Snipers Sniping & Countering them

[jcustis]

An automatic rifle with heavy barrel, regular ACOG-type scope, and bipod is all the special equipment he needs; a slightly glorified assault rifle. Maybe not even that. If he can put single shots or even short bursts out to maybe 800 m, that should be quite sufficient I imagine.

For me, Ken has broken this issue down into a basic capabilities statement, which is an excellent jumping off point.

-What would we have a DM (or sharpshooter if you like) do in the performance of his duties? We've kicked this can around, but I rather prefer the simple ability to fire single shots or shots in rapid sequence (requiring a semi-auto) out to 800m with a 1/2 value wind blowing, and to have all shots impact within a 12-inch circle. The 12-inch circle equation has two components: a weapon that can hold all the rounds within that circumference once fired from a stable bipod or expedient benchrest position; and a shooter who is mentally and physically capable of wresting that performance out of the weapon.

These two components of capable weapon and the dude capable of using it are inextricable. If you can't call wind and either employ a hold-off or adjust the dope on the weapon, you do not belong behind the weapon. I concur with Ken that we do not need to imbue a DM with the full range of sniping skills when all we want is for him to be capable of that 12-inch shot. I will offer, however, that in order to positively ID the target, the DM does need solid training in observation, range estimation and range card construction, engagement sequence techniquences, and a few others that don't exactly come to mind right now. Call these basic rifleman skills if you wish, but the DM must have them down cold.

-Where does he need to be within an infantry organization to be useful? Ideas abound within this thread, but even if we each have our own burning desire to see DMs put HERE, or HERE, I think the beauty of modern military organization is that both the Army, the Marine Corps, and most friendly nations have the wherewithal to task-organize where appropriate. We could start off a particular type of campaign with DMs at the wrong level, but we are generally smart enough to figure out when we need to make a change.

-What caliber weapon does he need? I still stick to the thought that 7.62x51 is fine. Even if there are "better" calibers out there, to what degree do we get an increase in capability? Is it so significant that we pour funding into the tests, re-tooling, re-packaging, etc., for a new round that may in fact offer only marginal increases? Give me a laser beam with a millisecond time of flight, and then you have my attention.

Within a light armored reconnaissance company, there are (2) Barrett .50 semi-autos. Why not three since there are three line platoons with 4 scout teams apiece? I don't know, but I suspect that they made their way into the T/O&E at some point because a number of subject matter experts went to a conference or steering board and all agreed that having a light-weight, anti-materiel capability for employment by scouts in dismounted OPs was a good thing. Are they sniper weapons? In the hands of a sniper, I suppose they are. In the hands of an LAR scout, I prefer to simply call it by its official name, the Special Application Scoped Rifle (SASR). Do we need SASRs within a rifle company? I dunno, but I like to believe that an attachment from the battalion scout sniper platoon would do nicely an negate the need for the ordnance to be resident at the company level. LAR doesn't have a scout sniper platoon, but by T/E it would rate (10) SASRs.

-There is somewhat of a sideline truism to this discussion that I think impacts what folks believe is the right fit. At some point, TOO MANY WEAPONS is a bad thing, even if they mean you've covered all of the capability spectrum and can hit a wider array of targets at a longer range, and have better effects. We can easily reach some sort of capability saturation because we simply don't have the time to train our warriors to the training and readiness standards we have in place right now...what about all of the new-fangled stuff? A spin-off problem is that we eventually have untrained but well-intentioned Soldiers and Marines attempting operator-level maintenance on a system they are not proficient with. The result is that no one gets to check the better toy out of the armory because the company doesn't have a trained guy on deck. I grit my teeth about it, but that's one of the reasons why a new equipment training team has to provide training before a particular piece of gear is fielded to a unit. Them's the rules and they are there to protect ourselves from...ourselves.