Quote Originally Posted by kaur View Post
Fuchs:

WW II most efficent Finnish sniper Simo Hyh used rifle that was used by regular infantry with open sights. No optics, no tuning, just marksmanship and discipline. He killed approx the same number of Soviets with Finnish SMG. Single shot rifle plus SMG. If you have red interviews with German WW II snipers then shooting distance 500m was quite rare. Today US military has rifles with Trijicon sights. Hyh would envy. It all depends on training like Ken says.

M16A1 LMG. Just two thoughts. Those rifles didn't have free float barrels and barrels for accurate shooting at longer distances.

I have been thinking for some time why we need those small unit level marksmen at all, when there is possibility that machine gunners can hit the same target with 10th round? ... or why we need machine gunners if we have marksmen in small units? Machine gunners were in the beginning compensating low shooting speeds of regular infantry with bolt action rifles. That fire power aspect. Second, due to the bipods and tripods machine guns are more stable for long range shooting. Today you can attatch those shooting aides to your rifle rails. And here we are talking about marksman's kind of machinegun IAR
I know about that sniper, but he was sniping in a specific setting; winter, forests, not exactly competent adversaries (and German snipers did not count kills during combat, jsut kills done when they were on their own).

The widely quoted interviews with IIRC three German WW2 snipers confirmed that shots at 600 m or with 6x sight were rare and rarely needed. The Russians of their period were much-respected for their quick digging and good camo discipline (by the Germans). This yielded less targets, especially at long ranges.
I expect a modern infantryman to be lethal AND at least until the first shot quite undetectable at 100-300 m. So there's no need for a specialist to do that at 100-300 m.
A designated rifleman should in my opinion have a calibre advantage over normal infantry. This distorts the ammo standardisation, but it also emans that the squad has an organic ability to penetrate weak cover (walls, trees) in excess of what most of its guns can do.


The great advantage of machineguns is their effectiveness against moving targets.
The great advantages of aimed single shots are minimal firing signature (including dust) and the ability to hit tiny targets (such as helmet at 300 m) somewhat reliably before they duck into cover.

The only guns that combined both were afaik the HK 21, HK 21E and HK G8 (essentially three versions of the same modular gun).