Hi /k/, I’m writing a story where in one part, the protagonist has to survive a battle with a sniper. Here’s the scenario.
>The setting is a very large outdoor carpark, with thousands of midsized vehicles (sedans etc, no huge vans or buses) parked in rows
>At the centre of this car park is a 1-2 storey building, about the size of a small house
>On the roof of the building is a sniper, armed with a bolt action sniper rifle. They are not actively concealing themselves but they have a small amount of cover protecting their lower body. They have plenty of ammo and at short notice, can move to any part of the roof of the building to cover different areas. They will shoot at anyone they see.
>Around 400m away is the protagonist, armed with a regular semi-automatic handgun and a few spare magazines, crouching behind a row of cars
>The protagonist’s objective is to take out the sniper. If they stand up from behind the cars, their entire upper body will be exposed and even if they crouch back down, the sniper who now knows where they are could fire a shot that penetrates through the car and kills the protagonist
>As the protagonist moves closer to the sniper, the sniper will progressively have a larger vision advantage, due to their elevation letting them see over the top of cars
>There are other enemies, also armed with handguns that are also trying to take out the sniper. They are roaming around 100-200m away from the protagonist and if they see the protagonist, they will shoot at them. There are enemies to either side of the protagonist
In your opinion, is there a plausible way the protagonist can succeed in this situation? They don’t need to kill the other handgun wielding enemies but they do have to kill the sniper. Happy to answer questions relating to the scenario
Wait for the sniper to start shooting the other enemies and run away. Ducking behind cars the whole time to make him shooting at you more difficult.
>Wait for the sniper to start shooting the other enemies
This was one of my thoughts for how to pull it off successfully, but I feel like it’d rely a lot on the timing of when the other enemies start getting shot at
Is there something I could change to make it more viable? Like reducing the distance of the protagonist from 400m to 200m for example?
protag needs a rifle of some kind
consistent handgun hits over 50m are extremely difficult, even past 25m
Infiltration and execution could be plausible, especially if the guy is alone up there. Does he know the protagonist is coming? Right now, from over that way?
A rifle would definitely be a better tool but I felt like using a handgun would be a key part of the difficulty that would dictate the tactics
These are all cool ideas
The sniper knows *someone* is coming but doesn’t know the direction
Yeah it’s not exactly a death game but that’s a similar enough kind of situation in that the protagonist can’t retreat or run from this situation, they must take out the sniper within a relatively short amount of time, or they die. Thanks for the tactics suggestions too, I’m kind of leaning in the direction of the protagonist not having any moral problem using the dead bodies of other enemies as decoys and distractions
>protagonist
>they
what kind of troony fanfic are you cooking up anon
SOP is to identify the sniper perch and unload into it with heavy weapons
Im WW2, the .50cal was preferred due to punching through brick and masonry with ease and actually outranging snipers rifles
Mortars are also possibility due to being organic to an infantry company and being able to lob rounds over cover
>SOP is to identify the sniper perch and unload into it with heavy weapons
This. You figure out the rough area then call in artillery strikes on it. That said
>They are not actively concealing themselves
OK so this sniper is a fricking moron, like, is it a """sniper""" as in some random civvie who spazzed out and is now taking pot shots at people? In that case you can make a lot of scenarios work because it's not a real sniper who's going to reposition regularly and actually be able to shoot decently (even I can do moa at such short range).
You haven't said what the protagonist has or doesn't have. Since you failed to do that, I choose a handheld hyperspectral camera with AI/ML capabilities, plop it on the trunk, let it do a quick scan of the area, and identify the sniper.
From there I use my Gunkata powers to kill all the goons and the sniper.
protag is completely fricked and needs to disengage to live to fight another day when he has some advantage or at least a neutral playing field, he is completely fricked here
This.
Anon SOP for units under sniper fire is to determine the likely position of the sniper (it may be difficult to find the EXACT spot so a likely one is acceptable), immediately light it the frick up with everything they have, then call in heavy weapons to kill the sniper. Similarly I've read snipers manuals that acknowledge this and mention that once you get a few shots off you have to know if you're safe to continue shooting (if the enemy is overwhelmed why leave?) and if not to GTFO ASAP since you're about to get shelled. Hard.
Oh it's also pretty well known that any sniper that tries what you're describing (sniper in a building above ground level) results in the building being leveled or the sniper being trapped and burnt alive. Any video of combat in Syria/Grozny/Ukraine/Iraq/etc will show tall buildings with holes/scorch marks/missing walls right next to good sniper spots. I remember a famous video of a guy (Ukraine I think actually, circa 2014) getting fricking REMOVED by a howitzer used in direct fire hitting the window he was poking out of.
IMO the best way out of this for the protag is to distract the sniper somehow and GTFO. Maybe have some allies come to save the day, or as others said give the protag a rifle and let him remove kebab. As is he's legit fricked.
