TV/movies and riflemen

[akodo]

I've been thinking of this for a while now. It seems everywhere you turn, some guy on TV or a movie is claiming his military background was a sniper. The character Booth on the TV show bones, the head FBI guy in the TV show profiler, the head investigator of NCIS, hell, there was some made for TV movie about a guy who was using his lawn tractor to travel cross country to see his dying brother. In WW2 he was, you guessed it, a sniper.

And those are just off the top of my head.

It was at one time almost looked down upon if you were a sniper as you 'fought unfairly' 'shot em in the back' 'like shooting fish in a barrel', yet now snipers are 'cool'. Part if it is also that hollywood doesn't know jack about military, Sniper probably being the only other occupation besides infantryman they can think of.

So we see a lot of ex snipers in these shows, yet why aren't any of them riflemen?

Now, part of this is hollywood misunderstanding. To them snipers apparently gain the ability to shoot pistols with great ease, making headshots, or shooting guns out of the badguys hands 'because they were a sniper they can make that shot!'...whatever.

It seems to me someone who was a sniper in the marines or army (or even the airforce ravens I suppose) is going to know their way around all guns in general, but a rifle especially. Why are these guys grabbing MP-5s (or worse yet, handguns) when trouble is brewing, rather than a boltgun, or a scoped M14 (or civvy M1), getting someplace where they can see into the room with the hostage, not kicking the door down. Or simply having a rifle much more at reach, a case next to the desk or something.

Take for example the character Booth in an episode of Bones. A minor character's boyfriend is killed and sister is missing, so the ex sniper takes a few days off from the FBI and accompanies the scientist down to see what is going on. Hello, out in the wide open, rifle seems to be a great thing to bring along, even a standard deer rifle winchester 70. Nope, nothing.


It has occured to me that partly a rifleman is kinda boring, at least for how TV and movies are able to portray things. You just cannot show what kind of distances rifles work at very well. Now, in Quigly Down Under, they had the nice bucketshot scene, and some nice long range shooting, but for TV, you'd have to re-do those scenes all the time for tne audiences who hadn't seen it 3 episodes ago (unless of course you include something of it in the opening scene). Shooting a smilie face on a target (from lethal weapon 1)is probably easier to do than set up a long range shoot that john q ordinary is going to be able to understand as 'very difficult'. Repeatedly having to make a long special shot on a TV show would get pretty reduntant.

Still, there are other high tech crafts that are exciting to do or read about, but boring to watch that have been dramatized for TV effect. Medical proceedures is one. You don't see organs being thrown around, people jumping on gurneys to give CPR while the patient is wheeled around, or any of the stuff you seen on ER. Hell, on lots of those shows the surgery all looks the same, it is just fast paced chatter, verbal indicators someone is having difficulty or is stumped, then success and happy outcome.

Alternatively, when said ex sniper is a minor character or part of an ensemble cast, having the occasional show with the stereotypical sniper roll or sniper shot or just having said guy grab a rifle not an MP5 or glock 17 seems to me to be entirely do-able

 

[Commissar Gribb]

I just wish people would aim once and a while. I grow tired of the "from the hip" spraying that happens anytime someone picks up an automatic weapon.

 

[Offwhite]

My best friend is doing his second tour in Iraq & yes you guessed it, he's a sniper in the Marines, but he's not that good with a pistol. When he comes back we always go to the range but he said that in the military they never really put a big emphasis on pistols (maybe it was just for him) but he said there was more training with AR's & what-not. With a pistol at 25 yards he's happy to have a grouping of about 2 and a half feet but with a .308 bolt action at 1500 yards he's a God.

 

[Snap]

I would think that a sniper would want to be reasonably proficient with a pistol at close range in the event that he is spotted and somebody gets close. A bolt rifle has it's uses, but let's face it, a heavy scoped rifle isn't the ideal CQB weapon (unless you want to get into club mode, I suppose). But hey, I'm no sniping expert, nor do I play one on TV.

