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 Post subject: Scout Sniper, Designated Marksman, Permutations thereof, and Ollie
PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 6:02 am 
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Quite some time ago, ollie and I had a long discussion over the ideal construction of a rifle squad.

Specifically we discussed the Designated Marksman concept, which has been kicked around the free world since oh at least the 80s.

Here's how it works. One guy per squad gets, rather than an assault rifle in 5.56x45, a semiautomatic accurized rifle in 7.62x51 NATO. the US has been observed doing this with M14s in Afghanistan, and is believed to be using this concept in Iraq to an extent. The advantage is, if an enemy is encountered at say 500+ metres, and the boys with assault rifles can't hit him, and there is a deficiency in time for or availability of fire support, Sharpshooter here will pop him before he can set up his Infantry Mortar etc.

Since I am always looking for an excuse to get motre powerful, longer range rifles to the common infantryman, I was all for the idea. hand 'em out get 'em trained for it etc.

However, Ollie took the position, if I state it correctly, that, even in abscence of the fire support that he has such faith in, this function is served by scout snipers currently in service, who operate in more mobile, flexible teams at the company level. If indeed, anything need be done, it would be better, in his estimation, simply to increase the number and presence of scout snipers.

I admit, in light of his argument I am torn. The fact is, I hate the 5.56 (.223) as a military cartridge and consider it almost entirely without merit compared to any other reasonable option. That aside though, it does make sense to get the best effect from those capable of precision marksmanship whith a heavier rifle, leaving the assault rifles and SAWs to those with the fire discipline of rabid monkeys.

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Last edited by Clay_Allison on Thu May 27, 2004 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Scout Sniper, Designated Marksman, Permutations thereof, and Ollie
PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 6:15 am 
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Clay_Allison wrote:
Specifically we discussed the Designated Marksman concept, which has been kicked around the free world since oh at least the 80s.


in the non-free world, i.e. the former Soviet sphere, this has been in vogue for the last century or so, with platoon level marksmen operating with accurized Mosin Nagants with scopes followed by the Dragunov, while often called a sniper rifle it's more of a squad marksman's rifle, being Soviet style rugged construction yet not really top of the line accuracy wise, and it still uses a 19th century cartridge, but is still an effective weapon

but yes, anyone else have any input?

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 6:25 am 
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One of the corpies recently was talking about 3-4 snipers to a platoon as a standard rather than an atachment. Thats pretty much a sniper to each squad.


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 Post subject: Re: Scout Sniper, Designated Marksman, Permutations thereof, and Ollie
PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 7:40 am 
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ollie wrote:
Clay_Allison wrote:
Specifically we discussed the Designated Marksman concept, which has been kicked around the free world since oh at least the 80s.


in the non-free world, i.e. the former Soviet sphere, this has been in vogue for the last century or so, with platoon level marksmen operating with accurized Mosin Nagants with scopes followed by the Dragunov, while often called a sniper rifle it's more of a squad marksman's rifle, being Soviet style rugged construction yet not really top of the line accuracy wise, and it still uses a 19th century cartridge, but is still an effective weapon

but yes, anyone else have any input?


I think you exaggerate the time, it couldn't be more than about 60 years, starting in the Great Patriotic War (WWII). The Sea Infantry (Marines) and experienced Non-Coms were issued The Tokarev SVT-40s. I am still confused as to why this design wasn't simply improved upon, rather than adopting the overgrown AK of a rifle that the Dragunov was. The SVT was almost up to western accuracy standards. The Dragunov is a 4 Minute of Angle rifle. Horrible by any standards. The M14 after being accurized is a 1 Minute of angle rifle. The AR series are capable of better than .5 MOA.

Of course every time I try to understand the russians, I have to remember the disposable soldier concept.

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One's for sport and one's for blood
At the point of a knife, Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall,
There ain't a winner in this game
Who don't go home with all, Not with all...


