Thanks

At first, I was irate at the introduction to this article. To consider calling a military sniper a 'coward' is not only short sighted and misinformed, but downright insulting. These men and women put themselves, alone, in the worst environments for days at a time with no backup, and return with little to no fanfare when their mission is complete. To call any members of the armed forces 'cowardly' when they are doing their part to ensure YOUR protection, while you can sit down and write an article when your biggest threat is spilling your chai tea mint latte and ruining your pleatless khakis, is itself cowardly.

Thankfully, the introduction alluded to the exact opposite of the rest of the article. Thanks for that.

Where do you get your information from?

(Quote)Snipers are nasty, everyone knows that. They hunt people like animals, killing them without giving them a chance to fight or even to surrender. Few soldiers are more hated; even their own armies often seem less than pleased to have them around.(/quote)

What? Where on earth did you find this liberal clap-trap from or is this your own beliefs?

Us grunts in the army like to hear nothing more than "Snipers are covering" or "You've got a sniper attached to you for this patrol."

Snipers are an excellent and effective tool at removing enemy forces with minimal escalation of force.

The reason a sniper doesn't give people a chance to surrender or fight, is well, rather obvious.

If they fought back, you're ignoring the basic Rules of Engagement, which is our Law of Armed Combat.

If you let them surrender, well, most of them wouldn't.

Also, most snipers that we've used in the last 12 Operation Telics in Iraq and the last 10 Herricks in Afghanistan have killed people in the process of doing bad things, such as laying bombs and explosives, or firing upon Coalition troops.

You have an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) team setting up a site 2km from your position. You have in your team the usual firesupport, as well as a Javelin and a sniper with his L96.

Do you:

A: Fire the Javelin, which costs around £40,000 and would not only eliminate the threat, but also a large chunk of the land in the immediate area

B: Use your sniper to fire minimal rounds to eliminate the threat, causing minimal disruption

The British Army Snipers Course is one of the best courses to get, it's held in high opinion by all military Commanders and it's an excellent aid to promotion. I intend to go for mine in the next two years, or at least aquire the basic Sharpshooter qualification. Which is actually the shooting part. The sniper qualification only comes if you complete the Stalking phase, when you have to cross open ground without being spotted, then hit a static target that appears within a 24hr period for 3 seconds. So there are a lot more snipers out there than you might think, it's just they've only got the Sharpshooter section completed.

You have a ridiculous opinion, and I would love to know what it is based upon.

American movies perhaps?

One correction

The 'R' in 7.62x54R stands for 'Rimmed' and not 'Rimfire' - the cartridge, like more or less every modern cartridge larger than the .22 Magnum, uses a centerfire primer. '54R gets the designation because it has a prominent rim or lip around the base of the casing as opposed to the more common cutout groove. When the cartridge was first adopted together with the Mosin-Nagant rifle in 1891, use of this rim for headspacing purposes allowed looser machining tolerances in the rest of the rifle's chamber, both to avoid overtaxing the Russian Empire's limited industrial ability and to enable the rifles to be made relatively cheaply - hence why Izhevsk and Tula were able to crank out upwards of seventeen million Mosin-Nagant 1891/30s by 1945.

Call me pedantic if you like, but facts are facts.

19c Snipers

Wasn't it 'chosen man' in the Napoleonic Army?

Evil Consultant

As regards the 7.62x54R cartridge designation, the "R" stands for "Rimmed" and not "Rimfire." 7.62x54R is a centrefire cartridge.

Most modern rifle cartridges are described as being "Rimless". They have a cannelure just in front of the base of the cartidge for extraction and ejection but actually headspace off the neck of the cartridge. Older cartridges, such as the venerable 303 and 7.62 Russian headspace off the rim.

On another note, the wind starts to play a seriously big effect from about 800 to 900 yards out. The wind allowance for a 7.62 round is about 10 inches per mile an hour of wind coming from 90 degrees to the trajectory. A fairly mild breeze can take you five feet off target with no problems whatsoever.

Otherwise an excellent and highly interesting article, well up to Lewis' usual standards or excellence.

EC

"most famous sniper ever"

No mention of Simo Häyhä?

Simo Häyhä was a Finnish sniper in the Winter War with 505 confirmed kills (estimated 542 actual kills) within 100 days (using a rifle with iron sights, as a telescopic sight presented a larger target for other snipers as well as making the user more visible) in addition to almost 200 additional kills with a machine gun.

