Snipers don’t typically advertise their presence on the battlefield. This car was the hide site of
the infamous South Armagh Sniper, who were part of the IRA and ran a sniping campaign
against the British Army from 1990 to 1997. For the most part, military snipers could
easily spend 24 to 72 hours sitting in the hide anywhere, in the woods or in buildings.
But how this US Army soldier became a hero after surviving a sniper shot,
why military snipers don’t typically go for headshots and why their pants don’t have zippers,
how the rotation of Earth can make snipers miss their shot, and how in today’s warfare,
drones have already replaced snipers by large, is Not What You Think!
On July 2nd, 2005, an Iraqi insurgent sniper shot the US Army private first class,
Stephen Tschiderer, while The sniper’s companions were recording the whole ordeal with a camera.
Tschiderer took a shot to the chest, but was lucky because he was wearing his body armor.
He scrambled over and took cover behind a HUMVEE. Processing what had just happened,
he starts pointing toward the direction where he thinks the shot came from,
and he was right. Within seconds, two vehicles start driving toward the sniper, who was hiding
inside a van with 2 other men. They start driving away while being chased by the HUMVEEs,
which at some point started shooting at the van and injured the sniper, who then set off on foot.
“uh we ended up finding a blood trail from uh the wounds that he
had received. Followed that through a few homes” and then after a few minutes: “I jumped over the
wall after him, just ran up, grabbed him, dragged him out in the yard, patted him down to make sure
he didn't have anything else on him”
But what happened next was amazing. “I'm a medic it's my job doesn't
matter Friend or Foe. As soon as he's put down his weapons I got to treat him, so”
Tschiderer might be the only medic ever to have had the opportunity to help the
sniper who had shot him in the chest. “Uh to be truthful no I don't feel like
a hero. I mean I'm a soldier. I got shot, I reacted, covered my lane, went got him,
turned him in and that's all” Aside from special cases,
like the snipers who visibly patrol the roof of The White House as a deterrent , snipers
do their best not to be visible, even if they are right in front of you. And
that’s regardless of the surrounding environment. Here is a test: Can you
spot the sniper? It’s actually a sniper team, made up of a sniper and a spotter.
Even though snipers are outstanding marksmen,
there is no guarantee that they would hit their target on the first try.
On a clear day with no wind, a sniper would most likely hit a target that’s
up to 1000 yards away on the first try. And if it’s a miss, the ‘splash’ of the round,
which is where the round has landed in relation to the target, would give clues to the adjustments
needed for the next shot. The spotter would give quick, concise and accurate feedback so the sniper
can make the adjustment and send it again. “All right, I want you raise it up a mill,
and a quarter mil left. Re-engage” “Got’em”
But why would the sniper listen to the spotter? Isn’t the sniper “the guy”?
“Okay, the spotter is is the more experienced of the two. There a lot of people think the
sniper does everything. The shooter is the one that pulls the trigger,
is the one that knows everything. That's not true. The spotter is the more experienced.
He's the one that's doing all the math. All the calculations for wind. What the
shooter’s corrections need to be, and really the rounds and the shooter's weapon are the
spotters. He's going to tell the shooter exactly what to do, and when to do it”.
The biggest variable that impacts the accuracy of a shot, is cross wind. Spotters commonly use
a wind meter to measure the speed and direction of the wind at their location, but the wind could
be gusty and have different speeds between the spotter and the target, which complicates things.
Another important factor is gravity. As the bullet flies toward the target,
it is constantly pulled down by gravity. Basically, the bullet follows an arc, not a
straight line. The farther away from the target, the higher above the target you have to aim.
Typically all the adjustments are made by tuning the elevation or windage knobs,
and then lining up the target with the center of the crosshairs in the scope.
But if the sniper has already missed the first shot, they need to act quickly,
or the target may escape. So snipers may just “hold over“ the crosshairs off target
and use the fine measurement lines on the crosshairs to make the adjustments instead.