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 Post subject: Re: Scout Sniper, Designated Marksman, Permutations thereof, and Ollie
PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 9:53 am 
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Clay_Allison wrote:
I think you exaggerate the time, it couldn't be more than about 60 years, starting in the Great Patriotic War (WWII).


well ok, they used Tsarist era Mosin Nagant rifles converted into sniper rifles (Snayperskaya vintovka) in the 30s, part of the reconstruction of the Red Army, the Russian arms industry was almost destroyed by the long years of revolution and civil war, so it took them until then to standardise the actual design and issuing of weapons. The name of the gun says it all, the M91/30 = (18)91 as the design year of the basic rifle and (19)30 as the year of it's conversion, by down turning the bolt and fixing a scope. this is the WW2 version, designed a decade earlier but based on a Soviet/Russian standard of issuing trained marksmen to units as standard, rather than the west who only seemed to start up sniper schools during a war, rather than as standard (fixed now) but it was an oversight the Soviets didn't make

but still 70+ years of official sniper rifle production and integration is pretty good

Clay_Allison wrote:
The Sea Infantry (Marines) and experienced Non-Coms were issued The Tokarev SVT-40s. I am still confused as to why this design wasn't simply improved upon, rather than adopting the overgrown AK of a rifle that the Dragunov was (...) Of course every time I try to understand the Russians, I have to remember the disposable soldier concept.


and that's you answer right there, the SVT was very good on paper, but in use to was found to be very susceptible to jamming and generally breaking down, this was found to be mostly related to poor care and cleaning by the soldier it was issued to, hence senior NCOs and some snipers mainly being the ones to receive it. it was reasoned that the longer serving, more professional soldiers would both be able to understand how to clean their weapons, and make better use of them in action than the standard illiterate "disposable soldier" issued with a Mosin Nagant and 5 rounds of ammunition

as such the SVT was abandoned to the wartime need to make a load of ok rifles for idiots rather than a few good rifles for pros, after the war the SKS was the new semi-auto rifle replacing the SVT all together and then followed the AK being standardised and in service. this spawned the Dragunov SVD in the mid 60s, as you rightly say an "overgrown AK of a rifle" which was just what they wanted, it looked like and operated like an AK so any trooper could pick one up and naturally be able to use it, less training time and great in an emergency

the interesting thing is that the action is actually based on a mix of rotating 3 lug bolt from the AK series and the short stroke piston of the Tokarev. The Yugoslavian M76 'versions' are actually little more than long barrelled, semi-auto only AKs, and it fires a different round (7.92x57mm) than the SVD, so i guess everyone has a slightly different idea on how to make a good rifle, even when given the same start

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PostPosted: Thu May 27, 2004 11:26 pm 
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It is a shame, really, that the 7.62x39 is such a bloody inaccurate cartridge. Owing to the excessive body taper (for easy loading into poorly machined chambers), also to inconsistent manufacturing standards, poor powder, and the lousy ballistic coefficient of a 110 grain bullet in 7.62mm* it is simply not good enough to be chambered accurately, regardlesss of the firearm. If they had gone with a less repulsive cartridge with similar ballistics, say in 6-6.5mm (85-100 grains, 800-875 Metres per second) they could have used the AKs for the common soldier and retained accurized SKS Rifles for the designated marksmen type, without relying on the 7.62x54.

*Actually that is just nominal, it is closer to 7.65, or .311 in. or .303 in Ye Olde Englishe bore diameter nomenclature, God it's like fucking Alchemy isn't it?

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We used to play for silver, Now we play for life.
One's for sport and one's for blood
At the point of a knife, Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall,
There ain't a winner in this game
Who don't go home with all, Not with all...


