Quote Originally Posted by Uboat509 View Post
Education is not the issue at all. They get it. The problem is that they hate it. It takes a certain kind of person to spend three days under glass in a hide watching a target that you may not even get to shoot at. Most guys would much rather be on the assault. You can order regular infantry guys to do the S/O mission and most will do their best but it takes a level of patience and focus to be a good sniper that not everyone has.
Well having done more than my fair share of time on OP hides (as part of a Reconnaissance Platoon). I've done all the peeing into bags plastic bags (containing sanitary towels) and eaten nothing but cold food. I concede life can be hard, but in comparison to what? Infantry operations are physically and psychologically demanding. It is an extremely challenging role and should not attract or tolerate those looking for an easy life.

UK infantry training takes OPs as a normal infantry task - is it always well taught? No, so I do have gripes about how you train, but I absolutely assert that it should be trained for and used.

Does that mean life it too tough to lie in an ambush position for a couple of days? Sorry, but if a normal Rifle Platoon cannot do a 3-5 OP task or lie in ambush for 2-3 days, then you simply do not have infantry worthy of the name.

Current Recon/Sniper concepts are always held to a notional level of low infantry skill. My objective is to promote and discuss a more useful understanding of infantry. I absolutely agree if you have a low standard of infantry training, then you may well need Sniper/Recon as quasi-force multipliers, instead of inherent skill sets.