Date Written: 4-17-07 - 4-20-07
Written By: Graham Abram






Introduction:
This article will explain to everyone weather you are already a sniper, AM (advanced marksman), a rifleman, or a newcomer. I have a great amount of experience on the airsoft field, in speaking to real military snipers, and in general with being a sniper. I hope this article will help you understand your potential, or lack there of to be a sniper. First I will tell you the difference between a sniper and a snipers' rifle. A sniper is one who has vast amounts of knowledge and skill in marksmanship, stealth, concealment, observation, and many other important aspects which will be explained in greater detail later on. A snipers' rifle is a rifle completely customized and modified to fit the standards and needs of one specific sniper. The word "sniper" alone cannot be used in place of the words "sniper rifle" or "snipers' rifle".

I write this article hoping you will understand that it is NO easy task To Be A Sniper.

Definition of a Sniper:
A sniper is among the most skilled, patient, and dedicated warriors on the real battlefield, or even a simple airsoft field. No soldier carrying a firearm has greater ability with a rifle, nor greater skill of stealth. The skills of a sniper are unrivalled; the sniper itself is an unseen symbol of fear, and perfection. A sniper must hold the greatest abilities in marksmanship, distance estimation, patience, calmness, observation, breath control, trigger pull, self concealment, concealed movement and the proper use of a ghillie suit. A sniper can be called an AM (Advanced Marksman), a recon specialist or observer, whatever you call them, they all hold the same basic task; observe, kill, leave. The term sniper applies to highly trained and skilled individual with a customized highly accurate rifle used in anti-material or anti-personnel applications; and who also observes terrain, enemy bases, or whatever necessary. A sniper can be an AM (Advanced Marksman), a Special Reconnaissance Soldier, or whatever the mission requires. The AM and Special Reconnaissance Soldier will be described below.

AM (Advanced Marksman):
An AM is a sniper who's main mission is to take out one or more specific targets, most commonly human however on occasion, a vehicle or small container my need to be silently be destroyed. However we will leave that for later because now we must discuss an AM's application in airsoft. Mostly AM's will remain in one area for long periods of time waiting in ambush for personnel to move by, and the AM will take action.

Special Reconnaissance:
A special reconnaissance sniper's main mission is to observe, not kill, but observe and gather valuable information silently and without the enemies’ knowledge. That is not an easy task. The term Special Reconnaissance applies to a mission, goal or task. Which would be to move into a specific area within sight of a target, observe for long periods of time, take out any necessary targets and leave the area undetected.

Roles of a Sniper:
Most people believe that a snipers' only mission is the assassination of a particularly important person; this however is not true at all. Sure a sniper may be sent on a mission to kill a specific VIP, but this rarely occurs, and is commonly the last thing a sniper is trained to do. In some cases a sniper may be deployed on a counter-sniper mission. This is among the most difficult task for a sniper to accomplish.

Skills of a sniper:

1. A sniper must have impeccable skill in marksmanship. Meaning his/her ability to fire and hit an exact point at varied distances, with different weather conditions. Everything has an effect on a sniper's bullet moving through the air, and the sniper must take all of this into account before firing, and calculate how to perfectly adjust the sights for an exact hit; if this is not done, the sniper will fail his/her mission. A sniper must be trained rigorously in the skills of firing using iron sights and most commonly, a scope. Contrary to what you may believe, a sniper does not usually equip a super high power scope, such as in the case of the M82 .50 caliber anti-material AMR (Advanced Marksman Rifle). The M82 can fire a shot 2 miles over level terrain and hit its target with ease, if fired by a trained sniper of course. In this case you would probably expect the M82 to have a 20 power scope or greater, but when in reality it used a mere 10 power scope. This is because with a lower power scope, the sniper can carry less wait, and the scope will not interfere with movement, also it allows the sniper to see more of the surroundings of his/her target. Overall, a sniper must know how to fire a rifle well, and accurately.

2. A sniper must have brilliant skill in distance estimation. Though distance estimation technology is commonly equipped in more top of the line scopes these days, this skill is still among the most important. If a sniper must kill someone .73 kilometers away, but the sniper has bad distance estimation skill and estimates the distance at .56 kilometers, the sniper will likely miss, thus posing greater risk to his/herself. If you can’t estimate distances accurately, you will likely not make an accomplished sniper. Distance estimation is a simple concept, you look at an object weather it be 10 feet away or 1 mile, and estimate its distance, then you find the actual distance and compare the your estimation to the actual distance, if you are close, congratulations, you got a relative head start, however practice is always better. The main purpose for a sniper to be able to accurately determine distances is so that when he takes a shot in the field, he will know approximately how much his bullet will drop in that distance.