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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2004 1:00 pm 
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The 7.62 nato round, with proper loads (handloaded as match-grade ammo, and not the piss-assed machine loaded production rounds), in a tight tolerance M21 (sniper version of the M14) can place consistent groupings (under 2 inches) at 750 meters. One weapon per fire team, or squad, gives longer range effective fire. It has been a debated subject within the US armed forces for years. It cannot make it to becoming Tradoc standard due to the constant shifting of political opinions in the upper levels of the brass (the whole fucking democrat/republican shit-mess-thingy) and the replacement of staff after nearly every election.

The Russians, despite using a less than stellar weapon (the dragunov) have followed this basic practice of longer range weapons in rifle squads and other units for many decades.
If they were improve the dragnov, and it doesn't take a lot to do so, I know as I have done so with mine, they would have a weapon that could compete with the refined M21s.

As for the current US sniper rifle, the only way to improve the bolt slammer (yep it is a bolt action) would be to use the 6.5x55 swedish rounds.
I use the 6.5 as a hunting round in my old mauser (large ring) that grampa Wille got out of Germany (still has a fuckin nazi proofmark under the scope mounts). It is on of the flattest shooting rounds I have used, and is a pin setter out to 600 meters. Longest hit I ever had was close to 700 meters (across a valley to the next ridge with a hidden gorge at the bottom, gads what a hunting trip!) on a 7 point Bull elk. He only took 1 step after he was struck.
Smaller than that is the 6mm Remington, also listed as a .244. It has great knockdown capacity, but is limited in its effective range to around 450 meters (effectively killing, not just hitting). Like the 6.5. it has a very flat trajectory. In my opinion, it would be the ideal cartridge to run in the M16 family. When used with FMJ rounds, it has the same entry and follow thru effects as the 5.56 FMJ rounds. The longer killing range over the 5.56 is the plus.
The 5.56, or .223 is nothing more than a perversion of the .222, a very effective varmit (gophers, pararie dogs, up to coyote) that has been around for a long time out west here. I never liked the idea of shooting at someone with a varmit gun. When I am to fire at a person, I want a cartridge that will basically insure that my 'opponent' is dead. I don't care for the whole wounding and then taking up additional personnel to see to the wounded idea.
One shot, one kill, one less enemy, one less change of yourself becoming dead. There is a measure of Honor in a clean and quick kill. I wouldn't wound an animal, why should I do the same to a person.

Anyway, getting back to the sniper issue, while I was serving, they had an idea to install snipers and waepons to almost every platoon in the service, with grunts getting more per team/squad/section than say, a rear support unit. Even the admin and finance units were planned to get a sniper qualified staffer. The whole idea was to increase the firepower through longer range fire, and better observation. I went to sniper school to fill this role, and helped to improve the M21 over the exsisting weapons.
The only problem we encountered was after a election had occured, a new group was installed in the upper levels, and the program was scrapped while still in its infancy, in favor of doing nothing to please some dumbasses who knew didly-shit-nothing about military service, tactics, or the like. Politics are what runs the doctrine of our fighting forces, and until we get some pentagon staff with Brass Balls 'THIS_________________________________________BIG', implementing the use of 'snipers' into the mainstream of our forces will continue to be a struggle, just as it has been since the Civil War.


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PostPosted: Fri May 28, 2004 2:46 pm 
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SCOUT snipers obviously get less time and money spent on their weapons when ppl consider shooting to actually be a secondary role to target locating, intel gathering etc as so many top thinkers really have a bit of an uneasy feeling about snipers, just like choosing bullets that actually *kill* rather than wound, it all gets a little squeamish in some circles looking for a 'humane' way of waging war

the Dragunov is meant to use match-grade 7.62x54R in it's sniper role, but how true that is in actual reality, especially today with the falling apart of the post-soviet armed forces, chances are they're issued with standard machinegun ammo

British forces use these rifles in NATO standard 7.62mm (match grade or normal) for the L96 Sniper Rifle and the .338 Magnum (8.59mm) in the top grade L115A1 Long Range Rifle, how does that sound?

with all of the talk of bullets tho, a British sniper team in the gulf were decorated for a bit of close combat house clearing, only one of the Iraqis killed was by rifle fire, the rest in grenade/SA80 action...

