NYT: Sniper Attacks Adding To Peril Of U.S. Troops

[Hissyspit]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/04/world/middleeast/04sniper.html?hp&ex=1162616400&en=fcba57a052a96011&ei=5094&partner=homepage

November 4, 2006
Sniper Attacks Adding to Peril of U.S. Troops
By C. J. CHIVERS

KARMA, Iraq, Nov. 3 — The bullet passed through Lance Cpl. Juan Valdez-Castillo as his Marine patrol moved down a muddy urban lane. It was a single shot. The lance corporal fell against a wall, tried to stand and fell again.

His squad leader, Sgt. Jesse E. Leach, faced where the shot had come from, raised his rifle and grenade launcher and quickly stepped between the sniper and the bloodied marine. He walked backward, scanning, ready to fire.

Shielding the marine with his own thick body, he grabbed the corporal by a strap and dragged him across a muddy road to a line of tall reeds, where they were concealed. He put down his weapon, shouted orders and cut open the lance corporal’s uniform, exposing a bubbling wound.

Lance Corporal Valdez-Castillo, shot through the right arm and torso, was saved. But the patrol was temporarily stuck. The marines were engaged in the task of calling for a casualty evacuation while staring down their barrels at dozens of windows that faced them, as if waiting for a ghost’s next move.

This sequence on Tuesday here in Anbar Province captured in a matter of seconds an expanding threat in the war in Iraq. In recent months, military officers and enlisted marines say, the insurgents have been using snipers more frequently and with greater effect, disrupting the military’s operations and fueling a climate of frustration and quiet rage.

Across Iraq, the threat has become serious enough that in late October the military held an internal conference about it, sharing the experiences of combat troops and discussing tactics to counter it. There has been no ready fix.

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[Name removed]

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[Jacobin]

5. Yep.

The army has a special 50 caliber sniper rifle that can accurately shoot some incredible distance

[razors edge]

6. The 50 is a bad ass no dought.

I shoot my buddy's barett every now and then, but a lot of forces are moving toward the Lapua .338. Hell of a lot lighter with only slight ballistics performance drop from the 50 BMG.



I myself prefer my Rem 300 Ultra Mag. A sporter with a kick like a 12 guage.

[benEzra]

12. Yep.

It actually grew out of a civilian sport, that of LONG-range target shooting, that became popular in the early '80s. I think the .50-caliber rifles the military uses are all made by Barrett, and the military gives the effective range against stationary objects as 1800 meters. There are bigger sniper weapons out there (14.5mm and 20mm; .50 is 12.7mm) but U.S. civilians are limited to .50 for target rifles (though bigger rifles can be manufactured for hunting purposes).

The U.S. military uses .308 Winchester (7.62x51mm), a common hunting round, for more portable sniper weapons like the M24 and M40, though the M24 is also capable of being chambered for the .300 Winchester Magnum.

DiktatrW is right that .338 makes a LOT of sense. The rifles are lighter, somewhat less expensive, with similar ballistics, and have less recoil momentum to deal with. IIRC, the Finns developed the .338 Lapua (hence the name) but it has become a common long-range round in Western nations for both civilian and military purposes, and I think the Canadian military has recently been equipping sniper units with .338's.

I think the Iraqi insurgent snipers are almost exclusively using Russian-pattern rifles (Mosin-Nagants, Dragunovs) chambered for 7.62x54mm, the Russian/former Warsaw Pact equivalent of the American .30-06. In the right hands, that can be effective out to a thousand meters or so. Some of those guns are more than a century old.


Mosin-Nagant rifle, 7.62x54mm

[gristy]

2. :(

[Porcupine]

3. Why is anybody surprised about this? Why is this news?

Every military force since the civil war has used as many snipers as they could train and deploy. All the stupid Iraqi "insurgents" are now dead. Those that are left are canny and disciplined; and they are the ones that are training others.

When the US forces lost the goodwill of the populace they lost the ability to deal with snipers short of leveling the country.

Could we leave Iraq and close the "How to kill Americans" school? Soon please.

[saigon68]

7. Heres one from Baghdad shot thru the head

[Warren Stupidity]

9. You're right but the school will stay open.

Even with our impending victory on tuesday, it will be a long drawn out fight to get us out of there, and lots of people on both sides will continue to die until we here at home finally get the courage to say enough is enough.

Then of course we will get blamed for 'losing Iraq'. Fuck it. I've seen this movie before.

[Frank Nata]

4. I saw the saddest video the other day

A friend of mine sent me a link to one of those insurgent sniper videos-not the CNN type, but the uncensored type. It was so sad I couldn't watch it all the way through. Just awful what those boys are going through.

[Bigmack]

8. I heard they're getting...

officers now. Any stories on that?

I think the "insurgent" learning curve is going steeply upward. Porcupine is dead right.. time to close the school and get out.

[OneBlueSky]

10. BushCo has turned our troops into walking targets for every Iraqi . . .

with a grudge against the US for loss of a family member, friend, home, business, etc. . . which by now encompasses just about everyone residing in the country . . .

[Hissyspit]

11. This is the article that goes with the sniper photo in NYTimes