USAMU Hopper won a close National Infantry Trophy Match with a score of 1367 edging out the Marine Corps by six points.

Only six points separated the Army and Marine Corps in the hotly contested National Infantry Trophy Match, but in the end it was the Army’s score of 1367 that was victorious. USAMU Hopper, named for coach SFC Lance Hopper, consisted of team captain SFC Norman Anderson, SPC Ty Cooper, SPC Brandon Green, SSG Emil Praslick, SFC Grant Singley, SFC Jason St John and SSG Tobie Tomlinson.

The Infantry Trophy Match is often called the “rattle battle” because it involves firing a large amount of ammunition in a short period of time. The six-person teams start with 384 rounds which they distribute among the team. Teams must engage eight silhouette targets from four different distances beginning with 600 yards prone, continuing in prone they move to the 500 yard line, then move to the 300 yard line for sitting, then the 200 yard line for standing. Teams are only allowed 50 seconds on each yard line to fire as many accurate shots as possible with more points being awarded for hits scored at the farther distances. With the M16/AR15-style rifles, highly skilled Infantry Trophy shooters can fire 40 or more shots per a round scoring over 30 hits. Hits at 600 yards count four points, at 500 yards they are worth three points, 300 yards awards two points and 100 yards awards one point. In addition to the score from number of hits, teams also earn bonus points at each yard line equal to the square number of targets that have six or more hits.

Teams must plan in advance how they want to approach the Infantry Match; they are provided 384 rounds to distribute among team members. Depending on how aggressive they want to be will determine how they want to distribute ammunition.

The Army and Marine Corps have been neck-and-neck throughout both the Interservice and National Matches with the Marines winning a close Interservice Team Match and then setting a new record to win the National Trophy Team Match. The Marines were also the defending Champions in the National Infantry Trophy Match which made them favorites to repeat this year. But the Army was not about to lay their rifles down, their shooters had claimed every Individual Championship at the 2006 National Matches and they entered the National Infantry Trophy Match on a mission to win a team title as well.

Last year at Camp Perry, the Army took a big gamble with an aggressive plan that called for the team to fire all their rounds on the 600 and 500 yard lines. It backfired when they missed their zeros on the 600 line and did not have enough ammunition saved to recover finishing 18th in the Match with a 986. This year though the gamble paid off as Army hit their mark early scoring all their points on the 600 and 500 yard lines earning enough points to win the 2006 National Infantry Trophy Match.

The Australian Highpower Team was on of 14 out-of-competition teams in the National Infantry Trophy Match. The team was attending their second National Matches as a group. They had to borrow rifles to compete because strict gun bans in Australia prevent them from owning competition rifles.

New York State Rifle and Pistol Association was the High Civilian Team for the second year in a row with NYSRPA Considine scoring to a 1330 to finish third overall. The members were coach Bruce Kraft, team captain John Tusinski, Brian Fradl, Evan Jordan, Richard Meade, Robert Modica, Stanton Noon and Dave Wissemann. The top junior team was Illinois Harddogs Gold lead by coach PFC Elliot Farro USA and team captain MAJ Jon Casillas USAR. Scoring members were Grant James, Ross James, Keatin Martin, Paul Mazurski, Dillon Sloneker and Tyler Smith. The team finished a 1005 placing them 17th overall.

There were a total of 49 competition teams and an additional 14 out-of-competition teams in this years National Infantry Trophy Match. For a complete listing of results go to http://clubs.odcmp.com/cgi-bin/report_matchResult.cgi?matchID=1409, for photos from this event go to http://www.odcmp.com/Photos/06/Rifle_NTIT/index.htm.