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:39 pm 
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I say screw the conventions of war. I want to use any size bullet of any type I want. If I want hollowpoint rounds or anything else, I should be able to use them. Enough dancing around the issue trying to pretend to be civilized. Just gimme a bullet that will kill someone before he can kill me. Preferably as messily and as far away as possible.

I prefer the idea of having a sniper attached to every squad. And ditch the fricking 5.56 rifles, they suck.

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 9:52 am 
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MR. Dead wrote:
The 7.62 nato round, with proper loads (handloaded as match-grade ammo, and not the piss-assed machine loaded production rounds), in a tight tolerance M21 (sniper version of the M14) can place consistent groupings (under 2 inches) at 750 meters. One weapon per fire team, or squad, gives longer range effective fire. It has been a debated subject within the US armed forces for years. It cannot make it to becoming Tradoc standard due to the constant shifting of political opinions in the upper levels of the brass (the whole fucking democrat/republican shit-mess-thingy) and the replacement of staff after nearly every election.

The Russians, despite using a less than stellar weapon (the dragunov) have followed this basic practice of longer range weapons in rifle squads and other units for many decades.
If they were improve the dragnov, and it doesn't take a lot to do so, I know as I have done so with mine, they would have a weapon that could compete with the refined M21s.

As for the current US sniper rifle, the only way to improve the bolt slammer (yep it is a bolt action) would be to use the 6.5x55 swedish rounds.
I use the 6.5 as a hunting round in my old mauser (large ring) that grampa Wille got out of Germany (still has a fuckin nazi proofmark under the scope mounts). It is on of the flattest shooting rounds I have used, and is a pin setter out to 600 meters. Longest hit I ever had was close to 700 meters (across a valley to the next ridge with a hidden gorge at the bottom, gads what a hunting trip!) on a 7 point Bull elk. He only took 1 step after he was struck.
Smaller than that is the 6mm Remington, also listed as a .244. It has great knockdown capacity, but is limited in its effective range to around 450 meters (effectively killing, not just hitting). Like the 6.5. it has a very flat trajectory. In my opinion, it would be the ideal cartridge to run in the M16 family. When used with FMJ rounds, it has the same entry and follow thru effects as the 5.56 FMJ rounds. The longer killing range over the 5.56 is the plus.
The 5.56, or .223 is nothing more than a perversion of the .222, a very effective varmit (gophers, pararie dogs, up to coyote) that has been around for a long time out west here. I never liked the idea of shooting at someone with a varmit gun. When I am to fire at a person, I want a cartridge that will basically insure that my 'opponent' is dead. I don't care for the whole wounding and then taking up additional personnel to see to the wounded idea.
One shot, one kill, one less enemy, one less change of yourself becoming dead. There is a measure of Honor in a clean and quick kill. I wouldn't wound an animal, why should I do the same to a person.

Anyway, getting back to the sniper issue, while I was serving, they had an idea to install snipers and waepons to almost every platoon in the service, with grunts getting more per team/squad/section than say, a rear support unit. Even the admin and finance units were planned to get a sniper qualified staffer. The whole idea was to increase the firepower through longer range fire, and better observation. I went to sniper school to fill this role, and helped to improve the M21 over the exsisting weapons.
The only problem we encountered was after a election had occured, a new group was installed in the upper levels, and the program was scrapped while still in its infancy, in favor of doing nothing to please some dumbasses who knew didly-shit-nothing about military service, tactics, or the like. Politics are what runs the doctrine of our fighting forces, and until we get some pentagon staff with Brass Balls 'THIS_________________________________________BIG', implementing the use of 'snipers' into the mainstream of our forces will continue to be a struggle, just as it has been since the Civil War.


Funny you should mention the 6.5x55 Swede. That just happens to be about my favorite all time cartridge.