3. Patience. This is one of the absolute most important aspects of being a sniper. If you do not have patience, and do not care to gain it, you will never make a good sniper. A sniper must have patience because concealed movement takes drastic amounts of time, and when on mission, or waiting in ambush, a sniper can wait anywhere from 1 hour to 3 days. 3 days sitting in one prone position, no movement, no sleep. Of course no sniper will do this during an airsoft game, but an airsoft sniper still may have to lay in waiting for many hours. Patience is a skill that cannot be taught, it can only be attained through motivation, dedication can determination of the one seeking to become a sniper.

4. Calmness is very important mainly to avoid detection. This is so in common situations where you may have a severe itch, or a bug, high amounts of calmness and concentration will allow a good sniper to overcome that itch, or ignore that deadly spider on his arm, really. If you think calmness is easy, try allowing a nice big rattlesnake take a nap under your head. This is only necessary when if the sniper were to move, he would be spotted, and killed; thus you can scream like girls and run from deadly snakes and spiders in airsoft games. Also, another situation in which you must be calm is when there is an enemy within feet, or even inches of you, and you could not possibly defend yourself if spotted. This happens allot during airsoft games, I know, it has happened to me a number of times. In these situations all a sniper can do is lay still, not breath, and not make a sound; if this is done correctly, on most occasions the sniper will prevail.

5. Observation is an absolute must for a sniper. Observation is so important because without it, a sniper could not complete his/her mission. The first part of observation is the ability to spot and identify objects concealed in terrain from afar. A sniper must be able to observe a particular piece of terrain, spot any man made or unnatural objects, and accurately identify what they are. For example, a USMC sniper is required to be able to spot a dark colored hair comb from more than 200 yards away. If you can achieve that, you can be among the best of the airsoft snipers. Spotting man made or unnatural objects is important because such objects indicate the past, or present presents, of a human; meaning there may have been or may be a sniper hiding behind that dark colored hair comb!

Another important factor in observation is once again an aspect of spotting, but this time you are spotting broken or out of place plants and vegetation. This means that a sniper must be able to spot broken plants, branches, twigs, fallen leaves and disturbed grass. The main things to keep in mind are that people walk in straight lines, animals usually don't, and very few plants grow horizontally. The third aspect of spotting is being able to spot snipers. This is much related to spotting man made objects and out of place vegetation. When a sniper is prone in a ghillie suit, grass around the sniper may lean outwards from the sniper's body, also there may be a dark spot wear the sniper's face is, and last there may be a horizontal object that appears to contain a rifle barrel. A sniper's rifle barrel is probably the most likely thing to give away his/her position; and that is the last thing a sniper will want and thus it is usually carefully placed, and covered in a ghillie wrap.

6. A sniper must also be able to control their breath, and heartbeat. Controlling your breath is very important because even though you may not realize it, with every breath, your body moves, as do your shoulders, and one of those shoulders is connected to your rifle, thus cause your whole rifle to move. Therefore a sniper will usually take a breath, and let it out slowly, when he/she is doing this, they will usually fire. Now you might ask, "Why not just hold your breath?" Well this is because when you hold your breath, after a few seconds your brain will begin to be starved of oxygen thus blurring your vision and lowering your control of your muscles. This will lead to a very bad shot; and shows the reason most snipers let out breath when they as they fire. Controlling your heartbeat of the other hand isn't so easy, however the idea is simple. You must simply be able to stay clam and prevent yourself from getting anxious when you prepare to fire.

7. Trigger pull is actually the hardest thing for most people to perfect. For consistent firing, you must have consistent finger placement on the trigger. The most ideal placement is having just the tip of your index finger touched the very tip of the trigger. This allows for more leverage and making it easier to pull the trigger. Easy trigger pull is important because it allows you to move your finger less in order to fire and thus preventing any risk of the rifle moving. The reason you must place only the tip of your finger on the trigger is because when you pull the trigger, more in your finger is moving and less in the rifle is moving. Think of it this way, get your airsoft gun, and place you hand on the grip, and finger around the trigger so that the area between the last and middle knuckles on your index finder are touching front of the trigger, then pull the trigger. Notice how much your entire hand had to move to fire your replica? Now place the tip of your index finger on the tip of the front of the trigger, and pull; now notice how little your hand moved in order to fire? This movement of your hand causes ever so slightly your rifle to move and displace your shot.