Aside from gravity, the rotation of Earth also impacts the trajectory of the bullet. This is
known as the Coriolis Effect. The Earth rotates from west to east, and once the bullet leaves
the barrel of the gun, the Earth rotates out from underneath the bullet. So if you're shooting west,
your target is going to rotate up and towards you, and this causes the bullets to hit lower
than expected. If you're facing East, the target is going to be dropping down, which is going to
cause the bullet to hit higher than anticipated. This is why flat-earthers don’t make good snipers!
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To properly account for the impact of the wind, gravity and the Coriolis effect,
knowing the exact distance to the target is crucial. To give you an idea,
if the target was 870 yards away , but the spotter incorrectly estimated the distance as 760 yards,
the bullet would hit the target 8 inches lower than expected, which can easily miss the target.
This is why spotters use laser rangefinder, which accurately calculate the distance by
sending a laser pulse in a narrow beam towards the target and measuring the time taken by the
pulse to be reflected off the target and returned to the sender. Consumer-grade rangefinders may
work up to 100 yards or so, whereas handheld military rangefinders operate at ranges of 1.2
to 15 miles and are combined with monoculars or binoculars. The more powerful rangefinders
are normally installed on a tripod and could see up to 25 miles away, according to Wikipedia! On
that note, the world record for the longest sniper kill was broken in November 2023,
by a 58-year old Ukrainian sniper, Vyacheslav Kovalsky, when he shot a Russian soldier from
a distance of 2.3 miles. That’s greater than the length of two Brooklyn Bridges in a row, and the
bullet would have traveled for almost 9 seconds. To prove this claim, this video was made public.
While a sniper is holding the rifle, each breath and the actual pull of the trigger slightly
move the whole system. These tiny changes are amplified as the distance to the target increases,
to the point that even a heartbeat can impact the accuracy of the shot. This is why snipers need
to be calm, to reduce their heartbeat, so they can pull the trigger in between heartbeats. In fact,
National Geographics once brought a sniper in and measured the exact
time that he pulled the trigger … which was bang on in the middle … just like his shot!
By the way, military snipers generally do not go for headshots. Think about it. Heads are small,
and they move around a lot, making them a difficult target, especially from longer
distances. The target of a military sniper is most likely more than 330 yards away,
so they instead aim for the center mass, which is the upper portion of the chest,
and that gives them a larger target, and a higher kill probability
Police snipers, on the other hand, generally shoot at much shorter distances,
and may attempt a more precise shot at a particular body part,
like the head, especially if the target is hiding behind a hostage.
Hitting a moving target is much more complicated than hitting a stationary target,
and that’s where these robots come into the picture. They can tell where each round hit,
and can communicate to the shooter whether or not it was effective in killing the target.
Now take all these factors into account,
and just imagine how much more challenging it would be to hit these moving targets from
a moving helicopter. So how do aerial snipers manage to hit these targets?
For stability, aerial snipers place their rifle on an X harness or a sling,
which helps absorb the vibrations of the helicopter. But even then,
aerial snipers typically don’t engage with targets that are more than 220 yards away,
compared to ground snipers who could engage at distances of over 1000 yards.
It is possible to hover in place and take a shot, but that makes the helicopter a much
more vulnerable target for counter attacks. This is why sometimes using a machine gun
on a moving helicopter is preferred to sniping. The helicopter pilot,
who also acts as the spotter, plays an important role in keeping the bird
stable and positioning it so that the sniper can take a better shot.
But on the ground, a sniper's greatest asset is not their weapon. Rather,
it is their ability to stay hidden. Afterall, a sniper who is found is more often than not,
a dead sniper, which way they prefer to dress up for the occasion.
This is the Ghillie suit, and it’s the primary article of clothing that snipers use for
concealment, but the Ghillie suit itself is not the camouflage. Snipers need to first “veg up”,
which means attaching branches, leaves, or other things to the Ghillie suit in order
to break up the 5 curves on the human body that are recognizable to the eye: sides of the neck
connecting to the shoulders, armpits, and the groin. According to some snipers, vegging up
can be dirty and itchy. Of course, the veg-up varies according to the terrain. For example,
in dry grassland the sniper will typically wear a ghillie suit covered in dead grass.
