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The Marine Corps' current rifleman, armed with a rifle combat optic, M16A4, and Gripod combination VFG/bipod closely approximates what a squad designated marksman needs to be capable of, if we ever had a need for one. No need to fancy Harris bipods or free-floating barrels. Enhanced training is the key for guys like that, but sustaining their training will always be the toughest part.
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...I strongly believe that he needs a trained spotter. The spotter could be another equally capable DM, with his own weapon that is zero'd to his requirements.
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To my mind, and that of the British Army and IDF an "Marksman is merely member of a fire team equipped with a 5.56mm weapon with a 20-inch barrel, optic sight, and bipod. He should be able to consistently hit targets out to 6-800m.
It seems that the current US experience is that a DM is as valued for observation skills as riflery skills, as in the example of Lance Cpl Wilson:
http://www.military.com/features/0,1...ml?ESRC=dod.nl
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What's a good range requirement in an urbanized area? 800m...1,000m? We'd have to take a hard look at whether or not firing windows are posible out that far first, methinks.
Snipers are making those kind of urban shots, but then again one of the USMC advanced sniper courses is urban sniping. I know of a major school that reports lots of requests for training in making shots at fleeting targets at 400-600m -- so this would be the critical consideration for DM training.
To play the Devil's advocate, what are the advantages of a DM over an expert LMG gunner with a low-powered optic, the ability to squeeze off an accurate 3-5 round burst, and an assistant gunner acting as observer?
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Slightly different ways of going about it but both agreed that the DM should not be a member of a standard squad or fire team.
As a historical footnote, one-per-squad was the plan in 1st Raiders. In each squad "Red Mike" had one "scout" who was supposed to be equipped with a scoped springfield in the original TO&E in the beginning of 1942. I've not found much on the Raider DM program, other than "Red Mike" dispatched Claude Harris back to set up the USMC West Coast sniping school in 1943. Lt Harris sent the top 5 graduates on to the Raider Training Center for 3 weeks of training (RTC was normally 8 weeks long). I don't know how many of the RTC-trained snipers went on to a Raider bn.
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In Afganistan, were a lot of patrols are carried out by company-sized units, the contact demands (often) long range precision fire, that even .50 MG's are not able to provide.
The .338 Lapua is good out to roughly 1300 meters for an oxymoronic "average expert"-- this per a SOTIC plank holder -- just remember that snipers wish each other luck with "no wind, brother" for a reason! I know everyone wants to talk about amazing shots, but the attempts/successes formula has to be applied here.
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Modern sniping is far more about qualification than operational role.
We might be wise to avoid thread drift into sniping!
I believe I understand what you're saying -- the historical evolution of sniping in the UK has led to the identification of a cluster of basic skill sets (scout-sniper-observer) that are infused into a soldier who then applies those to circumstances. American sniping has been hugely influenced by the UK -- the real, practical, and mostly unknown historical evolution of modern sniping, avoiding the confusion caused by history's broken threads.
I would like to say that the various current American military sniping programs do have slightly different qualifications depending upon perceived operational roles -- regular Army, USMC, and AF all currently run sniper programs here, and various commands within SOCOM run separate programs as well. In terms of comparison and contrast, for example, when the SEALs transitioned from dependence on the USMC basic course to their own (with SBS input), they created an 11-week course that included 2 weeks of photographic reconnaissance training. The Air Force school, on the other hand, gears itself largely to counter-terrorism/police SWAT-style operations and counter-sniper operations. In the American private sector I would describe the McMillan program as the most British, since they hired Mark Spicer to help run it!