Philip Culmer wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:54 pm
I might be mistaken, but my understanding is that all of the approved games are tactical or strategic gameplay based - pistol for land and rifle for space (or possibly the other way round).
So if members gather for a game night, they
HAVE to play some sort of non-skill game that really has nothing to do with marksmanship physical skills in order to earn a marksmanship award? Somehow, I just can't see the sense of that. It's like saying you can earn a wounded stripe by
reading about giving blood or being injured.
If individual FPS types were permitted, I suspect JJ could get a medal for all the HALO he plays. Having said that, there is a HALO themed tactical sim called HALO Wars, but I don't think that's on the board yet.
Not sure about JJ, but I hold a qualified Sharpshooter rating IRL with an M-14, an M-2 Carbine, and an M-1912 .45 semi-automatic pistol. It seems slightly silly that a person who holds those certifications can wear them on his(her) real-life uniform, but can not get credit for them in tRMN.
That's a diversion from your question, though. My understanding is that the marksmanship awards are for social play of tactical games rather than actual marksmanship. (Very explicitly NOT for actual, and pretty sure not for virtual).
Using my own Savage .32 cal semi-automatic at a commercial indoor pistol range, I can plug 10 of 10 shots in a 2" diameter bullseye at 25 feet using point-shoot. But I can't send in an image of such a target (or set of targets) dated and signed by the range operator to get credit for my capability? Shucks, even the NRA is not that ridiculous.
Why can't a group of us go to a RL range and shoot in friendly target competition? That's just as much of a "get-together" as any board game night, and might really interest a lot of our members. In addition, we could be passing skills and safety considerations on to others who never even have picked up a firearm, much less shot one.
Or why not at least allow us to get together for a game night and use individual electronic devices to play a specified target game in friendly scoring competition? The senior person attending could act as the Range Officer and send in image shots of the screen of the winner's score as a qualification for certification. For that matter, (s)he could send in image shots of the score for
any player who desires to use their current score for award qualification.
(sigh) Sad.