Ask a Soldier

[Mad Man]

Being a Falkland war vet do you fell America and the rest of NATO betrayed the British people by not declaring war on Argentina? As an American I think we should have done a hell of a lot more then stand by and watch while are ally gets invaded.

 

[Flying Pig]

This is veering dangerously close to politics, but no. While it would have been nice, I don't think it was a moral duty for them to give a hand, and they would probably have done it wrong anyway.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

How are sniper teams used in actual battle operations? What targets are they assigned? How often and when are they used? What do they do most of the time?

 

[Bad Player]

Not really; I trust my superiors to only fight a war where it is justified.

Which superiors - military or political - do you trust to only fight a war where it is justified? What makes you trust them so?

 

[Bad Player]

You seem big on the honour system of Britain - do you think that countries honouring old treaties is always a good thing? I just wonder if millions of lives could have been spared if some leaders swallowed their pride.

 

[Flying Pig]

How are sniper teams used in actual battle operations? What targets are they assigned? How often and when are they used? What do they do most of the time?

I like this question - I worked as a sniper for a fair while. I assume you're talking about the conventional two-person fixed team, so I'll talk a bit about that.

A sniper team, as you probably know, is composed of two people; a marksman who is armed with a sniper rifle (in my day an L42, nowadays they have fancier, more modern things) and a spotter who carries a scope and an LMG. The marksman is generally senior; not neccessarily (especially in special forces where rank doesn't seem to exist) in rank but his job is to take decisions for the team as a whole. Often these will swap over once in position to avoid eye fatuige.

You get two broad roles for a sniper team. There's anti-personnel or AP, which is the one you see in movies and involves shooting people, and anti-material or AM which is the one they never seem to put on TV but is (in my view) massively more satisfying. AM means that you might target radio systems, RADAR dishes, or the engine of a vehicle (or in one case, the propellors of a squadron of aircraft) with a view to take out the enemy's equipment. In a traditional mission, AP will involve shooting a person, probably a set character, for example the commander of the enemy in the region.

The traditional mission and the one you see in special forces units is that a team goes out, lays-up and then shoots the target either on command or when seen. Often what actually happens is that eight people end up going and laying up, so that if there's enemy contact on the way they can take it and don't get killed, and if there are more than two snipers in the team then they'll rotate duties. You can be in LUP for about a month, eating cold rations, lighting no fires to avoid being seen from the smoke, bagging up body waste - it's not exactly as much fun as the films make out. Once you've shot whatever you've got to shoot, you have to work out whether they've noticed you. If not, it isn't unknown for people to just shoot the rest of a particularly thick enemy unit but you're supposed to escape and evade the enemy back to a designated place where you will hopefully be exfiltrated. Of course, while in the LUP you're also reconning the enemy position and gathering intelligence, which can on occasion be the whole point of the mission.

Nowadays, particularly in FIBUA which you get in Afghanistan, they've started deploying teams to cover advancing conventional units, so one team sitting on a roof might cover a section of men on the ground. Their job then becomes to shoot anyone - heavy weapons operators, other snipers - that might pose a problem for the advancing unit. This job is apparently a lot more fun than the other sorts.

Which superiors - military or political - do you trust to only fight a war where it is justified? What makes you trust them so?

In general, if HMQ has sanctioned it that means it's at least checked enough so that squaddies can't be expected to understand the legal business and therefore won't get in serious trouble if it turns out that it wasn't legal, and I don't think that her majesty would tell people to go off to somewhere dusty and kill people if it wasn't worth doing. That's why we have a Queen.

You seem big on the honour system of Britain - do you think that countries honouring old treaties is always a good thing? I just wonder if millions of lives could have been spared if some leaders swallowed their pride.

Really old treaties are just silly to follow, but as a country people need to be able to trust that we do what we say.

 

[Bad Player]

Interesting reading your comments about sniper teams.

I guess I was making reference to certain wars that certain 1st world countries have been involved in recently in which the legality of the war was controversial (I'm not taking a position here to avoid politics) but it seems that you are placing trust in political leaders that whatever war/operation you do is morally? good.

 

[Mad Man]

In a friendly fire situation is it considered unethical to fire back in self defence if you happen to know the people are on the same side but you have noway of communicating with them without getting your self killed in the process.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Thanks for the answers Flying Pig.

