Operations

by

MSG Kon Fuhrman

SGM Rodolfo Garza

Group Room R 11

26 March 2004 -_.. _-----

Fuhnnan ii

Sniping Operations

I. Introduction.

Snipers have quietly played a significant role throughout the history ofwarfare. Feared by the enemy, miss-trusted by their senior leadership, took the fight to forces much larger and scored a higher body count than many combined units. Today in OEF and OIF, snipers playa major role on the battlefield, not just with the "one well aimed shot", but also through the tasks ofreconnaissance and surveillance.

a. References: See works cited.

b. The majority ofresearch was extracted from FM 23-14, Sniper Employment and Operations; 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Program ofInstruction (POI); and the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (USAJFKSWCS) Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTrC) POI. In addition, much of the topic covered was gleaned from my own experience as a Sniper for the past 15 years.

II. Body

a. History ofSniping. (1) Definition and origin of terms: Sniper, Ghillie (2) Sniper Operations from 1700s to Viet Nam (2) Sniper Operations from 1970s to present

b. Sniper Employment (1) The Sniper Team (2) Long Range Target Interdiction (3) Surveillance and Reconnaissance

c. Sniper Weapons (1) Historical; , MICID Garand, M141M211M25, McMillan (2) Current Weapons and Equipment; M24 SWS, SR-25, M82 series

d. Sniper "Shot". 9 steps for a first shot hit

III. Closing

a. Summary b. Questions c. Conclusion Fuhnnan 1

The sniper is one ofthe most effective weapons on the field ofbattle. Since the invention of

, skilled individuals with specialized equipment have influenced the tide ofbattle. At

times, this effect has been enough to tum the tide of history. From Leonardo da Vinci to present,

the long-range rifleman has had an effect on the direction, drive and scope ofbattle. With his

discriminatory nature, he has eliminated the command structure ofhis enemies, rendered their

equipment useless and struck fear into the hearts of their fighting men. He is deliberate and

precise. He is not a superman, capable ofincredible feats, but he is skilled in ways that many

misunderstand. The term sniper in its purest sense describes a soldier who spends the vast

majority of his mission time gathering intelligence for his higher and occasionally takes the one, well-aimed shot that, ifdone properly, will save lives.

The term sniper originated in the United Kingdom at the end ofthe 18th century. British

soldiers would compete in skills of marksmanship shooting at the snipe, a small bird. Soldiers that could hit the bird were referred to as sniper. Another term used in the sniper community is the ghillie suit. Ghillies were the Kings game wardens in the United Kingdom in the 1600s and

1700s. In the pursuit of catching peasants poaching the Kings deer, these Ghillies wore burlap suits to conceal themselves in the woods. Thus the term used nowadays, ghillie suit.

The United States has been using snipers since the American Revolution. Many famous units were "units comprised oflong-range marksmen" (Plaster 16). One of these units was Morgan's

Riflemen. Morgan's riflemen were a group of handpicked sharpshooters. Daniel Morgan, a

Pennsylvania frontiersman and first cousin of Daniel Boone, recruited these sharpshooters. In

June 1777, General Washington authorized Morgan to raise a special corps of 500 infantrymen who were chosen for their marksmanship. Given the official name Rangers, they came to be known as Morgan's Riflemen. Fuhnnan 2

During the Civil War, both the North and the South used long-range marksmen. Col. Hiram

Berdan was the commanding officer ofthe 1st and 2nd US Sharpshooters. Under his tutelage, skilled Union marksmen were trained and equipped with the .52 caliber Sharps . It has been claimed that Berdan's units were responsible for killing more enemy than any unit in the Union

Anny (Sniper Country). On 9 May 1864 a confederate sniper took what was to be considered an incredible shot at that time. During the Battle of Spotsylvania, Sgt. Grace ofthe 4th Georgia

Infantry took aim and fired at a distant Union officer. Grace was using a British Whitworth target rifle and the distance was 800 yards. Grace's target, Major General John Sedgwick, fell dead. (Sniper Country).

Arguably, the most famous United States sniper in United States history is Marine Corps

Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock II. Probably the name most associated with modern sniping in the United States, Carlos Hathcock has become a legend in sniper and communities across the United States. The lessons learned by Hathcock and others during the Vietnam conflict were used to rebuild and revitalize sniping within the US military.

His influence on the development of the military sniper cannot be exaggerated. Even today, some 30 years later, his name is still well known wherever sniper training is taking place.

Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock carried out many extraordinary missions during the Viet Nam war.

