>Have arguably one of the most devastating and destructive capabilities a single soldier could ever possibly release upon the enemy in a direct fire way
>Be relegated purely to a over glorified forward observer for your respective battalion
>Even then, still get majority utilized as an over over glorified designated marksman for an infantry company/platoon within said battalion
Why are snipers so poorly utilized in the US Army?
How would you use snipers?
skirmishers working in and out of the security zone beyond the engagement area either offensively by harassing enemy forces at the EFLOT or even penetrating behind enemy lines to frick with C2 and logistical shit, or defensively via counter reconnaissance or mobile defense for delaying actions. Either way, having a small unit that is sneaky while still being able to be violent is an ideal "skirmisher" type of unit that can dominate within the realm of patrolling operations and can aid with S/O for decisive operations.
I would use them to make the anemy go pee pee and poo poo in his pant
A forward observer is a great asset to an infantry commander. The most powerful tool on the battlefield is a radio connected to artillery, close air support or naval gunfire.
We already have FO's in the form of FO's and the scout platoon. Why dedicate even more assets to that when they can do their own job instead?
There's not enough?
Because now you are taking away what is supposed to be a very lethal skirmisher fighting force that excels in far ambushes just to call in firemissions that, if we're talking COIN, either aren't going to happen or are going to be to sparse or take too long or both to be effective; or if we're talking more conventional conflicts, you're taking away a small fighting force that can single handedly delay the movement of an entire battalion or more just by fricking with their forward units, to just play I spy for the battalion commander that will successfully use that information to do nothing because counter battery exists for a reason.
Actually, I'm pretty sure the most powerful tool is a radio connected to a nuclear hypersonic missile, but go off.
wrangled by spotter
what if we gave the sniper a giant rifle so big he needed a truck to carry it so that he could noscope people from 40km away
you have invented artillery
Mostly because in the grand scheme of maneuver the unique quality of a sniper; being able to deliver long range precision fire on key select targets and targets of opportunity, is really not all that important or needed. 99% of the sniper’s job will always be reconnaissance which can and is handled by the scout platoon. In the eyes of the commander why would he want them to engage with direct fire when they could instead call for fire or just observe and report up so the actual combat power can do the job. Sure in specific circumstances of minimal collateral damage or in a support by fire role, but again why use them when you can have machine gun teams instead.
>what if we had a machine gun team but worse
>and they acted like special elite snowflakes too
Snipers have declined in importance with every new technology since the Boer War and they will continue to.
That is like saying patrolling has declined with time and in importance. Because that is what snipers essentially are and what they do. - Very small recon/combat patrols going out conducting decentralized patrol operations.
Time is always a major factor. Especially in decentralized combat that is COIN, you can't just wait for an infantry platoon that is possibly many kilometers away that could take hours and will most likely be monitored by enemy spies the entire time. That also goes for conventional wars. The idea that a sniper team and even a battalion commander will be given access to DIVARTY during non decisive operations simply isn't going to happen. Sure you have mortars but the range is limited, the fire rate is limited, and you will most likely have to adjust fire which will give the enemy the hint that "oh shit, somebodies out there trying to bracket us, guess we should not be here."
I get it, on paper you guys are all right, but in practice; you are far better off taking the shot and repositioning.
>Very small recon/combat patrols going out conducting decentralized patrol operations.
Exactly. On one hand drones have reduced the importance of patrolling, on the other the increasing need for skilled infantry has reduced the need for specialized units to do normal infantry jobs.
I know you guys think drones are the future because you jerk off to liveleak videos of them from Ukraine, but I assure you they are not as good as you think.
>they’re not as good as you think
>but the snipers are!
snipers are completely irrelevant
So what? They don't have to be perfect. They're simply one more item in the conga line of events reducing the need for self-fellating fellows with bolties.
Most hype over drones only exist because nobody as of now has really fielded anything that is a direct counter to them. Only until very recently have some nations begun testing and low rate fielding certain weapons and countermeasures for them. Give it 5-10 years when flying a drone becomes insta kill not only for the drone but for the operator as well.
We already have a counter for drones - jamming and directionfinding. We also have the counter for the counter - autonomous mode.
The same could be said of snipers. The counter is optics-finders which use active lasers to detect all optics (to include the human eyeball) in an area and can then dazzle them. This is already seen in the US MIC as the true generation after the 'we own the night' phase which ended when NODs became consumer items.
> optics-finders which use active lasers to detect all optics (to include the human eyeball) in an area and can then dazzle them. This is already seen in the US MIC
link?