A scary video

Showing you just how unrealistic films can be.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6760530260633420235

Next time you see someone hide behind a barrel or US mail box.. just consider.

Er, I thought this was relevant due to the collateral damage/assault rifle paragraphs.

How do you make sure only your own side has these?

If these super-range rifles are used in action, then some will be lost.

How will the US react the first time one of their presidents is killed from five miles away? Or just random strangers on the streets of Washington?

@Mark_T

[quote]Having some experience in hairydynamics and ballistics (competition shooting); I can state with some certainty that ballistic projectiles cannot be steered. Put fins on a bullet and it will just carry on, but sideways.[/quote]

You may want to reconsider your statement by taking a look at http://www.futurefirepower.com/excalibur-smart-artillery-round-fire-and-forget

While it relates to an artillery shell, the shell is still un-powered and is guided to its target over 25miles away to an accuracy of a few feet.

Good article

As always, a well written and well reasoned article from Lewis Page. Looking at the comments so far, I wish people would read the entire article before venting.

Keep up the good work.

Hey, Cal...

...read the article, rather than just the first three lines you halfwit.

R is for rimmed cartridge

The R is for rimmed cartridge not rim fire as with a .22 rim fire primer. Although uncommon in rifle cartridges in America, the rimmed cartridge is still popular in Europe where break action rifles are commonly used for hunting rather than bolt action or semi-automatic designs.

Steering a bullet

Steering a bullet is possible. Obviously fins or flaps can not be deployed and actuated due to the stabilization spin of the bullet in flight would make even the fastest adjustment operate over a large degree of arc. The answer would be a jet steering mechanism utilizing the 1960's technology of the Gyro-jet weapon system and the latest nano-technology allowing a stabilized, non-spinning central port to steer using directed jets of solid fuel powered gas to steer the bullet.

I'm not certain that laser guidance would work all that well. The big problem is to keep a bullet straight over long distances. Micro-gyros and a fairly simple ASIC would be able to adjust for wind deflection and bullet drop (within reason) as long as the bullet had momentum and jet fuel. Using a laser to paint a moving target works with missiles and guided bombs but that is with a very large lens that can find the laser dot. Besides lens size the required lens shape wouldn't work. A long range bullet needs a pointed ballistic shape and a lens needs a nearly flat shape.

Wind etc

There are a few issues with wind (and other atmospheric conditions) that will non-uniformly and non-predictably affect projectiles.

Firstly, wind is different at different heights and different areas. So as a bullet travels in its ballistic arc it will pass through many different atmospheric "regions" with different conditions.

Take the 2400m kill. A bullet with a muzzle velocity of 1000m/s is going to be in the air for pretty much 3 seconds. As gravity is constant this means it will drip by something like 27metres. Which means it will have traveled 2400 metres horizontally and 27 metres vertically.

It is not possible to predict the local weather at all those points, and it cannot be guaranteed that 2 (or more) bullets fired in exactly the same way will be affected exactly the same by teh atmosphere (winds change, gust etc)

I also cannot believe that a "guided" bullet can react quickly enough to a gust of wind or errant thermal to be able to get back on track.

Surely, and I offer this to the military for free*, the way to deal with targets up to 2000m is through standard snipers, to about 4000m through getting a standard sniper to crawl a couple klicks and then go oldskool and over 4000m to use laser guided aircraft delivered munitions. said munitions needn't be large area effect weapons, they could be small, anti-personnel murdertech.

*I'd love an Apache if any military out there has one free and feels sufficiently grateful for this consultancy.

sniper adoration

Now I now this is not strictly about the article but it reminds me of Grosse Point Blank.

He says himself that he had "a certain disposition" for what they needed. Got trained by them and then went to work for himself after they had used him for what they needed.

Surely this covers a huge portion of the population who would not fit the profile for this type of work. Yes it is work, as Utopia is still around the corner and not quite here yet.

Ruthless, probably. Dangerous, only for two people and they obviously choose to be in the way. Necessary, rather that than collateral for the possibility of getting one.

:D

Well, when you've done tours of Iraq and Afghanistan and you owe your life to sniper fire taking out bad people, you can understand why I flew off like I did.

However, I then read the remainder of the article and felt paragraph after paragraph like a bigger and bigger prick. :)

Apologies to the author.

