It's amazing and scary that the U.S. military and state and federal law enforcement communities do not have standardized sniper programs in place. I'm not saying that there aren't great programs out there. The U.S. Navy SEAL sniper program is one of the best in the world. What I'm pointing out is that the U.S. sniper community needs to get it together and standardize training and methodology. For the most part, the military is close in this regard but I'm shocked at the lack of standardization and low training standards in the American law enforcement communities. I've worked with some of the biggest and well-funded law enforcement SWAT sniper programs and have been shocked at the lack of training these solid operators receive. I have yet to run across a law enforcement sniper program that has incorporated the best practices of the sniper community.
Military snipers have the luxury of the battlefield environment and favorable rules of engagement; in other words, we can afford to not worry as much about other casualties that could be involved in the shots that we take. I had a friend in Somalia that was shooting people with a .50 caliber and he took out the guy standing next to his initial target because of a misread on the wind! Fortunately the guy standing next to his target was also a hostile. I think you get the point I'm trying to make here and it is that law enforcement rules of engagement and situations are much more critical because there are citizen hostages involved. This is a critical situation where there is zero room for error and accounting for human factors and environmental conditions as it relates to rifle zero are critical to the shooter and can mean the difference between failure or success.
This McMillan Tac .50 cal is capable of dropping the enemy out past 2,000 yards.
I find that most of the local law enforcement agencies let ego and rivalries get in the way of solid training and in my experience most local law enforcement sniper programs are severely lacking. I've been on the range with qualified snipers that do not even understand the fundamentals of internal, external, or terminal ballistics. Most argue with me for wanting to push their training past the 100-meter threshold. I recognize that the average police sniper shot is around 80 yards, but it is also extremely important to train beyond practical application. If you can consistently drive nails at 600 yards under adverse conditions (artificially induced stress, wind, barometric pressure, high angle, etc.), the shot you make when the call comes will be like walking the dog. I am baffled when people try and argue with me about the reasoning behind this methodology. If you look at every world-class athletic program, they all train much harder then what is required in competition.
It is my hope that the U.S. law enforcement sniper community realizes the importance of standardizing their training and how important the role of the sniper is when the time comes.
One thing that is for sure is that the sniper and the role he or she plays is here to stay. A stealthy and precise kill shot to eliminate a threat is what the job is all about. In most cases the target will never know what hit him. As the threat of terrorism increases, I see an increase in employment into the 21st century in both the military and law enforcement communities. It's not that we live in a more dangerous world, but rather that as we have become more of a global society, the threat to society is much more asymmetric in nature. In fact, globalization in my opinion is threatening more traditional societies that in turn look to combat the threat of modern society with terrorism. It is in most cases the only way to effectively engage more affluent societies. As this trend increases affluent societies will have to adapt in an attempt to deal with the modern asymmetric threat we face. A part of this adaptation is the increased focus and use of unconventional strategy and tactics. A definite tool in the unconventional tool box is the sniper. While the weapons and technology employed by the modern-day sniper are rapidly changing, the mission is still the same: delivering precise solutions with zero collateral damage and maximum effectiveness. The modern-day sniper is here to stay.
Radical changes are occurring in technology that can be leveraged by the sniper community. We now have technology in optics that fuses together the IR and thermal spectrum, nanotec camouflage that bends light, and lasers coupled to sniper scopes that are capable of precision wind calculations. It's exciting to see this new technology and how it can increase the modern-day sniper's capacity and effectiveness on the job.
The problem has never been innovation; it has been getting the most current technology in the hands of the operators. It is unfortunate that bureaucracy involved with government acquisition often gets in the way. Typically large systems integrators for the government deliver untimely and irrelevant solutions. I can remember advising a large billion-dollar defense company that was working on a computer system for snipers. What they had been developing for years with tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars I could get off the shelf for thousands. They were so focused on their program that they were blind to this fact, and even after coming to terms with this, the program director said he was going forward anyway because without the program his job would go away! Complete madness and a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars. The point I'm trying to make is that the U.S. government acquisition system is broken and we need to fix it or else our enemies will be better equipped than us. I have personally been involved on the military side and fortunately Admiral Olsen of U.S. Special Operations Command (U.S. SOCOM) has recognized that this is a problem and SOCOM is in the process of fixing it as you read this book.
Friend of the authors Ken Lovings’ 300 Remington Ultra Mag. This tricked-out weapon system could easily reach out well past 1,000 yards and is seen here scoping out the New Mexico high country.
