The regular Army traditionally hasn’t cared much for snipers, considering them little more than murderers. Thankfully that’s not their attitude anymore. They’re just another tool in a CO’s toolbox now. Sometimes they need air strikes, sometimes they need arty, sometimes they need mass, sometimes they need surgical precision. But it’s all about killing people and breaking things.
As a kid in the 1970s I recall that none of the service man of my fathers generation (WWII) had anything good to say about snipers, friend or foe. I seemed to recall hearing a few of the guys chuckling over lighting up one Jap sniper with a flame thrower and watching him in this death throes as he burned to death, a gruesome and horrid end. The comment was, not one would waste a bullet to end his misery.
Now I asked my father about that, as it seemed rather barbaric at the time. His response (paraphrased) was that snipers shot men when they could not strike back, were professional killers, not soldiers and as such could “expect no quarter”. He and his generation viewed them as sociopaths or quite close to such.
Most of the American vets I recall were combat support roles, not front line soldiers, the few guys I seem to recall that were combat types were Germans, but they did not like snipers either. The few combat vests were from the pacific and they were by no means at all kindly disposed to the Japs at all, but they were the ones with the harshest things to say about snipers. Take it for what you will.
Snipers can break down the other side’s morale.NVA troops refused to go out on patrol when Hathcock was working the area.