Also, follow through is a very important factor in taking an accurate shot. Follow through is the method of continuing to look through your sights or scope for a second after you take your shot, this prevents your from moving the rifle the instant you fire and disturbing the path of your shot. You may believe that you don't move the rifle when you shoot, but trust me, you do, and maintaining follow through will greatly reduce the chance of this thus increasing your accuracy.

8. Self concealment, first we must consider the aspects of it, I prefer to use the outline of the seven S's, and these are: shape, shine, shadow, silhouette, sound, speed and surroundings. These are the basics of what you will need to know.

8a. Shape. The human form with a rifle is one of the easiest things to recognize. We naturally see things as human like even when they are not. It is how we as humans perceive the world, so we must brake up this very obvious shape. To start with you have your camouflage with there displacement patterned material. This uses lines to brake up the flat surface of the body, though it is still very flat. A simple and effective way to brake up the body shape is to use local vegetation. Attach elastic strips to your uniform; this makes the attachment of local camouflage simple. When using local vegetation always remember to not pull up the roots, as vegetation does not grow in mid air. Also look how the vegetation is arranged in the area you are to be working, don't use too much (telegraph polls sticking out of a field is just as obvious as a dark object in the grass). Always match the vegetation on you to that of your surroundings. There is no use covering yourself in ferns if you’re going in to a grassy field as you will silhouette yourself. You could of course construct a ghillie suit. A ghillie suit is a form of camouflage that aids you to hide better as it breaks up your bodies shape better then just using camouflage uniforms. A ghillie suit does not make you invisible, you still need to use local vegetation and the principles of the seven S's to use it to its full advantage.

8b. Shine. Something that people tend to forget in airsoft is that things shine and reflect light. To the keen observer that is all they need to spot someone hidden in the bushes. The most obvious reflective piece of equipment you may have in your position is your mask. For lenses there isn't that much you can do, ghillie the edges as best you can and try and cover as much of a surface area as possible. To ghillie the mask I suggest gluing the ghillie to it, and make sure you can still see out of it and if you have a scope can still use it. Scope lenses also need to be broken up, not only do they reflect the light they are too prominent a shape to be left untouched. There a few things you can do to brake up the shape and destroy the reflective nature of your lenses. To start with you can buy one of two different type sun shields. The first is your standard cover, which protrudes in front of your scope casting a shadow on the lenses. The second is similar to the mesh masks; a mesh is placed in front of the lenses to brake up the glare. I have never used one of these, as of yet though I have been informed from a reliable source that they work very well. I will have to see next time I play against this person. The next method is one I personally use; I cover the lenses with scrim netting. It is pulled tight over the front of the scope and not only does it prevent most reflection it also breaks up the familiar shape of the front of a scope. Yes you lose a little light but not that much.

Finally the other reflective surface people tend to overlook, their skin. It is extremely easy to brake up the shape of the face and remove its reflective shine with face paint. If you don't want to use any, mud is good enough to remove that shine, though it will not break up the lines of your face. It helps even if you use a full-face mask, as I tend to find that it's the mask that gives you away and the lack of cover around your eyes. The human features are always easy to recognize, break them up. Finally equipment (rifles, pistols etc.) all needs to be camouflaged. If they reflect they can give you away. Again there are a few methods to do this, from painting, to tape and of course ghillie suits. The first two may remove there shine though the shape will remain, this is where a ghillie is an advantage and is why I Prefer to ghillie my rifles rather then paint them.

8c. Shadow. An important and easy way to remain undetected is to use shadows; you're more likely to remain hidden if people cannot make out what you are. Look where the light is coming from, use it to hide you. Use it to find people, as many hide yet forget to look if they are casting a shadow. Shadows can be helpful as well as unhelpful. Try and keep low to cast as little a shadow as possible, use other shadows to mask your own, and always remember to look carefully at shadows, as there may be another just as able to use them as yourself.

