| | | Marine Sniper |  The United States Marine Scout Sniper School is
regarded as the finest of the sniper training
programs. The marine corps currently train their
snipers alongside the sniper trainees from the Army
and the Navy Seals. This is thought to keeps the
marine snipers on their toes. Snipers who attend the
Marine Corps sniper scout training school are taught
in three different but equally important areas: These
are marksmanship, observation, and stalking.
Marksmanship refers to the ability of a marine sniper
to hit his target, using his sniper rifle,
consistantly from a great distance. The sniper
practices this craft constantly in marine sniper
school.
The observation skills of a marine sniper must be
perfect. This stands to reason, as a sniper spends
most of his time looking, and only a few seconds
shooting. The Marine Scout and Sniper School has
developed a number of exercises to increase a
potential marine sniper's observation skills.
Stalking refers to a marine sniper's ability to close
in on a target undetected. Marine snipers accomplish
this by a combination of stealth and complicated
camouflage with the use of ghillie suits. One of the main tools of the stalk is an
odd looking suit made up of strips of canvas called a
ghillie suit. Marine snipers wear this suit on the
stalk, and add bits of plant material as they go. This
completes the illusion.
The Marine Scout Sniper program lasts two months. In
these two months, candidates obviously do much
training with their rifles, but more time is spent in
classrooms learning to discern range, windage, and
theories of deployment, tactics, and barometric
pressure. These classroom skills are easily as
impostant as constant marksmanship training. |
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