Sniper rifles are classified as crew-served in the United States military. Army sniper team from Jalalabad Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) The German doctrine of largely independent snipers and emphasis on concealment, developed during the Second World War, has been most influential on modern sniper tactics, and is currently used throughout Western militaries (examples are specialized camouflage clothing, concealment in terrain and emphasis on coup d'Е“il). A sniper team would be armed with a long-range weapon and a rapid-firing shorter-ranged weapon in case of close quarter combat. In most recent combat operations occurring in large densely populated towns, such as Fallujah, Iraq, two teams would be deployed together to increase their security and effectiveness in an urban environment. A common practice is for a shooter and a spotter to take turns to avoid eye fatigue. Military snipers from the US, UK and other countries that adopt their military doctrine are typically deployed in two-man sniper teams consisting of a shooter and a spotter. Snipers have increasingly been demonstrated as useful by US and UK forces in the recent Iraq campaign in a fire support role to cover the movement of infantry, especially in urban areas. Soviet- and Russian-derived military doctrines include squad-level snipers.

50 BMG, like the Barrett M82, McMillan Tac-50, and Denel NTW-20. Typical sniper missions include managing intelligence information they gather during reconnaissance, target acquisition and impact feedback for air strikes and artillery, assisting employed combat force with accurate fire support and counter-sniper tactics, killing enemy commanders, selecting targets of opportunity, and even destruction of military equipment, which tend to require use of anti-materiel rifles in the larger calibers such as the. Generally, a sniper's primary function in modern warfare is to provide detailed surveillance from a concealed position and, if necessary, to reduce the enemy's combat ability by neutralizing high-value targets (especially officers and other key personnel) and in the process pinning down and demoralizing the enemy. Military doctrine Дifferent countries use different military doctrines regarding snipers in military units, settings, and tactics. Other words for sniper include franc-tirГ©ur, tirГ©ur d'Г©lite and atirador de escol.ДЄ U.S. Snipers are also called 'hunters' in many languages, due to the nature of the craft (with the hunting horn also being a symbol of marksmanship), being called CaГ§adores, Chasseurs and JГ¤gers. During the American Civil War, Confederate marksmen equipped with the imported Whitworth rifles were famously known as the Whitworth Sharpshooters. The earliest known date for the creation of a shooting club formed specifically for the use of firearms comes from Lucerne, Switzerland, where one club has a charter dating from 1466. Small companies of shooters ( SchГјtzenfГ¤hnlein) from the German states and Swiss cantons would form teams of ScharfschГјtzen for such popular competitions proudly carrying flags depicting a crossbow on one side and a target musket on the other. The word alludes to good marksmanship, itself descendent of the shooting competitions ( SchГјtzenfeste) that took place throughout the year in Munich in the 15th century. The older term ' sharpshooter' comes from the calque of German word ScharfschГјtze, in use by British newspapers as early as 1801. The term 'sniper' was first attested militarily in 1824, becoming common place in the First World War. This evolved to the agent noun 'sniper', first appearing by the 1820s. Accomplishing such an shot was regarded as exceptional, and inevitably during the late 18th century, the term 'snipe shooting' was simplified to 'sniping'. In the 18th century, letters sent home by English officers in India referred to a day's rough shooting as 'going sniping', as it took a skilled flintlock sportsman a lot of patience and endurance to wing-shoot a snipe in flight. Snipe hunters therefore needed to be stealthy in addition to being good trackers and marksmen. The name 'sniper' comes from the verb 'to snipe', which originated in the 1770s among soldiers in British India in reference to shooting snipes, a wader that was considered an extremely challenging game bird for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging color and erratic flight behavior. 7 Notable military marksmen and snipers.

Modern warfare 2 sniper rifles