Just off the top of my head
>use car mirrors to dazzle the sniper
>put a car in neutral and push it as a moving barrier
>use car mirrors to get a view of the sniper and move while they're otherwise engaged
You can just plot armor that entire scenario away
>protagonist steals a sports car, hits the gas and slams the car into the building at high speed
>knocks the marksman off the roof somehow and he breaks both legs
bring a personal mortar with you next time
its simple all you have to do i-
What a fricking sni-
Does the secondary enemy force have any way to immediately identify the protagonist as -not- one of them on sight?
Also,the sniper sounds like he's in an effective island in the center of the carpark- just wait until he goes to sleep or something?
The other enemies are all wearing a distinct uniform that the protagonist isn’t wearing, so they’d immediately be able to see from a distance he isn’t one of them
>400m
Your guy is fricked, he needs to get out to live to fight another day
reduce the accuracy of the sniper down to stormtrooper level whenever he tries to target the protag, or give him some sort of super plot armor where he magically heals from a shot
>I’m writing a story where in one part, the protagonist has to survive a battle with a sniper.
Your protagonist discharges a high-powered laser into the sniper's scope. The already-blinding laser's power is amplified by the scope, so the water making up the sniper's eye is quickly brought to a boil, exploding his eye and killing him via heating of his nearby brain matter and superheated gas/fluids entering into his nasal cavities.
As others have noted, getting the frick out of there is the best option. Given the setup this sounds like some sort of death game, so I'm presuming that this isn't an option. Second best would be to let some other poor motherfricker deal with the sniper while you hide and stay alive, but your game rules might not be amenable to this, so John Wick bullshit it is.
Avoiding detection is paramount, both from the sniper and from other players, as a gunfire exchange will draw the sniper's attention. Moving under vehicles can reduce visibility, but he won't be the only one trying this, and it's a really fricking bad place to be caught in. He should spend some time listening to the sniper and learning the difference between shots coming in his general direction and ones fired at the other end of the park, and use that to determine when the sniper is looking away. As other anons noted, car parks have a lot of mirrors that can be used both to try and get an eye on the sniper and to spot other players, but he is also vulnerable by the same method. If he comes under fire from the sniper, use the engine block for cover, that's about the only part of a car that can reliably stop a rifle round, and hope the guy finds a more accommodating target. What optic is your sniper using? 400m isn't an outrageous distance for rifle fire, and if he's expecting the range to close as people try to get to him, then something low-power or even unmagnified seems sensible for maintaining situational awareness, but it will hurt his "shoot the tick off a dog's back" potential.
For actually closing the fight, you've essentially got two options: a lucky spam at ~50m as the sniper repositions, or assaulting the building itself. If the protag can manage to sneak his way in (unlikely, given that he's standing in the direction everyone is moving towards), you can do the cool guy, but more likely he and the other survivors are going to start putting effective fire on the sniper, and he goes into a final defense covering a hall, door, or stairwell. In this situation, the protag needs to move fast, because there are going to be others coming in behind him. At this point, best I've got is to either coin-flip the final peek, or to pull some form of the helmet-on-a-stick trick and abuse the cycle time, maybe using a body of someone that got hit by another player going through the door to do the peeking instead.
suppressive fire
>sprint towards the sniper
>jump between buildings
>when the sniper fires back: do the matrix
>then jump, turn 360 in the air, draw your own sniper rifle
>shoot back without aiming
>take out the sniper
>the whole building explodes
>prota walks into the sunset
Hope he's moronic
is the joke that he's cycling it when he doesn't need to otherwise i don't get it
>is the joke that he's cycling it when he doesn't need to otherwise i don't get it
dude was an intelligence officer for the kgb . I doubt he was proficient with firearms .
why wouldn't he be
how could someone get that high up without knowing how guns work
>how could someone get that high up without knowing how guns work
bro look at all the military officers in Ukraine. Why would expect anything different from their intelligence officers .
Whip your dick out. The sniper will look away if he's not gay, and not want to look again for fear he will become gay, or if is already he won't shoot you because he'll want to keep looking at your dick.
Light a few cars on fire if the wind was favorable.
Noxious fumes to displace the sniper or smoke for cover.
To build on this: try to have your protag use handkerchief pieces to try to ignite various cars in the parking lot or use some kind of hot wiring electrical arc. You can use a bit of plot armor here for the car's gas tanks to either explode or be totally engulfed in flames after a delay. The delay should allow your protag to move to a different position while the sniper is focused on the various car fires going off and causes confusion among the other handgun guys. I'm sure your protag will need to kill a few handgun guys on the way to the sniper building so he could either have a Hollywood quiet suppressor or he could time his shots with the delayed explosion of the various cars on the lot, masking his shots. You'll want your protag to take advantage of the chaos and distractions to move unseen to the building where the sniper can be dealt with in cqb.
Counter-sniping exists to hunt snipers.
The best way to kill a sniper is with another sniper.
The glint of your scope, your figure exposed, the slightest mistake, and the counter-sniper can spot you and got you, unless you can neutralize them first.
It's not like only one force is allowed to use snipers.
