Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much?

Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much? I mean, all the world over? This is a significant question that keeps begging for answers among the rank and files of military experts, enthusiasts and opinion leaders. 

 It remains a strange psychosocial phenomenon.

Bullets from soldiers are addressed as “To whom it may concern” while snipers address them as “Dear so and so, Fuck. Exactly. You.”

Let me put the significance of this discourse on snipers into a better perspective. 

Artillery and machine guns kill many more on the battlefield. A section will push forward against an enemy bunker even though you’re on their killing ground. 

A platoon will fight through a defended building even though it may take heavy casualties. 

However, there is something very personal about being targeted by a sniper.

A sniper can hit you when you’re least expecting it. 

You could be sitting in a harbour area having a shave or a brew when suddenly your head explodes.

You could be on a routine standing patrol when one of your mates drops, and you don’t even hear the shot until 3 seconds later. 

You can’t see the shooter and have no idea where it came from. You don’t know if there’s a crosshair on you. 

You know there’s a trained marksman out there and you can’t help but feel it’s you who they’re after. 

However, the modern sniper isn’t just deadly with a rifle.

While you are fixed and scared to move, a dead-eye-dick is calling in a fire mission on your head. 

You now have the choice of sticking your head up and risking the third eye or staying still and getting a 105mm shell on your napper.

There are reports of entire North Vietnamese Army battalions being held up for days by individual snipers for this very reason.

In 1944, an American soldier, Jack Tueller, who was in sniper territory, decided to play a well-known German love song on his trumpet. The song was called Lilly Marleen.

The German sniper that was out there never fired, letting him play the song all the way through.

The next morning, Jack went down to Normandy where all German POWs were held, getting ready to be sent to England.

That German sniper from last night was there, with 60 other POWs. He saw Jack and his trumpet, so he knew he was the one who played last night.

The German sniper immediately burst into tears and fell to his knees when he saw him.

He told him that he couldn’t fire at him last night because he played the song that he and his fiancé back in Germany loved and that he wanted to marry her upon his return.

He then said he immediately thought of his mum, dad, brothers, and sisters. Jack said he thought that too.

The German sniper reached his hand through the barbed wire fence and shook hands with him.

Jack, later on, said that that German sniper was no enemy. He was a scared kid, like him, doing what he was told to do.

The German sniper was only 19 at the time. Hope he married that girl.

 My point is, that some snipers can’t go through and fire. Then he is no good sniper, although humane.

But imagine the safety of your forces handed to a sniper, like that.

Usually, they are there to protect larger formations. They are not assassins. 

No matter what Hollywood movies impose on you.

On the contrary, many missions have a specific objective when they leave out, thus that term would apply.

It’s amazing how some people think there’s less wrong with random killing than there is with a known target.

It’s the same damn thing, everybody is doing their job.

It is important to note that the role of snipers can also be carried out by scouts and designated marksmen in our contemporary battle dynamics.

Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much?

Most other forms of violence employed in warfare are so much less personal.

Quick and reactionary; without respect for the people against whom they are directed.

With a sniper, it’s the opposite. It is intimate in a WAY Deliberate.

They know their mark; they watch them for hours or even days.

They decide when to pull the trigger.

 When death comes to you, it is not through wanton destruction, but a calculated and precise decision.

You were dead the moment they laid eyes on you.

I’ve noticed a similar thing with bayonets.

Even against a group as large as 30 men, one with a bayonet can control all of them.

Being personally targeted for death is unnerving in a way that shots from nowhere aren’t.

Also, artillery, bombing, machine gun fire, and all that stuff, is not guaranteed death.

You could get lucky and avoid it.

There is the knowledge in your mind that, although you are gambling with your life, you have a chance of winning.

Being the deliberate target of such a personal, precision attack means almost certain death.

That’s the thing. 

There is a belief that the sniper is a robot and that all movement will mean an extra head hole.

 However, statistically, the chances of a first-round kill from a sniper in battlefield conditions at 1000m are about 30%.

This is very much higher than other riflemen, but not perfect. 

A sniper can only target one person at a time in the line of sight. Chances of survival if part of a dispersed, large unit are quite good with decent fieldcraft skills.

Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much?

It is the perception of risk that paralyses a unit when under sniper fire.

I think the biggest difference is that when you are in a combat engagement, your unit and your position are being targeted but when a sniper is involved, YOU are being targeted.

Let’s take the case of Jake (real name withheld) who served as a battlefield Medic in the army of Finland.

During his training, they were supported by snipers which gave the medical personnel confidence to operate.

Snipers are your best health insurance.

Snipers are seen as incredibly deadly and useful during WWII, with the most famous story from WWII being about the Russian sniper Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev.

He became famous recently with the Enemy at the Gates movie starring Jude Law, and then there was the amazingly deadly Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, another Russian sniper.

This 24-year-old woman had over 300 confirmed kills, some believe it was as high as over 500 kills.

However, the lessons learnt by snipers during WWII were taken to a whole new level by the time the Vietnam War came around and Hathcock took the skill to entirely new levels.

He gave us the proper grounding for the snipers that are known today, a true force multiplier. 

Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much?

They don’t just sneak in and kill one or two people anymore, they can sneak in and give guidance or paint (laser mark).

A target for guided precision bombing or missiles or to gather evidence and secrets before sneaking back out to their side.

Carlos Hathcock, USMC, recounts holding up a battalion on the advance, in his book “Marine Sniper”.

He kept them pinned down for more than two days as the battalion advanced to a Special Forces A-Team.

In doing so, he enabled the SF team to arrange air support (forgive me for not remembering the specific reasons- weather, etc., that necessitated his actions).

He also had the world record for the longest kill shot, some 2000 yards, by affixing a Unertl 10x scope to the top of an M2 Browning .50 cal machine gun.

He selected the M2 due to the low cyclic rate when using the butterfly trigger, which would allow for a single round to be sent downrange.

It’s a great read –highly recommend it.

Some of these snipers racked up enormous unofficial scores and single-handedly dominated large enemy forces in combat.

Artillery kills many more but at least you don’t die alone. A sniper kills only you.

You nailed it. Only soldiers in the field know that the sniper’s true menace is the ability to call in a fire mission.

Too many people romanticise the sniper’s role based on computer games and Hollywood.

British Army sniper Craig Harrison had 2 confirmed kills in Afghanistan at 2475 metres.

He was using .338 not .50 cal, the kills were way beyond the weapon’s effective range which makes it very impressive.

I think the exciting thing with a sniper is that if you are of low rank, you are not a prime target.

If however, you are an officer, who generally directs Operations from a relatively safe spot, that is the sniper’s target. Cut the head off the snake.

All soldiers on any battlefield during a firefight will be scared. 

Add into the mix a sniper then the high-value target sitting 300 meters or more away from the fight will be terrified.

 An officer should remain calm and calculated, make high-stress decisions and generally command the fight. 

If he/she fears a sniper is scoping them, at best for them they make crap decisions at worst it’s a long sleep.

A sniper isn’t just a weapon.

With his spotter, they can inform the base of troop placement, mortar emplacements, officers’ huts, radar huts, weapon dumps, and total troop employment with times of change of shifts of guards.

What is more terrifying than a patient-specialized killer, that can come at you from more than a mile away, with a weapon that can antimaterialise you, or put a fine little hole in you? 

Ll whether a full-on frontal attack or a hook left or right to draw the commander out to engage with us.

Now the sniper has a target. He is now a weapon.

They are smart, sly, intelligent and elegant, and they are killing machines.

They have no fear of killing anyone that comes in their way to harm them or their country.

I find snipers to be amazing.

Why Are Snipers Dreaded So Much?