[ Ian Ruins the Elbonian Sniper Corps ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another "Ask Ian" Q&A on Forgotten Weapons.
I'm Ian, and today we are going back to Elbonia.
So our question today comes from Tim on Patreon, who says,
"The great nation of Elbonia is looking to spin up a sniper program,
what rifles do you attempt to sell them?"
And have I got this one, this is so ...
"PS. They know better than to adopt ZF-41 scopes." Crap.
OK, so we're going to have to think this one through a little bit more.
The ZF-41 is just such an obvious answer that - OK, fair enough, that's too easy.
So ... let me just recap the concept of Elbonia here
if you haven't seen the some of the previous Elbonia questions, I think it's a really fun one.
The idea is you are the traitorous Defence Minister of the nation of Elbonia,
you are responsible for picking small arms,
but you are actually trying to sabotage the national defence.
But you can't be obvious that you're sabotaging the national defence.
So you have to pick something that seems good on the surface,
or is arguably good, and yet will actually be catastrophically bad.
So snipers, ZF-41 again, too easy.
My thought is if I wanted to sabotage a sniper program
there would be a couple of things that I would want to do.
The first thing is I would want to minimise training.
So I would highlight what are all the things that sound like a really good idea
because they simplify the process of long-range shooting.
And they take factors out of the equation so that you can shorten the training time for your snipers,
and just everything's automated and done easily.
Because the reality of long-range shooting is that it is complicated
and it requires practice, understanding and skill.
And you can like do a short-term training session and get some guys who are
pretty decent at moderate ranges and maybe even at long ranges under favourable conditions.
But when you put those guys into real stress, when the conditions are unfavourable,
... now it's raining, the target's 800 metres away, you've been out in the bush for 3 days already,
and if you have to fire two shots the enemy is going to
figure out where you are, and they're going to come and kill you.
That's the kind of place where a properly trained sniper has the mental fortitude
and has a lot of these processes and variables factored into their head
through so much practice that they don't have to think about them, but they'll do them right.
Whereas a poorly trained or amateur long-range shooter or sniper
is going to just fold, they're going to make mistakes, and they're going to fail.
And if I'm trying to sabotage a sniper program, I want to set up that.
I want a program that's like the modern Russian army of snipers,
where it looks really good on paper, and everyone thinks it's great.
And when it actually comes to serious operations, they just completely fall apart.
So the way I would do that, I mean first off, if it's an option, ... I'd buy TrackingPoint rifles.
Like equip the entire program with first generation TrackingPoint rifles
where you don't even need to learn anything about drop
because it's got a laser and it's got a calculator and it'll do the whole thing for you.
And you just hold down the trigger and kind of wiggle the rifle around until
the crosshair sits on the target and, boom, then it fires.
Neglecting to mention that it doesn't do anything about windage,
which is a huge issue when you get beyond a couple of hundred metres.
Now I don't think TrackingPoints, like ... are they still in business?
I'm honestly not sure if they're still around, but I'm going to assume that
they're probably too expensive for Elbonia anyway.
And so my backup plan is something like this.
This is a Russian scope that is actually mechanically very similar to the
American ART scopes, the Auto-Ranging Telescope from Vietnam.
And the concept here is it simplifies the whole process,
it makes long range shooting far easier because there is a BDC cam, a Ballistic Drop Compensator.
Which is to say ... it's a contoured cam in the scope.
Where you click it to a certain range and it automatically elevates the scope enough
to accommodate for bullet drop at that range.
Well on this and on the ART, that is tied to the magnification dial.
And it's this brilliant idea (cue the good idea fairy),
that the further away the target is
the more magnification you're going to need, and you just tie those two things together.
And you can include a known size box in the scope.
And so let's say it's shoulder width, like torso size of a human.
And so now you don't even need to know what the range is,
you simply find your humanoid target, you adjust the scope magnification
until the box fits around the target and then it's automatically set the BDC for you.
And you just hold centre on the target and fire, and presto, you'll make a hit.
Which all sounds really good and ... it's not necessarily a hindrance.
It can be, you certainly have issues,
like, "Well, what if my target's only 300 metres away but he's not conveniently standing full profile
and I just have a little view of something that I need to hit."
Or "I'm not shooting at a human, what if I'm trying to shoot at the wheel of a vehicle,
or the observation port on a bunker?"
Well, now ... that auto-size thing isn't necessarily all that helpful,
and maybe I want 9x power magnification at 300 metres.
Well, now my scope has automatically set its drop to 900 metres,
and there's no way for me to mechanically undo that.
I have to now figure out in my head how much under the target do I have to hold
if I'm shooting at actually let's not say 300, let's make it fun, I'm actually shooting at 328 metres,
and the scope's set for 900, how do you?
That becomes a very difficult prospect in the field.
Whereas ... if you don't try and skip the hard work
and you put in the proper time learning trajectory, learning ballistics,
learning how to work with mils or MOA and ... set your scope,
a shot like that becomes very simple. "Oh, 300 yards, I know my drop at 300.
I can set my magnification to whatever I need for a particular shot.
If there's wind I can compensate for it.
If I'm at an angle, I can compensate for that.
Angle ... can play a fairly substantial role
in elevation adjustment if you're shooting upwards or downwards.
Anyway, my goal for Elbonia as the traitorous Defence Minister
is every excuse I can come up with to simplify their training programs
so that the snipers aren't really actually all that good once they get in the field.
Now if I want to double down on this, I would take these scopes,
and then I would fit them on a multi-calibre interchangeable-barrelled rifle platform.
And I think I can pass that off pretty well as both a cost savings, and a modularity thing,
and it expands the capabilities of the snipers.
Like here ... we go, we can have a suppressed .300 Blackout, or a suppressed 8.6 Blackout,
or a suppressed 9x39 barrel for the sniper rifles for urban operations and sneaky tactical stuff.
And then we can use the same rifle platform and swap it out,
and now we can have our 7.62 or 6.5 proper rifle.
Or maybe we go from a standard length .308 or a 6.5 cartridge
up to a .338 Magnum sort of thing. This is our long-range sniper platform.
But we keep the same scopes and you know it's no big deal,
you just switch out the BDC cams for the proper cartridge.
Which is fine, but you know that inevitably people will forget to do it,
they'll lose track of which cam is in the scope,
they'll ... take a scope off of one rifle,
(we definitely want these to be quick-detach scopes to encourage this sort of mistake making),
they'll pull the scope off of the small calibre and put it on the big calibre, or vice versa.
And won't realise it till they get out on the range and the first shot goes wildly who knows where
and nobody's really quite sure how to fix it.
That's how I would try to sabotage the Elbonian Sniper Corps.
Anyway Tim, I think that was a really fun question.
To be fair, there are a lot of Elbonia questions that are like, ehh, yeah.
But the ones that are fun are the ones that really make you think
about what's important, and what works and what doesn't work in a particular weapon system.
So thank you all for watching, hopefully you enjoyed that one.
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