Quote Originally Posted by Norfolk View Post
This brings me to another point about DM's. I think that they should probably be called Riflemen, not Designated Marksmen or Shaprshooters. If they are armed with a Rifle with a full-length barrel and an optical sight, and preferably with a bipod as well, coupled with a little advanced Marksmanship training and some Scout training, I think that they might be rather close in tactical concept to the Riflemen of old, and just as useful. When you think about it, the "Riflemen" in the Squads and Sections aren't really Riflemen any more, they're classic Carbineers, armed with short-barrelled rifles and used to win the Firefight and then to Assault in Close-Quarter Combat.

Call me a Traditionalist (and I am) , but I think that bringing back classic Riflemen, in a modern form, would be a very good way to go.
Interesting to me, given my interest in frontier history. The 71st of Foot, Frasier's Highlanders, didn't encounter designated marksmen when they hit Daniel Morgan's skirmishline at Cowpens. They encountered Riflemen with a capital "R."

Of course it's also historically accurate that by The Late Unpleasantness of 1861-65 () the term sharpshooter had started to gain broad usage for special skirmishing units. Most line infantry units had rifles by then but only a few men got the weapon's full capability out of it. Evidently they thought another term was needed for distinction.

Incidentally, it's a myth that frontier America was a nation of riflemen; the good'uns were always the minority. A farmer with a fowling piece was far more common than a longhunter.

The longrifle on the early American frontier seems to have been sort of like the longbow in medieval England; you almost had to be bred to the weapon culturally. It shouldn't have to be that way, of course, since the fundamentals of marksmanship aren't that hard. But even today you see some troops that can never seem to "get it" no matter how much instruction they receive.