>I assure you they are not as good as you think
>Because- because they just aren’t, OK?!
Pure moron comment.
For the handful of sniper kill videos we’ve seen from this war, there is easily 10x as many videos of people getting droned.
>drone already has built in camera
>sniper rifle doesn't and is more shit to carry for literally no reason
Do you understand the concept of a bias anon?
>more lethal than sniper rifle
>and better surveillance/recon capabilities
drone win every time
Aren't drones loud as frick, or did my dumbass miss a major development in that regard?
I'm still not sure what's keeping anybody from just fielding birdshot against the things, too. Can somebody clue me in?
It's morons who discovered /k/ at the beginning of the war in Ukraine who post about epic Ukrainian Knights dropping grenades on evil vatnik invaders. Because a lot of the propaganda comes from this, they get the impression that this is the bulk of combat when in reality it's just a sliver. Drones can be devastating, but they're not a wunderwaffen.
Yeah.
They can go high enough that it's hard to hear them
>Aren't drones loud as frick
We’ve seen them drop on people taking shits, getting their dick sucked in a bombed out building, and on people sleeping without them noticing.
They’re obviously not that loud.
>muh newbies
>muh war tourists
Seethe and cope.
>Thank you for serving the glorious nation of Ukraine! $5.32 have been deposited into your account!
>the least mindbroken vatnik
>imagine carying about two of the most corrupt shitholes halfway around the world fighting each other over natural gas pipelines
Keep it up and you'll earn another $2.00!
carying
Post guns Pidor.
The amount of times I have posted multiple firearms in threads like these replying to obvious shills like you, just for you to instantly disappear and stop replying is so many times, that I could use the heat from my PC to generate more steam than a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The problem, like most things in a modern battlefield, isn't killing them. It's finding them without revealing yourself, and preferably killing them in a cost effective manner. Can you reasonably expect a man to spot a dinner plate hovering at 200 yards above the ground before it calls in a PGM on your head, since you're not gonna hear the fricking thing at that distance? Can you dedicate a man to watching the skies 24/7 for the potential threat of a drone and expect him to actually catch the threat on the 3d day of the march? Birdshot also is going to be difficult to hit with at the heights that a drone is flying at since you will have no real way of gauging distance and elevation without painting it with a ranging laser, and a miss both allows the drone operator to scoot off but also reveals your position. There's a reason the US is investing in laser SHORAD as a counter to drones that can be mounted on everything from a JLTV up, because the actual danger isn't meme grenade drops, it's the stream of information going back to someone who can and will drop a couple of pounds of HE on your head with zero warning.
Snipers are completely irrelevant. They are infinitely worse at patrolling than a small drone.
Keep thinking that.
The age of the sniper is over. Can’t hide because of thermals and a drone dropping grenades is more effective and longer ranged. Even the marines are dumping snipers
The Marines also dumped tanks because they're moronic.
>Can’t hide because of thermals
line of sight is still a thing and so is hiding your IR signature by hiding in bushes and in ghillie suits. Even ad hoc IR camo like mylar blankets stitched to ponchos are very effective and this is all before the fielding of actual proper IR camo.
>drone dropping grenades is more effective and longer ranged
no and no. You still have to find them first and you still have to fly the drone which is not only showing up on radar but your RF signature is now too. Have fun with the artillery strike.
The marines don’t need tanks. They’re a missile lobbing force
>dude just wear Mylar blankets and die of heat exhaustion
no
>Can’t hide because of thermals
Thermals have limited range and can't see through the bushes or fabric. Also, if nuke EMP hits, glass stays intact, while electronics stuff collapses
>Thermals have limited range and can't see through the bushes or fabric
lol if you actually think this.
have fun trying to crawl through foliage with your mylar blanket thinking you’re invisible and hoping someone doesn’t drop a frag on you.
sounds like a great time.
>Can’t hide because of thermals
t. knows nothing about thermals
Dubs
delicious
This is the replacement for snipers' "far ambushes".
>lets have a sniper scout instead of a tiny flyer that is 1/20 the size and nearly invisible in the sky
shitty thread
>t. Meal team six
Every infantryman will be a sniper soon with le sooper advanced laser caliber that is .277 Fury with le memefied deluxe ranging Sig LPVO.
Answer is super easy.
A sniper may scare an individual but it doesnt scare an army.
So snipers are not that valuable overall and if sniper can call in artillery which can kill enemy armor then it is already more than just shooting a random soldier who went to pee too far off his base.