8d. Silhouette. Silhouetting is a big problem it seams in airsoft; people forget that their background is never the same, some times dark and some times light. Most remember tour of duty the TV series and that highlights silhouetting or sky lining. You will stand out a mile and put all your camouflage to waste if you break cover, as would using the wrong type of camouflage in that particular area. Make sure that you try and mach your surroundings as best you can, don't break the sky line, if possible use the dead ground (the area that the opposition can not see) as best you can.

8e. Sound. Finally sound, little balls make a lot of noise, and noise is fairly easy to trace. If you can silence something do so. Make speed loaders out of the leg of a pair of BDU's and a bottle top (tried and tested and I must to say I have yet to find anything better for this). If your weapon rattles or squeaks tape it down or pad it out until it stops. Tape all lose things down, tighten all straps as so things fit you properly. Don't use too much gear; take only what you need, you have less chance of making to much noise. When moving you unavoidably make noise, move slower; look where you’re putting your feet and other body parts so not to break twigs etc.

A trick that works well when walking upright is to put your heal down first (slowly) then moving the foot in a sweeping motion as pushing all the small twigs out of the way, then rest your foot down. This works in practice, not always in the field, taking it slowly is the best way. When crawling make sure that you do not take to difficult a rout try stay away from as many obstacles as you can. You might not be directly making noise or movement though the sudden swaying of undergrowth usually means that there is someone there. Listen out for movement, twigs snapping, and the knock of something hard against a tree or other object, voices, the sound of AEG fire. I have found that sound is one of the easiest ways to be detected and to detect others. It also can help you tell who is who if you play against the same people each time, and what there using. Once you know what people are using you can work out the likely way their going to skirmish. On another note, keeping your smell down is good too, weather it be deodorant or lube in your rifle, keep down your sent.

8f. Speed. Do things slowly and smoothly; don’t jerk, as it will attract more attention, being airsoft you will have to move around more than you probably would in the real world of sniping so you need to think about what is the best speed to move at. If you’re in known dead ground use it and move quickly, but don’t take your self out of breath, as it will throw your aim off. The closer to danger you get the slower you move (unless compromised and you can either remain perfectly still and hope they think it was a random act of movement or you can run for your life.) You would want to be thinking of the first option more than the second, only use the second when you know the first is not even an option. When looking out for movement don’t be distracted by those fast moving people, anybody in your team will either of seen them or you can radio there position in, you might want to concentrate on slow moving people, those that know what there doing. You will need to use movement to judge a person's ability, it will aid in target acquisition, someone that moves deliberately has knowledge of the area and you would expect is more experienced than a person that moves curiously. Looking around them all the time and shooting at anything they see regardless of distance.

8g. Surroundings. Surroundings include your local environment and the local wildlife you are trying not to disturb. Frantically moving grass or bushes indicates to the knowable that there is generally a person near underneath or next to it, making location far easer. You therefore have to think about how you are affecting the ground you’re moving through, and the ground you have moved in to set up a defense position. Use natural disturbances to move things, to try to move them as little as possible. Make sure you’re not snagged on anything and if you are caught on something, be sure to remove it with out disturbing it too much if at all. When thinking about where to go, think about what type of undergrowth you will have to move through, and the effects of your movement upon them. Will it make a lot of noise, will it create a path that is easy to follow, and will its movement alert others to your presents. You need to choose your path with all this in mind, though keep in mind where blind spots are and time constraints.

In defense if you want to hide in a cluster of ferns or other plant life, you might want to take a run and jump in, as to not disturb the outer edge of your semi permanent hide. Don’t choose the most obvious area to choose, choose your location taking in to account what is out there, if it’s the biggest and most obvious piece of ground to use, then the opposition will already be thinking there will be some one there and deal with it appropriately. With regards to wildlife, if you disturb it, it will react to you, animals react to people in different ways, sheep move away from you as a flock, dogs may come up to you as do horses (esp. if you have grass on you... as I found out), cows generally either don’t move or bolt away from you if startled, foxes avoid areas with humans as do deer. Birds fly away from people as well. All these are tell tail signs that can give your position away, but they are very helpful to spot the opposition. I generally spot more people through their lack of thought due to how they’re affecting their surroundings.

With all these ideas combined you stand a better chance of remaining undetected, and thus survive the game longer yet still play an important part.

