Inside the Crosshairs (33 page)

Along with the 1976 FMFM and MOS assignments came changes in the division table of authorization and equipment, establishing an eight-man scout-sniper section in the infantry battalion’s surveillance and target acquisition (STA) platoon. STAs had originally been established in 1973 with ground-surveillance radar, night observation devices, and scout sections. By 1977 the scouts had been replaced by eight-man scout-sniper sections.

That organizational structure remained until 1992, when the Marine Corps eliminated the maintenance-intensive and largely ineffective ground radar and night observation sections from the STA. It added four scout-sniper teams and relabeled the STA as the scout-sniper platoon. The platoon, with one officer and seventeen enlisted snipers, formally became part of the infantry battalion intelligence (S-2) section.

With a new sniper rifle system fielded, doctrine written, and personnel authorizations approved, all the Marine Corps sniping program lacked was a central training facility. On June 1, 1977, the USMC Scout-Sniper Instructor School opened at Quantico, Virginia. Veteran snipers of the Vietnam War, including Jim Land and Carlos Hathcock, took charge of establishing the school and conducting the training.

The Quantico Scout-Sniper Instructor School has, since its inception, served two purposes: to train infantrymen as snipers and to train qualified snipers as instructors. The trained instructors then return to their parent divisions to teach in additional sniper schools and to conduct refresher training. In 1979, trained instructors opened the 2nd Marine Division’s Scout-Sniper School at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and the 1st Marine Division established its school at Camp Pendleton, California, a short time later.

The three schools operate to train new snipers to fill the 420 authorized scout-sniper positions in today’s Marine Corps. The Quantico school also continues to train sniper instructors as well as being responsible for the development and testing of new sniper doctrine, equipment, and weapons.

In the years following Vietnam, the U.S. Navy recognized the value of snipers and added the specialty to its SEAL teams. The first SEAL snipers and sniper instructors attended the Marine scout-sniper schools before the SEALs developed a nine-week training course to hone individual marksmanship skills and train snipers as forward observers for naval gunfire, artillery, and air support.

Postwar, the U.S. Army, although satisfied with the performance of snipers in Vietnam, renewed its focus on mechanized, and possibly nuclear, warfare on the plains of Western Europe. Funding and priorities went to the development of a new main battle tank and an improved infantry tracked fighting vehicle. Developing handheld or crew-served weapons capable of destroying tanks and other mechanized vehicles of the Soviet Union was given a higher priority than small arms and long-range marksmanship.

During the final months of U.S. ground involvement in Vietnam and for several years afterward, the army conducted only a few staff studies on sniper capabilities and the possibility of authorizing positions for marksmen at battalion and division levels. None of the studies resulted in action. After limited investigation, the U.S. Army Infantry School announced that, on the future of snipers, it stood by its pre-Vietnam position: “A concept of small, hard-hitting units, moving almost continuously in armored personnel carriers throughout the extended distances envisioned for atomic-threatened battlefields, visualizes little use for the slow, patient, stealthy stalking tactics which are the trademark of the sniper.”

In the post-Vietnam era, army personnel manning documents continued to exclude authorization for snipers, and the infantry school did not see the marksmen as having a role on the battlefield of the future. Yet both veteran snipers and sniper
instructors were still on active duty, and many were serving in the Army Marksmanship Training Unit (AMTU). Major Willis Powell and the members of his staff, who had established sniper training in Vietnam, continued to assist in regular marksmanship training. They also resumed representing the army in marksmanship competition, using the M21 sniper rifle among other weapons.

The major mission of the AMTU in the early 1970s was not to train soldiers but to provide instruction and advice to civilian law enforcement officials in training their own snipers and SWAT teams. Fortunately, the veteran combat snipers maintained their personal efficiency and continued to record and disseminate their experiences and opinions on the need for specially trained, long-range marksmen.

The first substantial support for renewing sniper training in the post-Vietnam army came from Lieutenant General Hank Emerson, the commanding officer of the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, that included the 82nd Airborne and the 101st Air Assault divisions. Those two infantry divisions had parachutes and helicopters for their delivery but once on the battlefield would fight as conventional infantry.