For military use, I'd have to go with a .260 Remington, which is the .308 necked down to 6.5mm, it has the same ballistics as the Swede, but it works through a short action, also, with a change of barrel, any 7.62 NATO rifle becomes a .260.

One of these days, I'm going to get an accurized G-3 re-barrelled for it.

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We used to play for silver, Now we play for life.
One's for sport and one's for blood
At the point of a knife, Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall,
There ain't a winner in this game
Who don't go home with all, Not with all...


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 Post subject: Hello Clay, Good to see you...
PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 12:57 pm 
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The designated marksman, as I understand his role, is to provide a combat squad with accurate
suppressive fire out to about 800 yards. Under most combat conditions any controllable cartridge
capable of maintaining a velocity above the trans-sonic barrier (about 1200 fps) all the way to the
target should be an acceptable cartridge for a precision rifle (provided it maintains sufficient
energy to penetrate the target). I qualify this statement with (controllable cartridge) since
suppressive fire indicates rapid follow up shots. (Clay and I have had disagreements in the past as
to what qualifies as controllable.) By this definition even a quality magazine fed bolt-gun
(preferably short action) would serve well as a designated marksman's rifle. I am not so
concerned with the exact cartridge provided the bullet selection is correct for the rifle-cartridge
combination...


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 1:13 pm 
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note my last post, all British Army and Royal Marine snipers are equipped with bolt action rifles

as you mention suppressive fire, I'll note that the British Light Support Weapon (LSW) fits somewhat into this slot. It's (basically) a long barrelled version of the standard SA80 bullpup rifle (now in the A2 upgraded version) designed as a squad light machine gun, it underperforms at this as it's fed with a 30round mag and has no quick change barrel (and has been supplemented with the Minimi SAW) *but* it does have the advantage of single/full auto with a long barrel, bipod and scope (as all of the SA80 family do) as standard, as such it's used as a hybrid semi-auto sniper rifle and light machine gun to great effect

it's a 5.56mm weapon, so it's not wonderful out at long range, but that's where you have *real* sniper rifles, the .338 Magnum L115A1 Long Range Rifle having an effective range quoted as "1100m plus" but for ranges above short fire fights it can put down accurate, controllable (5.56mm being not to heavy to fire) single shots and short bursts

but really I can see why it's not a popular concept, why have a weapon that can be a half decent LMG and sniper rifle mix when you can have a very good one of each?

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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 5:47 pm 
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I still prefer semi-auto rifles for Sniper purposes. The M-21 or the H&K MSG-90 Knights SR-25/AR-10 etc allow you to keep your eye on the scope, engage multiple targets with greater ease, and generally come with 20 round magazines and are easily reloaded. All can allow tremendous accuracy if maintained wel (snipers are anal about rifles, they'll perform maintenance.)

It is best to take advantage of the element of surprise by taking as many targets while they are confused as possible before they realize the nature of a threat, take cover and return fire.

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We used to play for silver, Now we play for life.
One's for sport and one's for blood
At the point of a knife, Now the die is shaken
Now the die must fall,
There ain't a winner in this game
Who don't go home with all, Not with all...


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PostPosted: Sat Jun 05, 2004 6:06 pm 
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in the British military sniper traingin schools you have to be able to infiltrate an area and shoot at targets by someobserving instructors a number of times without being spotted, the second they spot you it's game over and your score card's closed, the closer you get and the more shots you get off are more important than blazing away while being shot back at, the prupose of a SCOUT sniper is to locate and report back, only shooting if it's really needed, if they see a large concentration of trargets it's better to call in support fire, sniping is only to be done on small numbers of vital targets or specific objectives, bolt action allows for more control over the weapon and case efection etc, also less to go wrong at any point and easier to reload with less movement

a marksman with a combat unit however has few of these thinsg to worry about, and a semi-auto scoped heavy barrel weapon is perfect, they're covering teh ground between full auto close fire and single shot long range sniping, might as well have a weapon that fits the bill etc

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