And if you have done any shooting, its not that easy to hit something. And its noticable. Every time a sniper engages hed have to change position. There arent endless positions on a battlefield.
Even is a very specific and unique case of Symo Hayha (who simply happened to be capable operating far beyond any military training and hours) he also engaged the enemy on foot with a machinegun along the regular army. I wonder why
The entirety of the German 6th army was delayed for multiple days during its advance towards the outskirts of Stalingrad because one dickhead sniper kept dabbing on Germans which scared the shit shit out of the lead elements, which would in turn force the main bodies to halt, creating a cascade of delays for the entire field army. One fricking dude delaying hundreds of thousands for a couple of days is kind of a big deal.
Today we can just drone strike the sniper anon. You were never a grunt huh.
sounds like another soviet bullshit story
Do you really think they always hit their target? Nope, they're firing somewhat wildly too. People move around and there's a lot of variables they have to account for on the fly before their bullet will even go close to the target. Don't even get me started on how badly the rifle performs when the barrel heats up. You're believing a meme. Muh "one shot one kill" meme belongs on the back of a shirt with skulls and monster trucks, because that's not really what happens. Not even close.
The us military doctrine had always been:
>advance until you take fire
>take cover
>call in airstrike until there is nothing but a crater where the fire was coming from
>advance until you take fire
snipers are not needed for this kind of warfare, just some dumb 18 year old bullet sponges high on patriotism and some 3rd generation pilots continuing the family business
Dog bless America and pass the JDAMS
ITT
>realizing how far /k/ has fallen not only since r*ddit axed its weapons discussion but especially ever since the war in Ukraine kicked off flooding this site with literal children and morons whos only knowledge is whatever is posted by propaganda agents from said war
cope and seethe reply this post all you want, this shit just sucks man. At least back when the Syrian civil war was popping off, you could find a frick ton of discussion from anon's with a lot of knowledge and even personal experience. Now it's just shit, everything is shit; this is shit.
>flooding this site with literal children and morons
Ironic coming from the homosexual whining that nobody is playing along with his vidya/hollywood-tier understanding of snipers.
Cry more gay.
>sitting in a bush and shooting someone 600 meters away is hollywood bullshit
>sitting in a bush 600 meters away
>get droned by someone watching you with thermals sitting in a comfy building 4000 meters away
back to call of duty for you.
Let me share my sniper story
>On my third watch this week
> A thin layer of dust hangs over this broken Arab city
>Everything is brown
>there is a faint drone noise the Predators are intimidating the locals
>I check through the scope once in a while, blinking my long white eyelashes
>only few locals are out and about this hour
>all the women look like they have AKs in their frocks because they are all 100lb overweight and lumpy
>move the sight slowly over the possible cubby holes in the alleys, my hands stroking my polished gun which is always my dependable ally
>I am in the best condition of my life and my reflexes are like a mongoose accidentally stepping on a snake
>SUDDEN LOUD CLICK in the room, I FREEZE
>Boiling water is ready for coffee
>steam noises, happy noises from spotter
>I move my sight over the alley
And that's how I met your mum,fricker
>one of the most devastating and destructive capabilities a single soldier
That would be a machine gunner or AT launcher operator.
>Be relegated purely to a over glorified forward observer for your respective battalion
First, that's what military snipers actually were from the beginning - armed artillery observers.
Second, most of the commanding officers don't know how to utilize snipers properly. Most of the officers in most of the countries don't.
A single guy with a drone bomb can do far greater damage than a shitty sniper.
The thing with snipers is the mythology behind them clouds everyones perception of them. Their primary role isnt to shoot people and it hasnt been for half a century. Its to watch them and collect information. Then after that job is done MAYBE take a pot shot before scooting away but more than likely not. Why risk your highly trained skilled team member by having them potentially broadcast their position to an enemy and get killed?
Either way much of the stealthy aspect of snipers is going out the window with the advent of high quality thermal optics and NV. Unless someone invents some kind of magic thermal blocking gear that doesnt cook someone alive the time of the sniper is on a pretty short timer.
You act like one of their most devastating abilities 'isn't' being the forward observer who calls in an airstrike onto a juicy position.
On paper:
>See bad guy
>Calls fire mission
>Removes entire grid square
>Rinse repread
>War is won
Reality:
>See bad guy
>"Hey, is he within 600-1000m of any civilian infrastructure"
>"uhh"
>Fire mission denied
>Don't shoot him though, we need to develop the situation
>Bad guy runs away
Cool