Even just being spotted is enough for a mortar or artillery strike.
Concealment and evasion are as important as your marksmanship, much like hunting, but you are hunting infantry.
Or even just a missile, like from a drone.
This simulation led to an AI malfunction where the drone "killed" the operator in the simulation. This happened one day ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/01/us-military-drone-ai-killed-operator-simulated-test
But, if used successfully, it would be a good way to turn an insurgent like me into pink mist, if you can spot me and got me, and you have both the heart and gumption to face the Patriots on the field of honor, and make me into a Christian martyr.
Protag needs to hide. I’d say open a passenger door when sniper is engaged with someone else, keep your head down, and cut into the bottom of the seat and start pulling fiber out. Once fiber is out exit vehicle and go place it in a spot it won’t be noticed (like in the trunk of another vehicle that’s far enough away it won’t give you away). Then wait until night. Assuming he doesn’t die of heat exhaustion he can move with relative ease
Really senpai tbh there’s no point in playing Lone Ranger
I didn’t specify you put yourself in the spot where the fiber once was
Swarm of suicide drones with AI hunter/killer capability
>they don't need to kill the handgun wielding enemies but they do have to kill the sniper
>writing yourself into an unrealistic scenario
I'll assume the protagonist has a wide range of skills, including hot-wiring cars, siphoning fuel, and a good understanding of physics and combustion:
- Step 1: The protagonist locates cars with manual transmission.
- Step 2: They start hot-wiring these cars and setting them into neutral.
- Step 3: Using found objects or car parts, the protagonist creates makeshift wheel chocks to hold the cars in place.
- Step 4: They repeat this process with multiple cars in a domino-style setup leading toward the sniper's building.
- Step 5: Once enough cars are set up, they remove the wheel chocks simultaneously (maybe using a pulled string mechanism) so the cars start to roll and crash into one another creating a massive, moving distraction. Combine with a diesel fire for extra smoke and vision disruption. This should cause enough chaos for the protagonist to move closer and make the kill.
Other smaller ideas:
>Reflective surfaces for signaling:
The protagonist could potentially use the side mirrors or any other reflective surfaces from cars to momentarily blind the sniper or confuse them.
>Oil Spill:
Many cars have some oil leaks. If the protagonist could find a car with a significant leak, they could use the oil to create a slick surface. They might be able to engineer a situation where enemies chasing them slip and cause noise, drawing the sniper's attention.
>Improvise an explosive:
If the protagonist has the knowledge and the right materials at hand, they could potentially create a Molotov wienertail to cause a gasoline fire, creating a diversion or even attaching the sniper.
>PA Alert:
If the car park has a PA system (possibly in the central building), the protagonist could set it to continuously play loud noises to cover their movements and distract the sniper.
Smoke grenades
Hide and wait until it starts getting dark or the night, then army crawl until he gets to the building. If the protagonist is small enough and the cars are high enough, crawl underneath the cars too so the route to the sniper is shorter and the odds of the sniper seeing them is lower.
Crawl under the cars to a defensible position, somewhere with cover and concealment, then wait out until the sniper kills all the other guys or they kill him, or hes reasonably sure he had a good chance, he should be observing where the sniper is. If he can spot the sniper, and the sniper knows where he is ans he cannot wait anymore then suppression and leg it. Otherwise, just leg it quietly.
Sounds bad, I think your protag is dead. My one thought would be to try to get some fires and smoke going then retreat back a few rows of cars and then off the top deck of the car park. Light your fire with some kind of wick for a delay and be elsewhere when it starts.
For visual cover if you can get it smoky with oil and gas. Can you identify easily damaged and easily made to leak underbody parts?
If the sniper is alone and the protag knows this start the fire to burn toward the building.
Get away. you are not bulletproof and neither are most of the car components you hiding behind. Pretty much only a engine block, select frame components or battery pack could have a chance of stopping a higher powered rifle round.
I've shot completely thru both car doors with various rifles. The further away you are the more cars would be in the way. The better visual and hard cover.
Get away from your sniper and hope they have to come to you, or hopefully get engaged by the third party, that's the only way to get parity.
Hide and get away... you have a pistol in a rifle fight. Try to get to a close combat area.
The Secret Invention That Kills Snipers
VT Proximity Fuse
USA! USA!
Have the protag hide in cover until weather saves his ass
Is waiting for him to die of old age an option?
Run towards his position at full speed, when he fires multiple rounds I jump on each individual bullet and hop towards hit. I then unsheathe my HK USP and put 19 rounds of .45 bullets in him.
What about indirect fire on a ballistic trajectory?
You'd have to be Golgo 13 to hit, but it'd at least keep their head down.
I dunno, maybe the protag could get lucky and find an armoured car or a Popemobile he could hotwire?
Shining a laser pointer up the sniper's scope would ruin his day.
Maybe... hotwire an SUV with one of those overpowered lightbars and use it to dazzle the sniper?
He crawls in a car, waits for nighttime, then sneaks up and kills the dude? You can't look through a scope 24/7.