Snipers Sniping & Countering them

[Firn]

Then as now if a unit looks alert and performs minor actions competently, most of the bad guys will leave them alone and await an easier target. Long time ago it was learned in such operations to never, ever do the same thing twice and never stay anyplace for more than 12-16 hours without modifiying your strength and positions. The basics aren't that hard -- we just do not teach them well.

And, like the Floating Platoon, sometimes even those that know just get lazy or sloppy -- always a killer...

Skeen certainly was rather keen on that being prepared point, and repeated it many times. He also wrotethat you could far tell more about the leadership, moral and discipline about a unit from all those small details in the field than by it's performance on the parade square. I think it is hard to argue against that. Of course doing the basics right under often very difficult circumstances requires a lot from training to the leaders and troops.

Looking for the weak and lazy as targets must be part of our inner wolves, as this is just how many larger carnivores operate. A Lynx will operate just like that, hunt for a while in an certain area of his range until the roe deer becomes too wary and than move on to find less alerted prey. Signs of force and vitality tends to make predators look for easier prey, unless the disperation is too strong.

I wonder how much has changed in this regard (still from Skeen's book, the link is in this thread):

Be particularly alert in the rear guard work on the return journey. For the friendly tribesman, having collected payment, is by no means above chivvying the rear guard home. He can always blame the bad men from the next valley (who may be—probably will be—there also on their own), and the rear guard, though it may have an easy time, ought to behave as if it expected trouble. If it does not, the odds are on getting it. And that is another reason against delay in any part of the work. Every moment wasted means a closer approach of evening and of increasing numbers of the enemy intent on harrying the withdrawal.

Coming back to "sniping":

Another hint—do not halt your men on tracks or near conspicuous rocks, and so forth. These are always known ranging marks. And your men will not halt near you. “Officers and white stones”—the old soldier’s rule still holds.

This is not a thing to neglect. The accuracy of these people’s shooting is sometimes astounding. I have mentioned the case of the Ahnai Tangi, when I was warning you not to bunch your men on a crest. This was not an isolated fluke. At Makin I saw four men knocked out by one sniper, known to have been fifteen hundred yards off; and shortly before that, taking up camp at Marobi, one man, who was bagged before he could do more damage, got two men and two mules in five shots, at a range of not less than five hundred yards.

I certainly have a hard time believing that Makin incident, maybe they missed a man (or men) which shot from a closer range. The second one sounds certainly doable, by a (very) good shot with good eyes and a good enough weapon.

And at last:

Wherever and however you get into camp, there is a most important point to keep in mind, that, in an inexperienced push—that is, almost invariably at the first entry into hostile country—there will be more than a tendency—an irresistible urge—to reply to snipers’ fire and even to
blaze off at noises or fluttering papers. The Manual is emphatic on the idiocy of this, but no matter, your men will do it unless you yourself see to it that they do not.