Posted on 10/28/2006 9:40:17 PM PDT by jmc1969
Iraqi insurgents have formed a special sniper brigade which is drawing its inspiration from a US training manual by one of America's most revered snipers.
A new insurgent propaganda video shows how guerrillas have dramatically upped their kill rate of US soldiers with the help of The Ultimate Sniper, written by a retired US Marines major, John Plaster.
The tactics they have gleaned from the book, which is available on the internet along with an accompanying DVD, are thought to be behind a steep rise in the level of sniper fire on US troops in recent months.
A total of 36 such attacks have been recorded by the US military in Baghdad alone this month, of which at least eight are believed to have been fatal. In January, by contrast, sniper fire incidents were barely above single figures, and deaths relatively rare.
The video is thought to have been made by the Islamic Army of Iraq, whose followers are drawn largely from the 400,000 former Iraqi army soldiers who were dismissed by the US.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
hope this isnt true...
well, or not publish it if you're the sniper expert.
What a wanker. "Look at me, I'm a sniper and I will teach anyone who's willing to pay me all I know"
I really hope that this is just the liberal media being jerks.
Well, this book has been available at least since the mid-1990s, at least that's the earliest I recall seeing it around.
Mark
Welcome to the XXI century.
He is making money though and that is what he is concerned about.
It wouldn't have allowed to be published during World War II, and if somebody had tried they would have been arrested. We need to get serious about fighting this war.
This is impossible. Everyone knows you must recieve proper training from an accredited school and graduate with a certificate from that school in order to do anything. No one can simply pick up on things using their own mind from experience, or simply do the same with a book.
It's a whole new world order than during WWII. If you guys think you can actually censure information like this then you're kidding yourselves. I've been on all the ebook news servers and IRC channels and this type of information has been out there forever. The glass parking lot scenario better come long before this type of useless censorship.
Nevertheless, it was cheesy of this Major to have made a DVD. It makes it a lot easier for these semi-literate buffoons to figure out which end of the rifle to point at our guys.
I'm sure it is.
There is a reason why many manuals were pulled years ago. Such as improvised explosives and munitions, booby traps, etc.
I have a copy of The Ultimate Sniper as well as TC 31-32. They both have a lot of the same information, but the civilian book reads much easier. If they don't get it from this book they would get it from the web or some other book printed in where ever. Bottom line - the information is out there and you are not getting that genie back into its bottle.
Coincidence that this news breaks shortly after a terrorist video was blasted all over the web and news in which a soldier is shot? This war is all about Information Operations; and our own media is acting as an unofficial press agent of the enemy.
On the upside, their weapons are largely junk, good snipers require discipline and lots of training, not just browsing a book. There are technological systems we can leverage against such a threat if it grows to large proportions. We have systems that can give a highly accurate direction and elevation 1.5 seconds after the shot comes in.
http://ccsweb.pica.army.mil/4protectforce/gds.htm
http://www.gizmag.com/pictures/4497_28080592113.jpg
http://www.gizmag.com/pictures/4497_28080592155.jpg
We have our own snipers out there, and as cheesy as it sounds, often a sniper is a good antidote against snipers. Near all of our vehicles are hardened and troops today have Interceptor body armor, which if hit in the torso by a sniper round, even if 762x54 should save your life (NIJ level 4A). Snipers were one of the primary concerns in the Balkans, so this is no new problem for our guys. There is an awareness and methodology for dealing with it.
There is a natural progression going on. The enemy will adopt new TTPs as time goes on and he learns how we operate. So as the game keeps going he learns how to more effectively employ IEDs, how to overcome some of our countermeasures etc. On the other hand, we also adapt. We are constantly looking for patterns, weaknesses in his TTPs, etc, and leveraging technology and developing new tactics to deal with him. It’s a game of cat and mouse. IMHO
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