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| The Sniper Revolution |
| 2008-07-31 |
| July 31, 2008: In Iraq and Afghanistan, infantry tactics have changed considerably over the last few years. This is largely gone unnoticed back home, unless you happen to know an old soldier or marine that remembers the old style of shooting. Put simply, the emphasis is on a lot fewer bullets fired, and much more accurate shooting. Elite forces, like the Special Forces and SEALs, have always operated this way. But that's because they had the skill, and opportunity to train frequently, to make it work. But the army and marines have found that their troops can fight the same way with the help of some new weapons, equipment and tactics. Plus lots of combat experience and specialized training. This includes the use of new shooting simulators, which allows troops to fire a lot of virtual bullets, in a realistic setting, without all the hassle and expense of going to a firing range. One thing that helped, and that was developing for two decades, was the greater used of snipers. Currently, about ten percent of American infantry are trained and equipped as snipers. Commanders have found that filling the battlefield with two man (spotter and shooter) sniper teams not only provides more intelligence, but also lots of precision firepower. Snipers are better at finding the enemy, and killing them with a minimum of noise and fuss. But new rifle sights (both day and night types), have made all infantry capable of accurate, single shot, fire. With the emphasis on keeping civilian casualties down, and the tendency of the enemy to use civilians as human shields, lots of snipers, or infantrymen who can take an accurate shot at typical battle ranges (under 100 meters), are the best way to win without killing a lot of civilians. New sniper equipment has made a big difference. The U.S. Army has been issuing the new M110 SASS (Semi-Automatic Sniper System) to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This weapon is not a big technological breakthrough. It is based on the older AR-10 rifle. The U.S. Navy has been buying a similar weapon, the SR25. This is also known as the Mk11 Sniper Rifle System (SRS). These new semi-automatic sniper rifles are 7.62mm weapons based on the designs of M-16 creator, retired USAF Colonel Gene Stoner. The basis for the M-16 was the AR-15, and a 7.62mm version of that weapon was called the AR-10. About half the parts in the SR25 are interchangeable with those in the M-16. |
| Posted by:tu3031 |
| #7 I wonder if the "compromise" caliber rounds and some sort of electronic+caseless would be a better solution. I wonder if it could have been researched, developed and distributed to all infantrymen for less than was wasted on the Crusader. Or the Commanche. Or the DDG-1000 Or... |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-07-31 20:36 |
| #6 Proc, I humped an M16/M203 and an M-14 (humped a radio too at times). I know the weight difference. Just wondering if the troops would value more ammo or more one-shot stops. I guess its really depends on the mission and support. All the one-shot stops in the world can't help you if you're way out in the boonies in a multi-day patrol/LP-OP and run out of your highly effective ammo; likewise all the ammo in the world doesn't help if you can't penetrate the cover or stop the hopped up enemy with your too small ammo. I wonder if the "compromise" caliber rounds and some sort of electronic+caseless would be a better solution. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-31 19:36 |
| #5 OS, I think the key is load bearing. They're already loaded up the way it is. The kids are getting real good, focused on the value not just of hitting, but getting head shots. So, do you want to carry more of the 5.56 or less of the 7.62. Ask the troops on the ground who have to hump the stuff. I know many want something that will penetrate walls, but that's M2 country, not the individual weapon. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-07-31 17:18 |
| #4 And the round is the venerable 7.62 NATO, my favorit. This raises the question: if we are going with individual marksmanship, why are we still using 5.56 ball for our standard infantry round? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-31 14:46 |
| #3 In Afghanistan |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-07-31 14:43 |
| #2 And, still in my banter commenting, IIRC, a bit after the dust settled on the initial phase of the OIF, which turned into a pacification phase, there were reprots of Us soldiers acquiring ak as personal armament, mikhail kalashnikov himself made quite a big deal of that; it turned out that was done mostly by non-fighting personal who were at that time armed only with a M9 and were feeling naked in the assault rifle country that iraq was and is... and, IIRC, the trouble with many iraqi ak, chinese or local knock-offs, was that the trend over there was to have the stock removed, in order to use the weapons as a spray & pray type of "big, hip-shooting Smg" (anyone recall reading about the Us/western military instructors having to teach iraqi soldiers how to zero their rifle, back in the very early days of the rebuilding of the iraqi forces? Apparently, this was not done in saddam times!), so there was calls made by some Us soldiers to have relatives back in the USA send them suitable stocks to use the rifle as a rifle. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-07-31 14:04 |
| #1 It's also easier to spot the enemy. He's usually the guy firing on automatic. The fellows firing one shot at a time are the Americans, and they are usually the last ones standing. To go along that, and add one more pointless comment from me today, I remember reading two articles quite some time ago, about afghanistan, one (here) where it was mentioned the journalos could make out each side's position in nightime through muzzle flashes, as US forces would fire semi-auto, while taliban would fire full auto; and one (translated in french in a swiss military website) about a SAS team performing a counter-intuitive motorized frontal assault (which succeeded nonetheless without casualties) on a taliban compound, with again the brits taking aimed shots at the droogs, and the arab fighters holding their ak over their head, above the wall, and firing full-auto in the general direction of the attackers (and many doing so while on drugs, too IIRC, hence the droogs bit). Anyway, the optic revolution must really have changed shooting in anger - hard to see a pic or a vid of an Us soldier without having the flat-top M16 variant mounting one optic or an another; with training updated so the weapon doesn't outperform the shooter, and the Viet Nam style rock & roll will be (is) left in the garbage can of anti-militarist clichés. |
| Posted by: anonymous5089 2008-07-31 13:56 |