Twenty-one teams from across the United States and four foreign ally nations are competing in the 47th Annual Winston P. Wilson (WPW) and 27th Annual Armed Forces Skill at Arms Meet (AFSAM) Sniper Championships at the Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center, Ark. The competitions, hosted by the National Guard Marksmanship Training Center (NGMTC), last six days and run concurrently from April 21-27, 2018.
The WPW match includes 13 National Guard teams from across the country. The Guardmembers will train through competition for three awards, including precision, field craft, and overall sniper team, during the competition. The AFSAM teams, including teams from Denmark, Canada, Poland, and Italy and U.S. interservice, will compete for the same awards in a different category.
The competition is a “blind shoot,” meaning competitors do not know what each course of fire is until they show up at each match, and they do not know the scores of each of their events until the last day. There are 13 courses of fire using five weapons systems.
In addition to the marksmanship aspect of these competitions, the snipers will be expected to employ numerous other skills that are critical to a sniper’s combat mission.