A sniper team, as you probably know, is composed of two people; a marksman who is armed with a sniper rifle (in my day an L42, nowadays they have fancier, more modern things) and a spotter who carries a scope and an LMG. The marksman is generally senior; not neccessarily (especially in special forces where rank doesn't seem to exist) in rank but his job is to take decisions for the team as a whole. Often these will swap over once in position to avoid eye fatuige.

An LMG? Doesn't strike me as a personal defense weapon, although if the enemy sees you you'd probably want the firepower. And here I thought the spotter was the one who made decisions and was senior.

You get two broad roles for a sniper team. There's anti-personnel or AP, which is the one you see in movies and involves shooting people, and anti-material or AM which is the one they never seem to put on TV but is (in my view) massively more satisfying. AM means that you might target radio systems, RADAR dishes, or the engine of a vehicle (or in one case, the propellors of a squadron of aircraft) with a view to take out the enemy's equipment. In a traditional mission, AP will involve shooting a person, probably a set character, for example the commander of the enemy in the region.

Do you use the same ammunition for both? I'd imagine some anti-materiel targets would require heavy rounds like the 50 cal.

This job is apparently a lot more fun than the other sorts.

I can just imagine.

Oh, also, do the enemies you fought used snipers that much?

 

[Cutlass]

I don't see a 2 man team sneaking through the brush with a .50 HMG

 

[stuge]

Well, Pig did say that the spotter carries a LMG, which is much easier to lug around. It does strike me as overdoing it, because I can't really think of a situation where an assault rifle wouldn't be enough for cover fire while disengaging. Although extra firepower never hurts.

@FP: Did you ever command a squad/strike team with a sniper attached on a attack mission with a set objective e.g. "advance to x"? How would you employ the sniper on such a mission?

EDIT: Disregard the first paragraph, Cutlass. I see now that you were (probably) replying to SS-18.

 

[Flying Pig]

Interesting reading your comments about sniper teams.

I guess I was making reference to certain wars that certain 1st world countries have been involved in recently in which the legality of the war was controversial (I'm not taking a position here to avoid politics) but it seems that you are placing trust in political leaders that whatever war/operation you do is morally? good.

First thing - if I ever got sent to a warzone I would shoot, blow up and bayonet people with wives, mothers and children; I might end up calling down artillery to level someone's house, I could be in contact (although I don't think I ever was) with child soldiers - if the almighty's going to damn me it's not because I didn't follow claus 15 of the treaty of Xanadu with reference to the neutrality of durka-durka-stan.

In a friendly fire situation is it considered unethical to fire back in self defence if you happen to know the people are on the same side but you have noway of communicating with them without getting your self killed in the process.

If you're actually in a firefight, you might send out a radio message like 'hello B20 this is B30 friendly fire stop firing we are not firing over' and the guns will go quiet and everyone will say 'oh feck' on their side. However, you get the difficult situation of special forces who aren't on each others' nets and indeed during the Falklands conflicts someone I knew from 22 SAS was involved in what later turned out to be a contact with an SBS unit.

An LMG? Doesn't strike me as a personal defense weapon, although if the enemy sees you you'd probably want the firepower. And here I thought the spotter was the one who made decisions and was senior.

Maybe in America. I can't speak for foreign countries, but when I did it the guy who started off with the rifle was the de facto commander.

Do you use the same ammunition for both? I'd imagine some anti-materiel targets would require heavy rounds like the 50 cal.

AM rounds are big. The new L115 has a round which is supposed to do a decent job at both roles; and that's 8.59mm. An SLR or an AK-47 uses 7.62 and an M-16 or SA80 uses 5.56

I can just imagine.

The other ones are hard work, boring and the food's rubbish.

Oh, also, do the enemies you fought used snipers that much?

I never went to Bosnia, but in Ulster we got a lot of trouble from them and the guys on operations in Aden had Adoo soldiers with lee-enfields which could only lay down single-shots, so they were quite accurate. Luckily they can't really shoot straight to begin with - snipers in the British army are paratroopers or SAS; you can imagine there isn't an army in the world that can field soldiers equal to SAS and our paras give most special forces a run for their money. In my humble opinion.

