JMA,

I agree with most of your comments about the demise of our infantry tactics and field discipline. Probably worth opening a separate forum for this needed discussion, but from my view I saw an immediate reduction in field craft when FM 7-8 was introduced and then enforced with a communist like reform movement. Many of the hard learned small unit tactics learnt during Vietnam, Korea, etc were discarded. Then we saw the rapid loss of basic field craft (movement techniques, tracking/counter tracking, camaflauge, observation, fighting positions, etc.). A pet pee of mine was all the sudden we were too good to drink muddy water treated with iodine tablets, so instead of self sustaining in the field soldiers carried excess purified water or had it air dropped/cached etc.. Besides weakening our ability to sustain in the field (which limits the tactics you can employ), it creates a mindset of dependency, and of course makes the companies that sell bottled water to the military quite rich (probably a conspiracy theory here). :-)

Back specifically to the sniper issue. Two enclosures below, the second addresses the traditional Afghanistan advanced marksmenship and sniping tacticcs, why they eroded, and now why they're making a come back. However, there is still a considerable difference between a well trained marksman and a specially trained and equipped sniper from Iran, especially if they're employing 50 cal sniper rifles.

http://globalcounterterror.com/?p=74

Some of the information in The Ultimate Sniper, might at first glance seem outdated (especially with historical references to wars that probably occurred before your great-grandfather was born), especially with all the advances in technology that occur every year. But, if you know the military the way I know the military, you’ll know that often skills and knowledge can be lost only to have to be relearned again in the next war (case in point with so many successful counterinsurgency tactics and strategies gained and used in Vietnam and Central America, but had to be relearned in the war in the Middle East).
http://www.indiandefence.com/forums/...off-late-7523/

A lot more at the post, which is worth the read:

The Taliban have been finding NATO troops too clever by half. An example occurred recently when a British base in the south was being hit by accurate sniper fire, but it was not immediately obvious exactly where the sniper was. The reason for this was a clever gambit by the sniper, who was firing from a nearby compound, via a small tunnel dug through the wall of the compound, terminating in a 30x15 cm (12x6 inch) opening to fire out of. To further conceal his position, he had some nearby associates fire assault rifles and a machine-gun just before he took his shot at the British. To further conceal himself, the sniper only fired three times a day. The British would not say how many soldiers the sniper hit, but the British quickly identified seven possible firing positions. The sniper was then tricked into firing again while the seven suspected sites were being observed, and this revealed the small hole in the wall as the location. A British Apache helicopter gunship was standing by, and it fired a Hellfire missile which, because of its laser guidance, hit the small firing hole, killing the sniper and one of his spotters.