A snipers' path
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juz wondering wats the route to become a high-paying sniper in the SAF?
wat are the requirements and criteria they look out for? maybe somebody can enlighten on me...thanks!!
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One main critertria is that you must have perfect eyesight. They came to sispec for recruitment once and that was a major factor. Next will come your range performance. Marksman is a must.
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what about if u are a really good marksman but has shit eyesight?
will they still choose u?
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be a specky sniper? I dun think so. I heard there are a few of those tho...
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and, i think they chose pple who r small in build...thought not a must requirement.
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Does anyone know why the marksman in each squad are not provided with a proper sniper weapon instead of an M16 with scope?
In "Saving Private Ryan", one of the squad member is a sniper and he had a real sniper weapon. -
It could be to simplify logistics to the platoons. It will be difficult to supply the dedicated ammo/parts for the marksmen. Another reason could be cost and training. The Steyrs don't come cheap. If they were to issue the dedicated sniper rifles to marksmen, then they would have to train them seperately for it. It would have effectively made them full-time snipers instead.Originally posted by Joe Black:Does anyone know why the marksman in each squad are not provided with a proper sniper weapon instead of an M16 with scope?
In "Saving Private Ryan", one of the squad member is a sniper and he had a real sniper weapon. -
Sniper weapons are specialised guns... they are expensive, not as useful as an assault rifle in close combat (most have low capacity magazines and lack full-auto/burst fire), require good maintenance, are more fragile (Glass can break... as anyone who has used an NVG before knows) and aren't as magic-kill as they appear to be in the movie.
The long kill-range of sniper weapons mean that they are more affected by wind than shorter ranged weapons. The real sniper doesn't just put crosshairs on the bad guy and fires... He sees movement in the leaves and other wind-sensitive objects to gauge bullet drift and trajectory. He also has to judge the effect of a cold barrel and the relative humidity in the air. Its not easy...
The sniper needs
1.) Flawless fieldcraft. (you need to set up a hide with only a sniping partner and stay there for days. Yep... you do your business there, sleep there and eat there.)
2.) Infinite patience. (targets may not appear, or appear at the wrong time and wrong place after days of waiting.)
3.) To be very, very fit. (You are in a 2 man team. If you are spotted and engaged by anything you can't take out, your best choice is evasion... run before they get arty on you!)
4.) Tremendous endurance. (You've been inserted on a hillside to take out a particular division commander. The target will be in sight in 2 hours... but your hide is infested with red ants, and you can't move as there are enemy helicopters around. Guess what you need to do... Endure!) -
Oh ya, did any one mention that snipers are more often killed by High calibre weapons such as 155mm DPICM rounds, direct fire from 120mm main gun, or mortar fire?
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Kinda puts a dent in the glamour when they can't find much of you left to stick a medal on!
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Where do you get that facts from...?Originally posted by Shotgun:Oh ya, did any one mention that snipers are more often killed by High calibre weapons such as 155mm DPICM rounds, direct fire from 120mm main gun, or mortar fire?
In the first place,why would you use those weapons on snipers...?
Snipers are trained to fire from a concealed position.Till this day...there are no effective way of flushing out a sniper....except using another sniper to counter-snipe.
Sniper,contrary to popular believe,has got the most boring job in the world....You may be in a single position for days without any targets,...
The only way for a sniper to suceed is to have good and timely intelligence..
The cost of a sniper weapon and equiptment are negligible...quite cheap actually..Training a sniper is also quite easy......The hardest part is to find the right person who has the characteristics and profile to fit the job.Anybody can be trained to shoot accurately....but to shoot another human being in cold blood...? -
Following my previous post, just wondering if the army has thought of assigning snipers at platoon level. They become very useful to get rid of enemy snipers, machine gunners, radiomen and most of all commanders.
Just look at how effective that sniper was in Saving Private Ryan. -
Ah... One should never trust movies that much.
For example, sounds of silenced weapons are almost always wrong (its on purpose so real terrorists won't recognise the actual sound). In Saving Private Ryan, many realism factors were correct... However, the sniper was shown adjusting his scope to counter-snipe the German in the clock-tower... I seriously doubt that a real sniper would mess with his rifle's zero in such a critical situation.
Also, that sniper appears to be attached to the company the Captain led onto the beach, not to a squad-level unit that the captain ended up leading... although I'm only guessing at that.
Finally, locating a sniper that has fired is pretty easy with modern tools. A thermal imager can pick out the heat shimmer from the barrel after the shot. Also available are sniper locators, which are field computers designed to judge a sniper's direction from source of noise and distance by measuring the crack/thump-boom (initial firing of the round after the crack/thump of it passing by or hitting someone. Longer the difference between the two sounds, the greater the range of the sniper.) Besides, one can tell the direction of the sniper by examining the body (if within reach and having fallen into cover) and wound. Remember... the sniper isn't moving yet... making him very vulnerable to arty and tank suppression/carpet fire.
