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British army snipers were recently issued with the Accuracy International 338 sniper rifle. This is a larger calibre weapon which provides a x3-x12 x 50 sight and spotting scope increasing a sniper's effective visual range considerably. The sight increases the accurate shooting range of the weapon giving the shooter a better sight picture and target identification. The weapon is designed to achieve a first-round hit at 600 metres and harassing fire out to 1,100 metres The L115A3 long range rifle fires an 8.59mm bullet designed to drive a 250 grain bullet at a muzzle velocity (MV) of around 3000 fps. They are larger and have more powder capacity and are less likely to be deflected over extremely long ranges.
Sniping has inherent weaknesses which differ from the target shooter. Any advancement with the precision construction of bolt action sniper rifles may not be as revolutionary as they initially seem. Historically the sniper rifle with the telescopic sight did enable the shooter to identify the target and get a better sight picture than weapons with the normal iron sight.
Contrary to popular belief snipers where not designed for excessive long ranges. The sniping concept was precision shooting at exceptionally small targets at compatible ranges. The sniper could stalk to within an acceptable range and take out key targets. In some cases the target was hidden from behind cover presenting only a small kill area. A secondary role of the sniper was intelligence and gathering information, or disrupting enemy activities and morale by creating confusion and personal fear.
When shooting at targets at reasonable ranges of two to three hundred yards the shooter- sniper or civilian should be capable of accurately judging and compensating for wind and elevation and hitting a small target. As the degree of wind deflection is dependent on the distance the bullet travels, at short ranges minor miscalculations would still put the bullet in a four inch kill area. This made the sniper an exceptional cost effective asset for infantry trench warfare or urban warfare such as the battle for Stalingrad. However sniping works on surprise and with the bolt action rifle it was almost impossible to engage multiple targets after he had released the first shot.
Since the concept's inception, the design of British Sniper rifles has not greatly changed. The 1944 Enfield No.4 Mk1 (T) Sniper Rifle Converted by Holland & Holland was capable of a head shot at 200 yards and hitting a standing man up to 600. The 7.62 L42 sniper rifles had similar characteristics using a lighter 144gr bullet. Both had similar capabilities as the Accuracy International 338 sniper rifle and all the rounds fired by these weapons were all capable of killing a man at a distance of over a mile away if the shooter could hit the target.
During the war years, and since, British army sniper rifles, like civilian target rifles, share a commonality of design. There is a limited capacity, spring fed, internal magazine. The bolt lever sits on the right hand side of the weapon. To load, the lever is rotated upwards through 90 degrees then pulled back. This action cocks the firing mechanism with the rearward movement, and also exposes the internal magazine. To fire, the trigger was squeezed, releasing the mechanism which had been cocked upon loading. The chambered round was then fired. To reload, the bolt was rotated as before and pulled back. This action not only cocked the firing mechanism, it also stripped and ejected the spent cartridge case from the chamber. The next round in the magazine was now pushed into line by the spring, and the bolt pushed forward and down to load and lock the mechanism. The rifle was then ready for its next discharge.
When upgrading the sniping concept the first issue which the British should have comprehended is the difference between target shooting and military or police sniping. Target shooting is a sport without many of the additional problems encountered by the military sniper. To shoot at a target on a firing range with consistent accuracy over set ranges of distances and weather conditions requires knowledge and understanding of the effect of distance on group size, the effect of distance on bullet path and the effect of wind on bullet path. To compensate for wind in target shooting the shooter is allowed sighting shots at longer ranges before precision application of shots. More so, target shooting is conducted on flat and even firing ranges at predetermined firing points where in most cases, wind speed and direction are fairly constant. The target shooter, like the sniper, has to predict the effect on the bullet, and add the deviation to the sights to compensate for the effects of wind on the bullet. On the target range there are range flags and on the battlefield possible smoke or similar indicators. While most modern bolt action rifles can shoot to within a minute of angle there is no method or tool that allows scientific visualisation of the winds at extreme ranges.
In any form of target shooting, or sniping, the main problem lies in obtaining an accurate assessment of the wind. Whilst wind speed may be measured at a given point in time, the effect of wind on the flight path of a bullet is considerably more difficult to predict in battlefield conditions. The extent or degree to which wind will push a bullet off course will depend on wind strength and wind direction relative to the bullet path. A relatively small degree of wind deflection to the bullet early in the flight path will be amplified the greater the distance the bullet travels. On a flat firing range the effect is fairly constant and to some degree can be predicted. If not, the effects can be lessened with sighting shots. In military sniping the emphasis is on surprise, and the chances of sighting shots are unlikely unless the sniper is used for long range harassing fire.