A Sniper's Rifle:
The rifle belonging to a sniper is his second half, without a rifle, a sniper is nothing, without a sniper, a sniper's rifle is nothing. Choosing your rifle is also a big decision, for it will determine what weapon you will be stuck with for a long period of time. Most snipers in airsoft prefer bolt action rifles for three things, accuracy, length of time it can be used, and silence. Of course you can always fit your rifle with a suppressor, but it is always a good idea to have a quite rifle in general. The most important things to take into account when purchasing the rifle you will use in your time as sniper are: Determine which type of operation you would like in a rifle (I.e. gas powered semi-auto or spring powered bolt action, be sure that the rifle is accurate (do this by reading reviews about the rifle on any airsoft forum), of course now you must be sure you can afford it (cheap rifle under $200 dollars are low quality and will not work for a true sniper), now determine what type of rifle you would want according to where you will be playing and the environment of that area, also determine what rifle to buy by asking yourself if you are going to be a scout sniper or a urban sniper etc., now you must be sure that the rifle you are buying is upgradeable so you don't have to buy a whole new rifle when you want better performance, and last but not least you must be sure that you buy a rifle in which you will be able to carry around for long periods of time.

After you buy your rifle your next concern will be buying BB's. When buying BB's be sure that you know that you are buying premium grade high polish BB's; just because the package says they are the best BB's, doesn't even mean they are near good grade. Also you must be sure to buy a heavier BB than normal for increased accuracy. Next there is the concern of camouflaging your new rifle, most snipers who use ghillie suits prefer to custom make a ghillie wrap for there rifle, if you do not wish to make one, you can probably buy one where ghillie suits are sold. If you are to ghillie your rifle, be sure it does not block you seeing through any optics and does not cover the muzzle of your rifle, this will drastically reduce accuracy. Methods of how to create a ghillie will be provided later on in this article. The other option for rifle camouflage is paint; the first thing you must always remember when buying paint is to only buy matte paint. The word "matte" means that the paint has zero reflective properties; this will prevent you from being spotted because of a reflective surface on your rifle. When painting be sure not to paint the bolt or action of your rifle shut, I suggest completely taking down your rifle before painting; however before you do this, be sure you know what your doing, get some help of someone more experienced if possible. Be sure not allow any paint to get inside of the barrel or flake in front of the muzzle. Always be sure to constantly maintain your rifle, clean all parts including the barrel, and lube all moving parts; this will keep your rifle in pristine condition.

The Ghillie Suit:
A ghillie suit is an advanced form of camouflage that aids the person wearing it to blend into their surroundings much easier. It does this by braking up the human form and the equipment used. Before you start to build your ghillie suit you want to think about what you carry, how you carry it and other things like padding. You want to first think about what you are carrying, if you use webbing, will it go over the top of your ghillie jacket/top or are you putting it underneath. Or are you going to use it as the base of your ghillie? More to the point do you actually need it? Look at what equipment you carry, and take it to the minimum items which you will use, if you don't need it don't take it with you. I personally use a belt, a single belt with my pouches attached. Keep it simple; don't over load your self. Once you have your webbing sorted out, you have to decide weather it goes over the top or underneath, if it’s over the top, that will need to be ghillied, or at the very least elastic strips sown on to it to place local vegetation upon it.

Another thing you want to look into is padding on or under your BDU's. I can not recommend enough the use of pads on your knees, you can either make them out of a foam sleeping mat and some material for securing them on, or you can get ready made pads. I know people that use skate boarding pads, so if you wish those will work. Defiantly need them on your knees, but it helps to have them on your elbows and possibly down your stomach and crotch. Ever crawled over an extremely rocky or thorny area and you will know why I make this recommendation though they are not essential. The pads I normally add to my standard BDU's, as I might not use a ghillie when skirmishing, it depends on the scenarios and other factors such as weather and thorny bushes. Ghillie suits aren't made to go through them, so don't try you will end up drawing more attention to your self as you will be pulling half of it with you as you crawl along, I have been there and done that. If you have the time during skirmish's I’m sure you would be fine but games don't last that long. Time is a very big factor in whether you use a ghillie or not. Now you have to decide if your using webbing or not, where and how your going to ware it. Your pads are attached or on you, you will now need to work out what would be the best type of ghillie for your environment.