During one mission, Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock destroyed an entire NYA company over the span of 5 days. Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock and corporal John Burke pinned down a fresh company ofNY A regulars in what was known as the Elephant valley. Facing amazing odds, the two snipers forced the company to sit in place while they slowly decimated the enemy, one by one. At the end ofthe fifth day, Hathcock and Burke used another sniper skill and called down effective artillery fire, which killed every man left alive (Sniper Country). Fuhrman 3

Another amazing Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock feat is the longest recorded kill with a .50

BMG mounting a telescopic . Hathcock was one ofseveral individuals to utilize the

Browning .50 caliber heavy in the sniping role. This success has led to the development of a modern .50 caliber sniping rifle for heavy target interdiction (Sniper Country).

The two most famous names in sniping operations since the end ofthe Viet Nam war are those ofU.S. Army Master Sergeant Gary I. Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randall Shugart.

On October 3, 1993, members of the United States Army's Task Force Ranger went on a mission to capture Gen. Mohammed Farah Aided and to arrest his staff. The mission went awry when the soldiers ran into greater than expected opposition. The Somalis began shooting down U.S. helicopters. When the helicopter containing Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant went down,

Gordon and Shugart requested permission to insert and attempt to establish a security perimeter.

After several requests, they were given authorization to insert. The two were set down approximately one hundred meters from the crash site. Shugart and Gordon fought their way through a maze ofshanties and mud huts to the downed helicopter. Once at the site, they set up a perimeter, started first aid for the wounded, redistributed ammunition and commenced to keep the hostile crowd at bay. Ultimately Shugart and Gordon were killed in the ensuing battle, but their actions possibly kept Chief Warrant Officer Mike Durant alive. As a result oftheir actions, the United States Government awarded the two commandos the Medal ofHonor for their honor and bravery against insurmountable odds (Bowden).

Contrary to the image ofthe "Lone wolf' sniper, creeping across a battlefield in pursuit of game, a sniper is not ofmuch use without a partner. Snipers work best in a team of at least two.

The two man team is traditionally broken down into a spotter and a shooter. The spotter is the most important job and is usually the senior or most experienced man. The spotter has the Fuhrman 4 mission of locating targets and relaying the location of the target to the shooter using a crafted and carefully rehearsed verbal exchange. Once the target is located and the spotter has talked the shooter onto target, the process begins to place one well-aimed shot onto the target. This is accomplished using a process in which several factors are taken into account. The spotter undertakes the majority ofwork that goes into the classic sniper shot. This is the reason that the role of spotter is best filled by the most experienced man. The mission ofthe sniper team is 95% reconnaissance and 5% shooting. Most of the time the sniper team is gathering information for the command. To accomplish this, the sniper team spends the majority of its time observing the targeted area of interest. This task is best accomplished with two snipers that can rotate into and out of the observer role.

The sniper weapons system is an accurized long-range rifle with telescopic sights. Weapons specially designated as long-range marksman go back as far as the civil war. One of the most widely used sniper rifles of the civil war was the British made Whitworth percussion muzzle loaded rifle. During the Red River Campaign in 1864, Captain John Metcalf of the US

Army Engineers used a heavy barrel .50 caliber muzzle-loading Whitworth to kill a Confederate officer at a distance of 1666 meters. This was an incredible shot even by today's standards. The

Whitworth rifle that CPT Metcalf used weighed between 50 and 59Ibs., and was fitted with a

24x power . The Confederate officer was standing in front ofa tent on a distant hillside, which Metcalfhad previously established the range to with a surveyor's transit. The took approximately five seconds to reach the target. During World War I, the 1903 Model

Springfield was the main U.S. . The 1903 Springfield was used as a sniper rifle through World War II. In addition to the 1903 Springfield, the Ml Garand, which entered service in 1936, was used as a U.S. sniper rifle. In the sniper configuration, the Ml Garand was Fuhrman 5 tuned up and given the designation ofM1C or MID. The Viet Nam conflict brought forth a variety ofbolt action and gas blowback rifles given the designation ofsniper rifle. One of the first rifles used in country as a sniper rifle was a target grade Winchester model 70. This was usually a .30-06 rifle outfitted with a Unertl 8x power telescopic site. While this set up worked quite well on the rifle range, in the jungle it had its problems. One, a target grade rifle was too heavy. Second, the Unertl scope was about two feet long! As a replacement for the Winchester model 70, the United States Marine Corps was the first to test and field the Remington model

700. Designated the M-40, it was now chambered in 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester) and outfitted with a more respectable 3-9x power Redfield telescopic sight. The Remington 700 was light, rugged, accurate and dependable. Shots of 600 yards were the norm, with shots in excess of 1000 yards reported. Between October of 1969 and March of 1970, Rock Island Arsenal converted 1,435 national match M14 rifles to the XM-21 configuration. Rock Island shipped

1,200 of these to Viet Nam in March of 1970 (Nordic Sniper). The M14/XM21 was a gas operated, semi automatic rifle. It was chambered in 7.62 NATO. It was an improved version of the from earlier days, and in the early days of Viet Nam, the M14 was the main battle rifle. The XM-21 stayed in service with the United States Army as the primary sniper weapon until 1988. In the mid 1980s, the Army decided it needed a completely new sniper weapons system designed around the 7.62mm NATO, 173 grain Ml18 Special Ball ammunition.