Well, Pig did say that the spotter carries a LMG, which is much easier to lug around. It does strike me as overdoing it, because I can't really think of a situation where an assault rifle wouldn't be enough for cover fire while disengaging. Although extra firepower never hurts.

You know that a nice, modern, built-for-automatic SA80 assault rifle loads 30 rounds, right? An old SLR loaded 20 7.62 rounds, fired semi-automatic only and would shoot through walls. If you want to cover a retreat against superior odds, you want an LMG. It's one of those 'try it before you knock it' situations

Did you ever command a squad/strike team with a sniper attached on a attack mission with a set objective e.g. "advance to x"? How would you employ the sniper on such a mission?

We didn't often do that in the old days, but we got training on it and of course being in a unit known for improvising we knew how to do it anyway. It depends of coup-d'oeil - you can't explain it without hills, woods and enemy in front of you - but in general I would have him take up a position to overlook our advance and the enemy position - for example a hill just off to our left. He would then warn us of where the enemy were, provide fire support when contact hit and generally be our eyes which the enemy would hopefully not be able to see.

 

[stuge]

You know that a nice, modern, built-for-automatic SA80 assault rifle loads 30 rounds, right? An old SLR loaded 20 7.62 rounds, fired semi-automatic only and would shoot through walls. If you want to cover a retreat against superior odds, you want an LMG. It's one of those 'try it before you knock it' situations.

I can accept that. Thinking further, I guess that the mere precence of a MG would give you more time to leg it by making any pursuers think through their plans twice.

We didn't often do that in the old days, but we got training on it and of course being in a unit known for improvising we knew how to do it anyway. It depends of coup-d'oeil - you can't explain it without hills, woods and enemy in front of you - but in general I would have him take up a position to overlook our advance and the enemy position - for example a hill just off to our left. He would then warn us of where the enemy were, provide fire support when contact hit and generally be our eyes which the enemy would hopefully not be able to see.

Thanks for the answer.

 

[Frank327]

The view of a lot of people is that modern wars are mostly electronical, and that ground forces are mostly there to make sure the electronic systems can do their job. How much of that is true, and how much have wars changed in your career?

Have you been issued an SA80 or L85, and if so, does having a shorter AR actually help a lot on the battlefield? Or do you prefer the M16?

Also, did you usually fight an enemy that was worse equipped and trained than you, or were there also operations where the enemy was almost equal?

 

[nonconformist]

Well, Pig did say that the spotter carries a LMG, which is much easier to lug around. It does strike me as overdoing it, because I can't really think of a situation where an assault rifle wouldn't be enough for cover fire while disengaging. Although extra firepower never hurts.

Uk standard LMG is the L86A1, which is basically a composite version f the standrd assault rifle, with a longer barrel and a bipod, soo in fact, its a nice compromise between an assault rifle, and something more accurate.

 

[stormbind]

What is your opinion on people who follow morally questionable orders, such as the officers in Nazi extermination camps?

I don't think that her majesty would tell people to go off to somewhere dusty and kill people if it wasn't worth doing. That's why we have a Queen.

I support the concept of the unwritten constitution, which is theoretically made possible by having a constitutional monarchy. Immediately prior to invading Iraq, do you think it is odd that the Her Majesty made no comment when everyone was demanding disclosure from the Prime Minister?

 

[Flying Pig]

I can accept that. Thinking further, I guess that the mere precence of a MG would give you more time to leg it by making any pursuers think through their plans twice.

That's the idea, but a single LMG isn't going to make anyone think they're against overwhelming odds. A fifty, maybe.

The view of a lot of people is that modern wars are mostly electronical, and that ground forces are mostly there to make sure the electronic systems can do their job. How much of that is true, and how much have wars changed in your career?

Balls. Me, and my parent unit, have a running hate of technology reliance. The only thing that never gets a firmware error, never runs out of batteries, is reasonably shatterproof and can be relied upon to work in all circumstances is the British combat soldier. That's why we spend so much time and money training people to do it! Nothing will ever replace, for example, the section commander's ability when leading a section and hitting contact to instantly formulate a battle-plan, communicate it to his men and carry it out.

Have you been issued an SA80 or L85, and if so, does having a shorter AR actually help a lot on the battlefield? Or do you prefer the M16?