Look at what area you will be playing in. Most sites in Washington are woodland, rather than grassland, but choose the right one for you. Look at the colors; is the area mostly brown or green? Look at the colors you see, pick out the most predominate colors and try to match them in your ghillie. Are the greens dark or light, same as the browns. Are the trees gray or brown; is there any green in the wood at all? Do the colors change with the seasons, if so can you adapt your ghillie suit to the changing colors or will you need to make more than one ghillie? If you want a really good ghillie suit you need to choose the colors correctly or you’re going to highlight yourself rather than hide. The last recommendation I will make is to use light colors, as once they get wet they go darker, and for me being in Washington you get rained on a fair bit.

The Spotter:
In a two man 'sniper' team, you have a sniper, and a spotter, who do you think is more important? The sniper? Wrong. The sniper is merely a pawn waiting the spotter's go ahead to do whatever the mission requires. The spotter is the most valued member of the team. To start off, the spotter carries a battle rifle, a spotting scope, mission material and notepads. The sniper never fires without the direct command of the spotter; the spotter controls the team, relays information to base, takes records, determines mission priorities and does most of the actual observation. A spotter usually takes over the task of determining necessary adjustments for windage and elevation, and also takes records on shots. Also, because of the fact that the spotter carries the only battle rifle of the team, he/she also takes over the task of close range cover, and defense in case of emergency.

All in all, one must realize, for an effective sniper team, the spotter must be in command of the team. A sniper must only have the responsibility of firing his/her rifle, thus the spotter is charged with all other responsibilities. This in fact, no matter how much the sniper thinks he/she can do, is the most effective setup for a sniper team.

Sidearm:
Many people looking to become snipers often come across the problem of what sidearm to buy. When buying a sidearm you must consider the following: magazine capacity, size and upgradeability. For a sniper, the sidearm is the tool that he/she will be using for CQB if to occasion should present itself; therefore you should take into account that you may want to attach a light or laser. Also, which sidearm you invest in should also depend on your general environment, if you live in a woodland area, you will be at closer ranges when engaging with your sidearm, therefore accuracy is not your top priority. The most common sidearm used is a pistol, mostly an M9 or M1911; pistols are used because of there size, they are very small, and yet can provide decent defense fire at close range. Fully automatic sidearms with the exception of PDW's are not all that effective, this is because you will often find yourself running out of ammo, or not even having a use for the select fire option. Therefore I recommend a semi-automatic sidearm. PDW's are not all that common for a sniper's sidearm because of their large size, if you are going to be moving often, the large size of the sidearm will tend to get in your way. If you are in the market for a PDW as your sidearm, I recommend the TM MP7A1 because of its adaptability. As for pistols, I recommend any higher quality M1911, this is because the M1911 holds more BB's per magazine than any other pistol of the same size. If you are fortunate enough to have a spotter with you often, I believe you should look into a pistol more than a PDW.

A sniper is only ever going to use a pistol in emergencies, such as when they have been spotted and the enemy is too close to fire on with their rifle. A sniper may also use his/her sidearm when entering buildings, for whatever reason there may be. Something to keep in mind is that you should never open fire with your sidearm if you have not been spotted! Doing this will reveal your position, and you will likely be hit. Now comes the decision of where to locate your sidearm when worn. First off, never wear it on your front side, doing this will force you to move a dramatic amount when prone (the most common sniper position) to get to your sidearm. I personally prefer to keep a sidearm on my thigh (right thigh because I am right handed); this allows me to see the holster, and get to my sidearm easily no matter what position I may be in. It is also an option to keep your sidearm on the back of your belt for example, however this is a less effective placement because of the simple fact it is harder to see, thus it is harder to get to, and also put back into place. An idea presented to me while I was on a playing field was to keep a small pistol in a modified cheek pouch, I tried it and it worked well however I did not prefer it because it added more wait to my rifle.

Remember, you're not Rambo, so don't try to sneak up on someone and risk your 'life'.




Cheers, Graham.

This post has been edited by Graham Abram: Dec 4 2007, 03:37 PM

Article updated with a small bit about "The Spotter". It will be lengthened in a timely manner.

6-26-07, Teusday.


Cheers, Graham.

Article updated with two paragraphs about "Sidearms".

07-06-07


Cheers, Graham.