, including dominant-eye training (p. 4-23), which can imply that the firing sequence itself is complete.
What the Fundamentals Leave Outside the Model
The issue is not that stability, aiming, breath control, or trigger control are unimportant. The problem is treating that list as a complete model of combat shooting. The task is not performed in isolation; it exists within a changing system that includes the shooter, weapon, environment, threats, movement, observation, and feedback.
As the causal-loop diagram below illustrates, strict reliance on the fundamentals described in FM 3-22.9 creates two reinforcing loops and one balancing loop. The model introduces delays when the fundamentals are applied to combat shooting as a whole rather than to the isolated act of firing.
The traditional fundamentals do not directly address multiple threats, movement, weapon malfunctions, or the need to determine whether a shot produced the intended result. Leaving those interactions outside the model makes it harder for the soldier to assess and respond efficiently.
The Shot Process as a Feedback Loop
In contrast, the shot-process model connects pre-shot, shot, and post-shot actions. Movement, stability, aim, and control form a reinforcing loop around the pre-shot phase. The shot leads into a post-shot assessment, and that assessment feeds back into what the shooter does next.
A missed target, multiple targets, or a weapon malfunction changes the post-shot problem. The shooter must process that feedback and return to the appropriate part of the cycle rather than assume the task ended when the trigger was pressed.
The Practical Difference
A systems view does not discard the fundamentals. It places them inside the larger, continuously changing process in which they must function. Training the isolated mechanics remains necessary, but performance depends on connecting those mechanics to observation, decisions, movement, follow-through, and the next required action.
References
- Headquarters, Department of the Army. (2011). FM 3-22.9: Rifle Marksmanship, M16-/M4-Series Weapons.
- Senge, Peter M. (2013). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.
The fundamentals do work. They only don’t work if you are not proficient and only consciously competent or worse consciously incompetent. If you are unconsciously compentent with your firearm those fundamental precesses happen quickly and deliberately to perform under those conditions. The amount of training invested in infantry units are not adequate to get those soldiers to that level.