And contrary to popular belief, silenced sniper rifles are either rare or have limited range/killing power/ammunition availability. -
oh man...there goes my chances....
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Buddy, its the fact of life. Military snipers get thumped on by High explosive rather than getting shot.Originally posted by Lonesniper:Where do you get that facts from...?
In the first place,why would you use those weapons on snipers...?
Snipers are trained to fire from a concealed position.Till this day...there are no effective way of flushing out a sniper....except using another sniper to counter-snipe.
Sniper,contrary to popular believe,has got the most boring job in the world....You may be in a single position for days without any targets,...
The only way for a sniper to suceed is to have good and timely intelligence..
The cost of a sniper weapon and equiptment are negligible...quite cheap actually..Training a sniper is also quite easy......The hardest part is to find the right person who has the characteristics and profile to fit the job.Anybody can be trained to shoot accurately....but to shoot another human being in cold blood...?
And finding out where a sniper shot from is not that hard either, even without modern day equipment.
First, if you are the guy who gets shot, u probably won't find out.
If someone else get shots. First, take cover. 2nd, remember which direction the poor fucker was facing. 3rd, look for the exit wound, (the god awful fucking mess side of the wound), the sniper fired from the direction opposite the wound.
Number 4 is knowing your enemy. Means, what kinda sniper weapons the enemy often uses and what is its effective range. From there, suppress fire with everything you've got and call for arty strikes and level +100m sq radius of the position you guessed. Finally, rush the hill with troops and look for pieces of meat strewn on the floor for supper.
Oh, did I mention that most military sniper rifles fire supersonic rounds, so if the distance is great, you will hear the BANG after the bullet ploughs through someone. If the distance is not that far, you probably hear the bang and the *PHUCK* together.
In anycase, modern thermal imaging can spot snipers easily. Though they are masters of concealment, an armored vehicle with respectable optics can pick them out. -
First of all,i'm rather impressed with all your sniping knowledge..but let me highlight some pertinent points....
1.The Artic Warfare,MSG90 and SIG3000 comes with a supressor.However,you will need to use subsonic rounds.They can perform both black and green roles.
The days of SSG69 in the SAF are numbered.These weapons will be replaced within two years...
2.Yes...thermal imaging can spot a sniper.However,snipers are now equipped with an anti TI device(can't disclose).
3.Snipers have lately been incorporated in ATEC and they have proven to be a handful for the blue force.. -
I hope Singaporean snipers are equipped with that new anti-TI device you're speaking of (I think I know how it'll work)... We certainly need every edge we can get.
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With suppressors, come another problem. The range of a suppressed sniper-rifle will be significantly shortened. I'm talking effective range.
Still, given a supressor, u will know the range of the shooter is under 500m. Yes, the slower the round, the more vulnerable to the wind, thus it can be shortened quite badly. I have my doubts on whether military snipers equip suppressors for combat.
In anycase, my arguement is that snipers aren't totally invisible, and that its a recorded fact that snipers are killed by more often by high calibre weapons rather than small arms.
Snipers ain't invisible. Neither is the rifle their main weapon. Their main weapon is fear. There is nothing more frightening than knowing that anything you do can get you killed, including nothing. -
"Snipers ain't invisible. Neither is the rifle their main weapon. Their main weapon is fear. There is nothing more frightening than knowing that anything you do can get you killed, including nothing."
originally posted by Shotgun
Fear is definitely the paralysing factor.
Current civilian casualties from the on-going sniper action in the USA is a clear illustration of how disruptive a sniper can be.
The difficulty to catch the sniper in a non-war zone environment only serves to confirm how much more difficult it will be to catch him during war time - watched the movie about the Russian sniper against the German sniper in Stalingrad (or was it St Petersburg?). -
It was Stalingrad.
Of of course, Hollywood dramatised the ending beyond belief... For example, all Zaitsef could have seen from the range at which he fired his final bullet (had he used his scope), would have been a small area of cloth, skin or iris. Not very wise.
Kulikov was also involved in the final bagging of the German sniper, not killed earlier like the film showed. The final kill involved tricking the German with a brick in a helmet (The German was experienced enough to judge when a helmet was worn or raised on a stick, so Kulikov was recorded to have worn the helmet with a brick inside to raise it above his head) and Zaitsef shooting through an empty shell casing.
And the female sniper was deadly, not just the flower-vase potrayed in the show. Her name, (Taitiana... I think) appears to be a modified version of the real sniper's name. Think she died in the war, badly wounded by a landmine. -
Wounded by landmines. Well again, another sniper taken out of action by explosives.
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Thursday's news reported that the US Government is employing military spy planes (with heat seaking detectors), and the FBI with sound detecting equipment (sound directional finders used during the Bosnian War to catch snipers) to catch the elusive sniper.
Left to be seen is how the sniper will be eliminated, but certainly without heavy explosives in a civilian environment - definitely not inside the USA, where the risk of 'collateral damage' will be totally unacceptable.