 

[Cosmoline]

Why are these guys grabbing MP-5s (or worse yet, handguns) when trouble is brewing, rather than a boltgun, or a scoped M14 (or civvy M1),

Simple. The bigger firearms, esp. shoulder fired, GET IN THE WAY OF THE CAMERA. This is also why directors love to have the shooters tilt their firearms sideways. It allows for a nice angle across the firearm without obscuring any part of the actor's face. It's a rare movie where they let the stars shoot shoulder-fired weapons very much.

Where's Al Pacino in this shot?

He's a lot easier to see here:



What's really hilarious is how many "gangstas" and overseas hooligans who have no training and little experience with firearms think shooting Glocks sideways is a real stance. It has to do with shooting all right--shooting PICTURES.

 

[ATAShooter]

Ya know, a while ago, I was talking to a friend and the "sideways Glock " subject came up. I said " Who in the hell started that?".... I later found out it is or was an Israeli close quarters tactic that was started about the time the events in Munich went down or shortly after. The photo that was shown to me had an Iraeli soldier, handgun sideways, both elbows bent, left hand holding just above right wrist (why the slide don't get him, I don't know.. looks like it would )... kinda a figure 4 looking deal. I don't know if they still do that or not. As for me, I can't hit crap like that. I don't know wether they got it from someone else or did they invent it.

 

[Cosmoline]

later found out it is or was an Israeli close quarters tactic that was started about the time the events in Munich went down or shortly after

Meh. I call "myth" on that notion. I've read a lot about Israeli small arms method, and use the Israeli Presentation with SA semis. But pointing a firearm sideways? I know of no possible advantage that would give in "close quarters" combat. Possibly for shooting over a wall or trench, but in that case the stance would be quite a bit different from from the standard low-held Sillywood stance. It would involve holding the pistol very high.

In fact, there was an article that got reprinted in a "Gun DIgest" a few years ago about the origins of the sideways shooting stance. The author tracked it down to "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly," where Tuco is holding his revolver sideways to shoot from the suds of his bath.

had an Iraeli soldier, handgun sideways, both elbows bent, left hand holding just above right wrist

In fact, now that I think on it, this sounds very much like a photo from mid-way through the Israeli Presentation, taken out of context. The pistol is indeed sideways as the left hand cycles the action.

 

[akodo]

the story I always heard about sideways gangbanger style was that a moron held the gun sideways while robbing a 7-11 or something, and it was on security footage. Some hollywood type saw it, didn't see ignorance but saw 'street stylez' and had people in his films and tv do it that way.

I also hear that baggy pants below the butt and boxeres pulled up way high and showing was from 'prison look' where guys had to turn in belts because of risk of hanging suicide, hence their pants were hanging way way low and boxers were heavily exposed

 

[Pork Fat]

Sniper 2

Last night I wasted some of my life watching "Sniper 2" on the tube. "Sniper", the original one , was pretty bad, but I like Tom Berenger o.k., so I gave it a shot. It pretty much seamlessly sucked, but I had to groan when he picked up a nice looking Mosin-Nagant and praised it as a "Mauser, 7.92, blah blah German blah".

There was absolutely no reason that a Mauser would have been more appropriate than the M-N, it was a gratuitous stupid technical error. Tom's sniper then blunders around the rest of the movie using little fieldcraft besides his permanent stone-camo facial expression. He uses the Mauser/Mosin in the ubiquitous sniper duel against some eurotrash dude with a modern rifle, shooting him, yes, in the eye through his scope. Original.

 

[mustanger98]

I like Tom Berenger as an actor too.

Thing about that bullet through the scope deal... that started with Hathcock shooting the NVA sniper that way. Thing is, with that legend, they think every sniper worth portraying has to do it that way, so for some reason, Beckett made that shot once in the first and second (of three) Sniper films.