7.62x54R (rimmed not rimfire)

Register, Your explanation of this new technology is quite accurate. One little mistake I caught is the meaning of the R suffix in the Russian 7.62x54R cartridge. The first number is the diameter in mm, the last is the length in mm. However R suffix indicates a rimmed case, like .303 Lee-Enfield or quite a lot of first generation small bore smokeless or cordite cartridges. Normally now, most cases don't have a rim that exceeds base diameter, rather a grove is carved into the solid thick bit of brass (or steel) with the result is a smooth case that can readily slide against other cases in the magazine or clip. No high pressure rimfire case is possible as the primer resides in the hollow rim and is crushed to ignite the powder. This requires a very thin shell of brass to easily crush, hence no hope of containing the 50-65 thousands of lbs/in pressure generated.

Another additional point to realize is that often the heavy .50 cal (mostly Browning .50 machine-gun) sniper setups are used to destroy high value, soft equipment targets. .50 cal armour piercing rounds do great damage to delicate AL skinned aircraft, even from a mile away. A 8ft x 40 ft target is a bit easier to hit than the 1 ft x 1 ft zone of a man (and planes at rest don't move too much either).

DJL

PS, Very good to see others realize the humane aspects of sniper shooting and tactics. The real butchery is the mass-death stuff used so much.

PPS, from a citizen of one of the few countries that allows ordinary people own such weapons, develop loads for them and practice shooting them without supervision.

Sorry, Mr. Page, you are incorrect.

The "R" in 7.62x54R stands for rimmed, not rimfire. It is a centerfire cartridge, like all modern high-powered rifle cartridges. Also, the length of the casing doesn't give you that great an idea of the powder charge, or indeed the power of the round. The width of the case, the taper of the shell and angle of the case neck, the weight of the bullet, how much of the bullet is seated inside the case neck, how much powder is actually loaded into the shell, and what type of powder is used in the shell can make a huge difference in the power of the round. I handload ammunition for my Mosin-Nagant and as such have done a fair amount of research on the cartridge. A factory Russian round propels its 150-grain FMJ bullet from the muzzle at approximately 3,000FPS; a factory .30-06(7.62x63mm) propels its 150gr Nosler ballistic tip (note; superior bullet) at about 2900 FPS. That amounts to roughly 3,940 and 3,820 joules, respectively.

Yes, there are a lot of variables and I only picked those particular rounds to illustrate the point. The x54R is not as long as the x63, and indeed CAN and often is a less powerful round, but such is not always the case.

Also, in response to:

"This means that not only are the rifle's blast and flash eliminated, but also the supersonic crack made by a normal high-velocity bullet - in other words the weapon is totally silent, ideal for quietly knocking off sentries or whatever."

Bullshit. A suppressor suppresses sound, it does not eliminate it. Propel an object at high speed through atmosphere and it will make sound. A suppressor eliminates most of the sound of the expanding gas resulting from the combustion in the shell, via internal baffles. Using a subsonic round prevents a sonic boom. You still must deal with the sound of the action, especially if it is a semi-automatic, and the aforementioned zip of a bullet tearing through the air. What the hell is the point of a subsonic round in a high-powered rifle? You're taking an expensive, unusual round and turning it into a low-powered piece of shit. Why not use a .45 ACP? It's already subsonic, everybody and their brother makes suppressors in the caliber, the round is common and match-grade bullets are available.

Cue Brits mocking the 'Merkin gun nut. It's okay, I deserve it.

@ Cal

Re: Where do you get your information from? by Cal

[quote from article] even their own armies often seem less than pleased to have them around.[/quote]

Possibly from 'A Rifleman Went to War' by H. W. McBride, as something similar is mentioned.

IIRC - During WWI static trench warfare sometimes sections of the line on one side would fire enough shots/shells to satisfy administrative demands, but would deliberately aim off so as not to cause casualties on the other side; and in return the other side would also adjust their aim so as not to inflict casualties. With this unofficial co-operation they would reduce their chances of death or injury. Then a sniper team would be assigned to that part of the line and after a few deliberate sniper shots/kills real hostilities would kick off again.

Maybe your opinion isn't shared by the majority

I highly doubt anyone with a clue views snipers as assassins. They are highly trained individuals who place their life on the line in defense of our country. Society owns a lot to all who serve in the military including snipers. If you don't have the stomach to defend your country, you're not entitled to the freedoms it provides.

Two issues, otherwise nice article.