In 1986 bids were accepted for this new sniper weapons system. The winning contractor was

Remington Arms, the same company that had made the M40 during Viet Nam. This new sniper rifle was designated the M24 Sniper Weapons System (SWS). The M24 was fitted with a

Kevlar-graphite with aluminum bedding and an adjustable butt stock. The Leupold Ultra

M3A lOx power x 42mm telescopic sight with mil dot was chosen as the primary optic. Fuhnnan 6

The secondary sight system chosen was the extremely accurate Redfield Palma competition . The barrel chosen for the Ml18 Special Ball was a Remington heavy barrel with five lands and grooves and a 1 in 11.25 right hand twist. This twist was needed, as the M118

Special Ball fired from a 24-inch barrel generates a muzzle velocity ofover 2800 feet per second. In October of 1988, the first ofapproximately 2500 M24 SWS were fielded to Ranger and Special Forces units. Starting in the mid 1990s, Knight Armament Company out ofVero

Beach, Florida started fielding Special Operations Units with the Stoner SR-25 sniper rifle. The

SR-25 is a semi automatic rifle that is almost identical in operation to the M16 series ofrifles. It is a gas operated 7.62 mm NATO rifle. It fires most match grade 7.62 mm ammunition and is normally equipped with the same Leupold Ultra M3A telescopic sight as the M24 SWS. This rifle has almost replaced the M24 SWS as the primary sniper rifle in most Special Operations

Units. Starting before Operation Desert Storm, the military realized a need for a large, heavy grained round for large target interdiction of equipment at great distance. The .50 caliber

Browning Machine Gun (BMG) round was chosen because ofits historical reliability (Nordic

Sniper). The rifle chosen for this round was the M82 series Barrett. This rifle was initially designed for the .50 BMG round, but has since been redesigned around the Mk 211 Raufoss round. This round is an armor piercing, incendiary round designed for destroying equipment.

This M82 series will remain in the military arsenal for sometime, but its replacement is already being researched.

Most people, when they hear the term sniper, envision one thing; that one precise shot. As previously stated, this is a sniper capability, but an under utilized capability at best. Earlier in this article, the sniper team was discussed, as was mentioned the process ofthe sniper shot.

Following are the nine steps for a first-shot hit: Fuhrman 7

1. Detennine the range to the target in meters. This is accomplished a number ofways.

Most sniper teams now have a laser range finder, but the Leupold Ultra M3A scope is designed for ranging targets.

2. Detennine the base wind direction in relation to you and the target, as well as wind speed, especially from mid-point to the target.

3. Detennine spin drift correction. The bullet spins to the right from the time of ignition. As it travels farther down range, the spin causes the bullet to drift to the right. You can apply corrections to the scope to counter this.

4. Detennine the temperature change from base zero. Up to 500 meters, a plus or minus temperature change from the initial rifle zero of 20 degrees can upset the point ofimpact by one minute of . One minute ofangle is a unit ofmeasurement that roughly translates into 1" at

100 yards, 2' at 200 yards, etc.

5. Detennine the barometric pressure change from base zero.

6. Detennine altitude change from base zero. Over 6000 feet ASL, an increase of 1000 feet can affect the strike ofthe round by one minute of angle.

7. Detennine lead if a moving target.

8. Assume a good firing position.

9. Fire the shot.

ONE SHOT, ONE KILL!!! Fuhrman 8

Books

Bowden, Mark. Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modem War. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1999.

Plaster, John. Ultimate Sniper: An Advanced Training Manual For Military and Police Snipers. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press; 1993.

United States Department of the Army. Field Manual 23-10, Sniper Training. Washington, DC: Headquarters, DA, 1994.

United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Special Operations Target Interdiction Course Program ofInstruction. Ft Bragg, NC: USAJFKSWCS; 1997.

Internet Resources

Ferreira, Marius. Sniper Country. 1996-2004. 15 March 2004 .

Web Master. Nordic Sniper. 1999-2004. 18 March 2004 .