The clothing that a sniper wears also has some unique features, and no, they don’t buy all
their supplies and clothing from Target! For example, the fly on sniper pants is
not made of a zipper or Velcro. Because of all the crawling that snipers need to do,
dirt and debris can get stuck in zippers and Velcro, making them unusable. Imagine,
you have been hiding for hours and now you want to quietly relieve yourself. The last thing you
want is a stuck zipper. This is why sniper pants have buttons instead of zippers. And just like
doctors without borders, these are snipers without diapers! That luxury is reserved for astronauts!
Cordura 500 fabric is sewn on the front of the clothing,
which not only protects the body against rot and mildew, but is also quite abrasion resistant
Painting the face with colors that blend in with the environment and also vegging up the rifle, are
other important aspects of concealment. But the toughest part of a sniper’s job is yet to come.
One of the most difficult aspects of the sniper training course is stalking. Snipers have to learn
to move slowly, patiently and methodically for a stealthy approach toward their target. During
the stalking portion of the training, trainees spend a couple of hours moving at a snail's pace
through a wooded area with the goal of sneaking up and taking a shot at their instructors. The
instructors on the other side are looking for the trainees, hoping to find them first.
During combat, after spending days crawling, climbing, stinking, getting scratched and
bit by bugs, the sniper arrives at their hide site, where they remain concealed until they
need to take action. Even though shooting at targets is just one part of a sniper’s role,
it’s the only one that is highlighted in movies. In reality, snipers play an arguably
even more critical role. Reconnaissance, which is about 90% of what they do.
If a sniper can get within shooting distance from their target, they can also observe the
enemy and their movements. That information can then be sent back to orchestrate artillery fire
or an air strike. The sniper can then report back whether or not the target was hit effectively.
This is why aside from marksmanship, observation and intelligence gathering,
survival skills and land navigation, are things that snipers need to excel at. The
key to success is teamwork between the spotter and the sniper, but not everyone is made for this job.
The qualification course at the Army Sniper School in Fort Benning, Georgia, is seven weeks long,
where any military branch or federal agency can send their candidates. And because in 2015,
the US military opened all combat jobs to women, Sgt. Maciel Hay became
the very first US Army active-duty female sniper after graduating in November 2023.
According to the instructors at Fort Benning, only 4 out of 10
candidates make it through the course. In many ways, the psychological impact
imposed by snipers is quite similar to those of landmines and IEDs. Just like booby traps,
snipers pose a constant threat, with a high "per event" lethality, and it’s quite difficult for the
other side to strike back at them. In fact, extensive use of sniper tactics can be used
to induce constant stress and fear in opposing forces, making them afraid to move about. I don’t
think it’s controversial to say that it takes a special kind of person to become a sniper. I’m
not saying they don’t have feelings, but the running joke is that the first thing a sniper
feels after pulling the trigger, is recoil. That said, there is a very dangerous side to this job.
If captured by the enemy, snipers are more likely to be mistreated compared
to non-snipers. The rationale is that ordinary soldiers shoot at each other
at “equal opportunity” while snipers have a relatively low risk of receiving retaliation.
This is why snipers who find themselves in a dangerous situation, try to get rid of their
Ghillie suit and rifle, so if captured, they could try and hide their identity. But how
do you catch a sniper, and what could be done to make snipers less effective?
High value targets is what snipers are usually after, so as a passive countermeasure,
officers remove their rank insignia from their battle uniforms or use subdued insignia, which is
more difficult to identify. In addition, avoiding exaggerated saluting in the open or even setting
up “no salute zones” means snipers have a lesser chance of identifying higher ranking officers.
Examples of active countermeasures include using your own snipers
against the enemy snipers. After all, it takes one to know one!
The use of canine units is also popular, which had been very successful during the Vietnam War.
To replace a sniper, you don’t necessarily need a sophisticated rifle-carrying drone
that can take precision shots from the sky. Drones have already proven
extremely effective in the Ukraine war. They can both drop munitions on the enemy positions,
and provide reconnaissance to help adjust artillery shots. Drones have in fact made
the job much more difficult for snipers, since drones equipped with thermal cameras
can expose even well-camouflaged snipers as their body heat is likely to expose them.