The Sniper

The Sniper has been around since the early 1800’s and first started out with the British army. The First American Snipers were implemented as early as the American Revolutionary War. During this time the Colonists would climb trees and hide amongst the branch’s and leaves to keep concealed, and strike the enemy when they were within range. The early rifles used by Snipers were constructed of smooth barrels enabling from making accurate consisted shots. It wasn’t until gun manufactures started to use rifling inside the barrels of rifles, with this Snipers could make long distance shots. Rifling, is where the barrel of the rifle is made with a pattern or groove like spiral twist. This in turns makes contact with the projectile causing it to spin
There second mission is to collect and gather crucial information on the battlefield or operations and report back to a higher echelon. The Sniper is a highly trained marksman who can operate alone, in a pair, or a Sniper team. Snipers are highly capable individuals, who are skilled at taking critical shots from beyond that of a regular infantryman. They also have to be like mere ghost blending in with their surroundings to stay well concealed from the enemy. Since Snipers work alone or in a small team they have to improvise, stay always on their toes, to be ready for whatever the enemy and conditions throws at them. Top physical fitness is a must have to be a Sniper. The terrain between their target and that perfect shot location may be over high mountains, thick jungles, deep rivers, or urban cities. When a Sniper is on an operation the gear they can take is limited to what they can carry on their back. This is why Snipers must know and understand how to live off the land, being able to catch, kill, and cook food, while staying concealed to surrounding populist and enemy soldiers. Snipers must stand ready to rapidly deploy to any part of the world on a moment’s notice. Having these responsibilities of Sniper is impeccable because their efforts of destroying key targets or gathering information and reporting back to their higher echelon could result,
They must have 20/20 vision or correctable 20/20 vision with normal color vision; also have a perfect qualification score with the M16A2 or M4 for the past six months, along pass a psychological and physical evaluation. Snipers are the most disciplined Soldier’s, so they will not accept anyone with any disciplinary history. The First Army’s permanent Sniper School was established in 1987 at Fort Benning, Georgia, where it is still there to this day. Sniper School consists of 7 weeks of vigorous training where they will learn to stalk, conduct range estimation, target detection, Marksmanship of the (M110), Ballistics, night shooting, and much more important roles to be a Sniper. The best of the best Sniper can participate in friendly shooting competitions, such as the annual International Sniper competition compete in 14 events including a sniper stalk, urban shooting and orienteering exercises, firing under stressful conditions and other tests of marksmanship and sniper skills. The 72-hour event runs virtually non-stop, with only two four-hour rest breaks in the three days of competition. This is to determine the best Sniper’s of the world and to further our training based on other countries