To complicate problems further, on the battlefield in mountainous regions with valleys and hills, the effect of wind can be inconsistent. Over distance winds can be blocked or channeled by woods, buildings, or natural contours. In hot climates, heat hazes can blur the sight picture. Other problems relate to the angle between shooter and target. With target shooting the target is usually on a flat plane. On the battlefield this is not always possible; shooting over distances may include steep angles which change the point of impact. The predictable trajectory, the bullet's flight path, depends on the horizontal (level) range to the plane of the target. The trajectory is gravity working on the bullet during its flight time, thus causing it to drop. The problems with long range shooting don’t stop there. There is also the problem of target movement. In theory, at 1000 yards, from the time the trigger is released until the bullet hits could take a second. During which time the target could have moved a fraction from the kill zone.
After the War years the British Sniping concept became by far the most advanced, and British snipers the most experienced. Counter terrorist operations and sniping were developed by the British, who unlike most other countries, still maintained a sniper training school. After World War 2, and during the withdrawal from the empire, the British army anticipated fighting low intensity engagements. In limited warfare, or anti-terrorist police actions, the need for precision shooting to avoid collateral damage without breaking the common law, or rules of engagement, was a controlling factor. This called for equipment and skills more advanced than the wartime military sniper. In operations in Aden and Northern Ireland the military sniper proved his worth. With the creation of Special Forces counter terrorist teams, specialists focused on the growing challenges of irregular warfare, and counter terrorism. The lessons learned on the early operations made it clear that there was a need to redefine the role of the military sniper and update his precision engagement capability.
With police action, if a terrorist was holding a hostage, nothing was left to chance. Ways to get around hitting a target without the use of sighting shots were developed. The problem associated with wind was still, and always would be a controlling factor. This could be greatly reduced by using multiple shooters firing together on a single command. Each shooter would be at a slightly different angle to the wind. The sniper group would spread out in a semi arc or angled with control being a command initiation using a radio controlled sniper initiation system.
The sniper was proving his worth in small wars and police actions. As weapons systems got better, shooting skills improved. Groups on the target got tighter and precision range finders took out most of the range guesswork. The one factor which was overlooked was the fast repeat shot capability. With an automatic weapon at 1000 yard range, three shots could be fired at a target. The last leaving the barrel before the sound of the first had reached the target. This was considered by a number of countries who eliminated the problem with a new breed of super accurate sniper rifles. The first country who took the full quantum jump from the slow and steady single shots of the bolt-action rifle to semi-automatic was the USSR, when after World War 2 and the introduction of the Kalashnikov AK47, Russia needed a new sniper rifle. The choice was the Kalashnikov based design of Evgeniy Dragunov. The new rifle was called SVD, which at stood for Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova’, Russian for ‘Dragunov sniper rifle.’ When using standard grade cartridges the accuracy of the SVD is reduced to 2.21 MOA extreme vertical spread.
After Russia, the Germans produced a new bread of super rifles. The AMP Technical Services DSR-1 could shoot 0.69 x 1.03 inch groups at 1,000 m distance and is considered to be one of the most accurate sniper rifles in the world. Before that, the H&K PSG1 was capable of putting 50 rounds of match-grade ammunition inside an 80 mm (3inch) circle at 300 meters. The Walther WA-2000 sniper rifle developed by Carl Walther during late 1970s and early 1980s was a highly specialized police sniper rifle with the Schmidt & Bender 2.5-10X variable power telescope and is still considered the best of the best.
The problem is not in making semi automatic sniper rifles; nor is the problem in making an accurate or reliable weapon. What are preventing the development of a real British super rifle are myths. The most common is that, with some designs, after firing, the casing is ejected with substantial force, reportedly enough to throw it approximately 10 meters to the side. While this is generally not an issue for counter terrorist operations, it greatly compromises the military use of the rifle, because it could easily give away the sniper's position. In realitity this is a simple design problem which has already been eliminated in light machine guns. The real reason is cost and that these rifles would not be markatable as hunting weapon nor would they fit in with the target fraternity.
What the British have failed to understand is that, semi automatic rifles exceed the accuracy of the bolt action by far and also give the option of second and third shots while still maintaining surprise. Unfortunately, like many other British weapon systems, such as the politically ill-fated EM2, or the problem ridden, SA80, they again produced a weapon which was not compatible to the modern day battle field. Instead of taking a systemic approach to the overall concept of sniping, they took an old weapon design and built it to tighter tolerances making it shoot more effectively, it is in effect a sports target rifle. What the military experts still fail to understand is that by using a slow bolt action rifle for long range shooting in battlefield conditions there can never be a perfect result. There are too many unknowns and there will always be a deviation from perfect accuracy. In reality the light machine gun is better suited for long range targets than their new rifle. The very disturbance caused by working the bolt action necessitates the rifle to be re-aimed after every shot making it practically impossible to get two on the same target in an expectable time frame of under a second. The drawbacks of such rifles are obvious, with the seconds of vulnerability while the rifle is being reloaded and re-aimed between shots. These problems are particularly noticeable when the enemy can disappear after the first shot is fired. In reality, the idea of long range military sniping with a bolt action rifles is not a modern day option its history.
