What makes a sniper a sniper?

[Scorpiusdeus]

Patience

 

[jeff-10]

A mission. Being able to shoot well doesn't make someone a sniper. Its a specialty like being a tank driver or a patrolman.

 

[Shifty]

most people confuse marksmen and snipers. especially the media.

if you havent already, i urge all of you to read the book "Shooter" written by a recently retired marine sniper named Jack Coughlin

 

[CWL]

I have been taught that a "Sniper" is a job classification.

One earns this designation by fulfilling the educational, training and testing requisites.

One may be a very good marksman but that doesn't make him/her a "sniper".

One may own a great precision rifle, but that does not make it a "sniper" rifle.

Same as just owning a hose, ledgerbook or stethoscope do not make you fireman, accountant or doctor.

 

[Lonestar49]

A mentor

...

Starting with a Culley..

Ending with a Cold-Shot..

LS

 

[Rifleman 173]

Think of a sniper as "an engineer." It is the purpose of an engineer to solve problems. A sniper solves problems in the form of enemy personnel. There is no one solution for a sniper to use. A sniper MUST have the ability to THINK. He must think about how to eliminate an enemy soldier or a group of enemy soldiers. He must think ahead of potential trouble so that he can escape after he takes out any enemy soldiers. He must know how to call in artillery strikes, airstrikes and naval cannon fire. He must know how to use a radio in a PROPER fashion along with its codebooks. He must know first aid. He must know how to work alone, with a spotter, with a small team, a large team, a platoon, a company, a battalion and so on. He must be selective in his attacks so that they are accurate and so that he hits the right target. He must know all about shine, shape and silhouettes, camouflauge and ghillie suits. He needs to know about ballistics, distances, bullet drop and feet-per-second. He has to know about landmines, claymore mines and boobytraps. He has to be willing to go hungry, go without sleep and never let his guard down. He will crawl miles and miles upon his belly to get to his target. He lives in the mud, rain, dirt, sand, snow, jungle and forests. He knows, without a doubt, that if he is captured alive by the enemy that they will show him no mercy. He will be very slowly tortured or killed outright if he's lucky. After he gets out of the military, some people will shun him because, "He's one of THOSE snipers." He will be denied work because, "He's one of THOSE sniper guys." In spite of everything, he will prevail. He will eventually find a niche for himself because he knows that he has too much talent and personal confidence in himself to be denied. A sniper, more than anything, is perseverance with two legs. Any other questions?

 

[ATC]

Marksmanship is the easy part, not the sole qualification for military sniping.

As for what a true sniper is: "Sniping" means firing from a concealed position, nothing more.

 

[The Deer Hunter]

They're trying to kill you too, are usually smarter than bambi and are looking for you with binocs.

Bambi is harder to kill than people.

 

[siglite]

No one mentioned the math skills

 

[phridum]

The math skills are killer. When we started going over calculating range using mil-dots, they asked us who needed a refresher on long division and multiplication. No one did, so we proceeded with the sample problems on the board. After 15 minutes, he came back and asked who needed refresher courses. Everyone raised their hands.

A calculator will make you calculate faster, but it certainly makes you *slower*.

And I'm sorry Shifty, "Shooter" is a work of fiction. Jack Coughlin is a joke who fabricated all that crap. It may be a good story, but so "Robinson Crusoe". If you beg to differ, I'd love to put you in touch with my Marksmanship Instructor from the Camp Pendleton course. He's made a personal mission of de-bunking that book.

 

[jjminch]

So what's the deal on the "Shooter" book then? Don't really want to whore up the thread, I just though it was a good read.

 

[Shane333]

Rifleman 173,

That was a beautiful post.

 

[Frog48]

Depends on the type of "sniper" you're talking about...

The average shot that a LE sniper takes is ~50 yards. LE snipers dont have to worry about stealthiness, deploying alone, or sustaining themselves in the field for days upon days.

Military snipers shoot in terms of hundreds and thousands of yards. But shooting is the easy part. Their forte is surveillance/recon, target designation, etc.

 

[pdowg881]

a sniper is a person who shoots snipes. The birds.

 

[Dark_Harvest]

he's also not the guy responding to this juvenile thread...


seriously.

 

[TimboKhan]

Jack Coughlin is a joke who fabricated all that crap. It may be a good story, but so "Robinson Crusoe". If you beg to differ, I'd love to put you in touch with my Marksmanship Instructor from the Camp Pendleton course. He's made a personal mission of de-bunking that book

Touching upon a very intense source of personal irritation of mine, the same is true of Jarhead. If you ever want to listen to me cuss at extreme volume, bring up that POS movie/book/author. Bluntly put, I knew "Swoff" and "Swoff" is a bald-faced liar. Of course, anyone who was in the military in general and in the USMC in particular can see through his lies pretty quickly.

On the sniper front, it's a combination of things. Training, fieldcraft, marksmanship above and beyond the standard, mindset and attitude. Technically, if your a Marine, it means that you have passed the required training and are given the MOS designation 8541 (Scout Sniper). Really, it's a job that has been very highly dramaticized in recent years. I think a lot of people are under the impression that it is a very exciting and cool job, full of adventure and danger, but the reality is something different. The reality is that you spend inordinate amounts of time doing pretty much nothing but looking around and searching for targets, followed by a very brief period of action when you pull the trigger, followed by more looking around and searching for targets. Look, read the Carlos Hathcock book "Marine Sniper: 93 confirmed kills". It's interesting and neat and a must-read for any real gunny, but in the end his story boils down to long periods of discomfort and fighting off boredom, broken up by the occasional shot.

Now, let me make it clear that I am not disparaging snipers. Tactically, snipers are an intensely valuable asset, as has been proven time and again in the recent war on terror. I most certainly am not disparaging Carlos Hathcock, who really is a pretty revered figure in the Marine Corps. I am simply saying that it just isn't as exciting as people seem to think it is, most of the time.

Rifleman1973, your post was very nice, and accurate. I would simply point out that many of the skills that you said a sniper must have, so too must the average infantryman.