I was issued one of the A1s back during GRANBY, but I was at base the whole time then so I never fired it. Apparently it's a damn good rifle nowadays; an SLR was downright useless in close-quarters and a lot of contacts ended up with bayonets (not pretty, not glamourous and not fun). I loved the M16 when I used it; it's a good intermediary between the long-range, high-power but generally bulky and unwieldy SLR and the SA80 which doesn't have the power, but is a beast in FIBUA and CQB.

Also, did you usually fight an enemy that was worse equipped and trained than you, or were there also operations where the enemy was almost equal?

There isn't an enemy that will match us

Sometimes we ran into what later turned out to be special forces, and they generally gave us a good fight, but I never had to say that we had lost and needed to run away. The British truly are extremely good at killing people, especially the maroon machine.

Uk standard LMG is the L86A1, which is basically a composite version f the standrd assault rifle, with a longer barrel and a bipod, soo in fact, its a nice compromise between an assault rifle, and something more accurate.

AAAGH! That's not an LMG! That's an LSW [light support weapon] and one of the Great British Procurement Mysteries

An LSW is an SA80 with an elongated barrel, a bipod and a rear handle to enable it to fire more accurately - if anyone else is old enough to remember the Bren gun, then it's a good approximation. Like the Bren, it's supposed to be a rapid-fire support weapon but ends up being used as a slightly longer-ranged rifle, but unlike the bren it's singularly useless since it only fires 5.56. The modern section (ie; MOSHTARAK onwards) operates at three ranges - sharpshooters engage at 800m at about two rifles per section, laying down deliberate fire, LSWs can fire deliberate or rapid (not suppressive) at 600m while riflesw open up with the same at 400. LMGs and GPMGs provide suppression. This is an LMG, a much nicer bit of kit:

What is your opinion on people who follow morally questionable orders, such as the officers in Nazi extermination camps?

Legally, since the order 'kill jews' could not ever have been construed as legal and was not given 'down the chain' - it was given to individuals and troops rather than armies and divisions - it was a duty of anyone recieving it to refuse to comply with it. Personally, I hope that I would have done so, although I more than sympathise with those who didn't. It's far from easy to disobey orders from senior, more experienced people whom you trust and respect and who are shouting in your ear and will cart you off to jail if you disobey them.

I support the concept of the unwritten constitution, which is theoretically made possible by having a constitutional monarchy. Immediately prior to invading Iraq, do you think it is odd that the Her Majesty made no comment when everyone was demanding disclosure from the Prime Minister?

No. She's apolitical; that's part of her job.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

How much time does it take for an average soldier with an assault rifle to a) visually locate a distant target before shooting (if he knows where to look for it), b) prepare, aim at it and open fire, c) decide whether it is needed and open fire on the same target again?

 

[otago]

Correct. They exist to get killed, which they're pretty good at.

BTW; no offence meant. If you ask anyone from the forcess their opinion of another country's military, it will generally be bad.



ANZACs are very good, as are the Ghurkas (especially at drinking). That's only because their decent ones turf up and join the Empire, though

Oh, we have one or two decent ones left in NZ

 

[Flying Pig]

How much time does it take for an average soldier with an assault rifle to a) visually locate a distant target before shooting (if he knows where to look for it), b) prepare, aim at it and open fire, c) decide whether it is needed and open fire on the same target again?

I probably should point out that real-life firefights don't work so well as in films. The basic plan is you shoot back almost at random (literally, vaguely point it at the noise), get down and get into something like a formation. Then after a while (depending on terrain, distance etc) someone sees the enemy, points them out, everyone shoots properly and the the IC decides what to do as a section. The locating process can be milliseconds if they've just popped up behind a hedge 100 yards away, or spending ages shouting 'come on, someone must have eyeballs' if they're half a mile away in Afghanistan.

Once you do find them, there's a procedure (range, axis [basically, what angle from the middle-man they are), feature and clock face; so '300 yards, left axis [about 45 degrees left], reference buildings 5 o'clock') to indicate them. Back in the good old days you then spent about three seconds adjusting your range sights and then shot at them until the IC tells you to do something different, but now you can just shoot straight away.

Oh, we have one or two decent ones left in NZ

With shaving like that? Geddimaway geddimaway!