Emerson, a former brigade commander in the 9th Infantry Division who had supported David Hackworth’s formation of night hunter sniper teams, knew the advantages of long-range marksmen from firsthand combat experience. In early 1976, Emerson requested the AMTU to deliver 342 M21 sniper rifles to Fort Bragg and to train armorers in maintaining the weapon systems. By April the XVIII Airborne Sniper School was training future snipers from the two divisions as well as personnel from the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.

For the next decade the army continued to leave the formation and training of snipers to individual commanders. A few, like Emerson, actively supported the inclusion of marksmen in their ranks, but most continued to ignore long-range shooting. As they implemented their own programs, new commanders often ceased sniper training established by their predecessors. Such was the case with Emerson’s XVIII Airborne Corps
sniper school, which operated only two years and closed when he departed the post.

The only significant contribution by the Department of the Army to the development of snipers in the late 1970s came from tests to determine the most efficient weapon system. From May through December 1977, the U.S. Army Test Evaluation Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, tested seven different rifles for suitability as sniper weapons. Included were the M21, the Remington 700, and the Winchester 70—all used in Vietnam—as well as French, Canadian, and other American rifles. The test report, issued in February 1978, supported the continued use of the M21 as the army’s standard sniper weapon.

In 1983, the JFK Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) attempted to renew sniper training at Fort Bragg. Although the center’s leaders knew they wanted and needed snipers, they were unclear about the exact role the marksmen would play in their operations. As a result the school folded after only a few months.

Over the next year the SWCS staff studied the capabilities of snipers and developed doctrine for their use in special operations. Early in 1985 the SWCS initiated the Special Operations Target Interdiction Course (SOTIC) with sniper training as its core subject. In the July 1988 issue of SWCS’s professional bulletin,
Special Warfare
, Captain John L. Stanley described the sniper training: “Today, the Special Warfare Center and School operates the SOTIC program with little flim-flam and with low visibility. The cadre members have put a lot of personal experience and knowledge into this course. Their ideas are not found in any army subject schedules, but they are garnered through experience and dedication. These instructors have met some very challenging tasks, developing ideas and techniques where none existed.”

Many of the cadre members to whom Stanley referred were sniper veterans of Vietnam, and their experience in combat provided the information for the training. Stanley noted, “Little reference material exists on many of the subjects
taught in the SOTIC program.” In fact, the only available official doctrine continued to be Training Circular 23-14, “Sniper Training and Employment,” which had not been updated since October 1969.

Other units also established limited sniper-training programs during the same general period. The 2nd Battalion, 325th Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division, briefly conducted unit sniper training in late 1985 and early 1986. In Korea, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division also established a sniper school. Because of its isolation from the rest of the army and the constant threat from the North Koreans, the 2nd Division’s sniper school remained active into the mid-1990s. Other, limited, army sniper courses were also offered during this period at Fort Sherman in the Canal Zone, and at Fort Ord, California.

Despite those widespread efforts to maintain some level of sniper training, the U.S. Army did not establish its official school until July 1987. With Department of the Army support, the Infantry School at Fort Benning assumed the directorship of the school, with operational responsibility assigned to the post’s 29th Infantry Regiment. The three-week course included 54 hours of marksmanship instruction and 120 hours of fieldcraft classes to produce graduates who could successfully conduct sniper operations and engage targets out to 1,000 meters.
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While it had been slow to resume an official servicewide sniper school, once committed to that end the army made a concentrated effort to optimize its sniper capacity. In the January-February 1988 edition of
Infantry
, the chief of the infantry school, Major General Kenneth C. Leuer, explained, “Realizing that modern technology has not diminished the need for snipers, the army recently renewed its interest in them and is revitalizing its sniper program. The Infantry School has taken the lead in these efforts, and we are committed to providing the best sniper organization, equipment, doctrine, and training possible.”