The technical deal about the Mosin Nagant 91/30 being mistaken for a German Mauser 7.92mm... I fault the prop department for not sending the proper rifle for the scene. They probably figured the general public will never notice, but they don't count on us gun people IDing a weapon like some of us do. They may have also figured the 91/30 might at a glance be mistaken for a Gew88 which is also 7.92mm (changed diameters in 1905 from .318" to .323"). As for Berenger, from what I understand about him, he probably knew the difference, but did the scene with the lines as they were written in the script because that's how the writers, directors, and producers wanted it done. From what I've seen of MN 91/30's, most ain't that clean and most I've seen ain't that good in the accuracy department either, but mileage will vary one rifle to the next. Another thing I noticed is that rifle wasn't a "sniper rifle" when Beckett first picked it up... he changed the bolt and added the scope... so Beckett appearantly also had to be his own armorer not always being able to count on his unit armorer. How accurate that will be in real life, I have no idea. What gets me more than anything is Beckett is never seen zeroing his rifles.

Okay, changing the movie in question to "Uncommon Valor"... Gene Hackman portraying the Korean War vet, had the Garand. They showed him sighting in before they headed out on their mission. The unit sniper played by Patrick Swayze... I don't know whether he zeroed his rifle before the mission or not, but noticed he started out with the scoped M-14 and wound up with a BAR to make the long distance shots. However, IIRC, Hackman portrayed more long range shooting than Swayze did.

there was some made for TV movie about a guy who was using his lawn tractor to travel cross country to see his dying brother. In WW2 he was, you guessed it, a sniper.

"The Strait Story". Richard Farnsworth portrayed Alvin Strait. The lawn mower was a John Deere he bought after putting his old mower out of its missery with a double blast from a shotgun. Every dead-serious movie has at least one funny scene and that was it.

 

[Walter]

I would think that a sniper would want to be reasonably proficient with a pistol at close range in the event that he is spotted and somebody gets close. A bolt rifle has it's uses, but let's face it, a heavy scoped rifle isn't the ideal CQB weapon (unless you want to get into club mode, I suppose). But hey, I'm no sniping expert, nor do I play one on TV.

Snipers don't travel alone, at least the Marine Corps variety doesn't. They
move in two-man teams. Both are trained snipers, they rotate who carries
THE rifle. The other team member carries a selective-fire rifle to provide
cover should the need arise.

When I was in Viet Nam, one would carry a Remington 700 bull-barrel
scoped rifle, with 7.62 NATO match target rounds, and the other would
carry an M-14 that shot the same caliber. I don't remember seeing a
"scout/sniper" carrying a handgun, and we had them attached to our unit
several times.

Walter

 

[DRZinn]

I believe the shooter now carries a pistol, and the spotter an M-16.

 

[jason10mm]

I agree, the word "Sniper" is hollywood for "bad-ass". I guess Special Forces is just too common nowadays.

What I want to know is why the hell Booth ditched his Glock for that damned revolver. It is nice to see a wheelgun these days, but damn, talk about poor decisions...

I loved the scene where they search the ex-hitman. 1911 in a shoulder holster, .38 on the ankle, and a .22 SOB (I would have thought .380, but oh well). Classic scene until the chick starts to cry and Mr FBI lets the bad guy walk away unnoticed.

 

[MudPuppy]

When I was in some years back (Army, Infantry) sniper teams were indeed two man, 1 with an M21 (m14 variant) and the other with an M16.

Neither snipers nor 11B (aka riflemen) gave two squats about qualifying with the pistols (the old worn out issue 45s woulnd't have stood for it anyhow!)

Now, with the heavy MOUT situation in bagdad, there's prolly more emphasis on pistol craft.

But, to the original point, yeah, I'd think someone trained as a sniper is going for the gun with a scope and "increase distance".

 

[mustanger98]

Now, with the heavy MOUT situation in bagdad, there's prolly more emphasis on pistol craft.

I've been seeing "MOUT" referred to off and on lately. What is it? I'm guessing "Mobile-Operations-something-or-other".

 

[ghost457]

Military Operations in Urban Terrain

 

[mustanger98]

Thanks, ghost457.