Posted on 06/13/2015 4:58:11 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
It was the summer of 2011 in southern Helmand province, Afghanistan, and mission after mission, Sgt. Ben McCullar of Third Battalion, Second Marines, would insert with his eight-man sniper team into the berms and dunes north of the volatile town of Musa Qala.
Sometimes they would fire at a group of enemy fighters, sometimes the enemy would fire at them first, but almost immediately, McCullar explained, their team would be pinned down by machine guns that outranged almost all of their sniper rifles.
Theyd set up at the max range of their [machine guns] and start firing at us, McCullar said. Wed take it until we could call in [close air support] or artillery.
The story of McCullar and his snipers is not an isolated one. For 14 years, Marine snipers have suffered setbacks in combat that, they say, have been caused by outdated equipment and the inability of the Marine Corps to provide a sniper rifle that can perform at the needed range.
They trace the problem to the relatively small Marine sniper community that doesnt advocate effectively for itself because it is made up of junior service members and has a high turnover rate.Additionally, snipers say that the Marine Corps weapons procurement process is part of an entrenched bureaucracy resistant to change.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
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Even the SUPER-Equal with license to commit crime are effected..
The absolute LAST THING the federal givernment needs is MORE MONEY..
The patriotic thing is to HIDE EVERY SHECKLE you have.. from being taxed.. liened, penalty-ied, attached, stolen, permited, licensed, or purloined in some other fashion....
MONEY is drug to the feds.. and their HIGH as Moonbats on it..
And will PimP Lady Liberty as a whore to get MORE..
Uncle Sam is an ADDICT...
I can only tell you that, if I did my job as a 2LT, the spotting round was out in a few minutes. Obviously, if Arty had other business, it took longer. But, if I couldn’t get Bn 4.2’s, I went to the 105’s, and then the 155’s.
Then point is, tubes were our ‘snipers’ and they were always available on short notice.
ARA wasn’t bad and there were still some A4D’s around when I was there. ‘Fast Movers’ were always welcomed with nervousness.
One of my contributions to speed, was to, just as the digging was almost finished, to go grab the 200, or 220 pound (at the time) spade, off of the whatever it was called, and carry it back to connect it in the hole, that also freed up another man to do something else, while two guys handled the other spade.
My CO in Turkey was a US Army Artillery branch mustang. He was given his commission as LT for valor during the VietNam war. That dude was a freakin war god.
The only thing I could compare him to is LT. Spears in “Band of Brothers”. I don’t have the words to explain how incredible he was.
If I’m in my cups and somebody asks a stupid question such as ‘Who are You’ I respond that I am Samuel Whittemore, Ronald Spears, and Frank Slade.
Spears is one of my favorite people and when I grow up, I want to be just like him.
(Unfortunately, I’m more like Slade.)
I prefer the Cheytac M200 .408.
No sh!t.
There is no way in hell you could get any 155 to do a hipshot fire mission: you must be thinking of the M101A1 105mm howitzer. The old M114 had to be laboriously pumped up on its firing platform and the spades installed at the end of the trails. It was called “the Pig” for a reason. The later M198 took 12 minutes of frantic and dangerous flailing to be ready to fire With the M101A1 and plenty of practice, we could pull off the road, spread trails, pick out the alternate aiming point and have a round in the air in 30 seconds.
That round usually wasn’t real close but an FO could adjust fast and we’d six guns firing for effect on target in about a minute and a half.
No, I’m talking about the 155, and I don’t think that it took us 12 minutes.
Remington 700
Gays, females and LBGT folks don’t want to be snipers?
Good idea.
L
The arty FO team with our company said it usually took about 5 minutes for them to get rounds out, usually 105's. Not sure if 155's took longer. Obviously, 175's, 8 inchers and the New Jersey took a bit longer. Nowadays, with computers instead of the old whiz-wheel, calculations should be about instantaneous!
Fast movers usually took 10-15 minutes, if we were lucky, unless someone was coming back from up North with ordnance left. We had Spads (A-1 Skyraiders), A-4, F-4, an occasional Cobra and one night Spooky saved our bacon.
When I was in I had the M-24. I could hit accurately out to about 700 meters or so. You could buy something at Cabelas tomorrow morning that would outperform what I used back in the early 80s.
There’s no excuse for this. None.
Semper Fi,
L
“... go up through the JAG types...”
AKA, the political officer.
Yeah, no sh!t.
Obamarifles ?
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