New weapons were an important part of the army’s emphasis
on snipers. The army’s marksmen were to be armed with the M24 modified bolt-action Remington Model 700s with a 10X fixed Leupold M3 Ultra telescope. Delivery of the weapons to the sniper school and to units began in April 1988. The army also provided updated sniper doctrine, releasing a revised version of TC 23-14, “Sniper Training and Employment,” on June 14, 1989.

During the next few years the army continued to study and experiment with its sniper program and to make changes and adjustments in equipment, organization, and training. In 1989, the army awarded all graduates of the sniper school, retroactive to its opening in 1987, the additional skill identifier of “B4.” On October 1, 1990, the army issued DA Pamphlet 351-4, “Army Formal Schools Catalog,” which detailed the physical, mental, and other requirements for sniper school attendance.

On August 17, 1994, the Department of the Army published FM 23-10, “Sniping,” which replaced early editions of TC 23-14 and provided the most detailed and official instructions and authorization for snipers in U.S. Army history. The introduction section of FM 23-10 described snipers as similar to marksmen of earlier wars but revealed the mission and profile of the modern long-range shooter: “The sniper has special abilities, training, and equipment. His job is to deliver discriminatory, highly accurate rifle fire against enemy targets, which cannot be engaged successfully by the riflemen because of range, size, location, fleeting nature, or visibility. Sniping requires the development of the basic infantry skills to a high degree of perfection. A sniper’s training incorporates a wide variety of subjects designed to increase his value as a force multiplier and to ensure his survival on the battlefield. The art of sniping requires learning and repetitiously practicing these skills until mastered. A sniper must be highly trained in long-range rifle marksmanship and fieldcraft skills to ensure maximum effective engagements with minimum risks.”

FM 23-10 also provided the first official authorization for snipers other than as an additional duty of an ordinary
squad rifleman. According to the FM’s paragraph 1–2, “In light infantry divisions, the sniper element is composed of six battalion personnel organized into three 2-man teams. The commander designates missions and priorities of targets for the team and may attach or place the team under the operational control of a company or platoon. In the mechanized infantry battalions, the sniper element is composed of two riflemen (one team) located in a rifle squad. In some special units,
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snipers may be organized according to the needs of the tactical situation.”

The Marine Corps’s FMFM 1–3B and the army’s FM 23-10 provided the basis of today’s U.S. sniper organization, training, and equipment. A large part of those developments is a direct result of the lessons learned in combat against the Vietcong and North Vietnamese regulars in Southeast Asia.

However, not all of the advances in the army and Marine sniper programs in the 1980s and 1990s came as a result of the war in Vietnam. American snipers had several opportunities to practice their skills in live action during subsequent conflicts of various magnitude and length.

Both Marine and army snipers deployed with their units on October 25, 1983, as a part of Operation Urgent Fury to liberate the Caribbean island of Grenada from its Soviet- and Cuban-supported Communist government. Snipers from the army’s Ranger battalions, trained in their own unit programs and at the USMC sniper school at Quantico, saw the most action during the brief operation. Shortly after their arrival by parachute on the island, the Rangers were threatened by a Cuban mortar crew. As the Cubans attempted to man their mortar tubes, the Ranger snipers began dropping them one by one. The survivors quickly surrendered.

Marine and army snipers also participated in Operation Just Cause to neutralize the Panamanian Defense Force (PDF) and to arrest Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, in December 1989. A sniper team in the Scout Platoon, Headquarters
Company, 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division, composed of a sniper sergeant and his observer, joined an infantry platoon to provide overwatching fires during an attack on a PDF-fortified building on the first night of the operation.

The sniper sergeant, a graduate of the Fort Benning 29th Infantry Regiment Sniper School, established a well-concealed position that provided a clear field of fire for the 500 meters to the objective. He assumed a prone position with his M24 sniper rifle braced on his rucksack. “A few minutes later,” the sniper recalled, “the third platoon opened up on the back side of the building for about thirty seconds and then moved their clearing teams forward. Suddenly the front door of the building burst open and slammed against the opposite wall with a loud crack. Out ran a single soldier spraying the advancing platoon with Swedish-K 9-mm automatic gunfire.