1) The only people I've seen who don't appreciate snipers are bean counters and folks who have never been on the ground in a real life combat situation.

2)You passed along the myth "In one incident, shooting at one of these men, Hathcock's bullet flew down the other sniper's scope and killed him."

This was nicely debunked by Mythbusters. The various layers of glass in the optics prevents this from happening. The energy of the round is spent before it gets halfway thru' ...

A couple friends and I tried the same thing 20 years ago with a box of otherwise useless Vietnam era scopes that an uncle had acquired. Fast and small bullets exploded on impact (duh!), typically not getting thru' more than two layers of glass and breaking the third; slow and heavy typically didn't make it thru' more than three layers of glass, breaking the fourth (and sometimes the fifth).

Heavy & fast is another issue entirely ... The .50 Browning sent miscellaneous shrapnel into areas that would probably have been fatal. The 20mm blew everything apart.

This was on a totally enclosed range, and distances were short (maybe 10 yards), except the .50 and the 20mm; those were on my favorite long distance range (can do 3,750 meters), but the targets were only out about 50 yards.

We're still kicking ourselves that we didn't propose a "Mythbusters" style show back then ...

RE: @Mark_T by AC

"You may want to reconsider your statement by taking a look at http://www.futurefirepower.com/excalibur-smart-artillery-round-fire-and-forget"

Doh !

It says;

"a smart artillery round that has an integrated GPS tracking system along with fins and rockets"

You didn't read my post properly did you ? No I don't want to reconsider it thanks.

It's all been said before

The idea for steerable rounds is at least 3 decades old and was portrayed by Michael Crichton in his film "Runaway" in 1984:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1037

Bugger. I must be getting old.

@Mike_T and TW Burger

Contrary to what Mike_T says, and following on from TW Burger's comments, a steerable non-powered projectile is possible, but difficult.

Firstly, the spin stabilisation doesn't make steering impossible, merely difficult - some missiles roll but are steered with conventional fins (Sidewinder being one example) albeit the relative roll rate is lower than that expected with a bullet - the rolling frame of reference is just another guidance variable.

Secondly, steering does NOT rely on powered flight, and any number of air vehicles demonstrate this fact. The projectiles are only ballistic in the first place because they're unsteered. As long as there's sufficient airflow over the steering surfaces, and the surfaces are designed with supersonic airflow in mind, then the round is steerable.

Thirdly, conventional fins may not be necessary - tailoring airflow can be achieved by different methods, such as changing flow rate/pressure in different sectors of the projectile (with the right shape, of course). Drag and deceleration is a side-effect of any steering mechanism, so implementing steering impacts range and residual kinetic energy (necessary for the ultimate effect in an inert round, obviously) - there is a major design trade-off there. Personally, I'd like to see what is achievable with configurable "golf ball" dimples or a mechanism with a center air-scoop and dynamically re-directed airjet near the round's base.

IMHO, to make any of this worthwhile, either the range must be shortened, calibre increased or the round given in-flight power.

@jake

1) Shouldn't beancounters actually *love* snipers? Snipers use a ludicrous number of rounds when training, but far fewer in combat, making them cheaper in the long run. Maybe I have my facts wrong, or maybe beancounters are idiots. (Just ask the BOFH.)

2) But didn't Hathcock use a 50-cal, the very round you said caused potentially fatal shrapnel?

Or were you drawing a distinction between "head shredded by flying bits of his own scope" on the one end, and "surgical shot leaving the scope barrel intact, like I saw in the movies, so it has to be true" on the other?

I'd have loved to be there watching you try out those guns. It does sound like a very Mythbuster-y experience and a lot of fun.

Quote

Reminded me of a quote from a Faux News (i think) interview with a sniper.

Interviewer : What do you feel when you shoot someone.

Sniper : Recoil

ftw

Nice article, sort of..

No new stuff here. But of interest to peaceniks, techno-mentalists and anyone that hasn't played "America's Army".

But a balanced piece? Maybe, if you see the world in black or white. "Snipers are quite possibly evil psychos, even their friends think so, but anyway here's a breakdown of new kit they might like".

Somebody pointed out that a steerable bullet is a nice-but-dim dream. And the more I think about it the truer that sounds. So perhaps El Reg is falling for the press release that claims that American arms are the best in the world, even the arms that are physically impossible.

So where exactly was the article going? Moo-moo land?

No icon because you only have a few to choose from and they're all the same.