The sniper is an incredibly efficient fighter, compared to the typical infantryman. Consider that in World War II, American infantry units fired 25,000 rounds to kill just one enemy soldier. By the Korean War, that figure jumped to 50,000 rounds, and the select-fire M14 and M16 infantry rifles of the Vietnam War only seem to have produced more misses, requiring the expenditure of 200,000 rounds to kill one enemy combatant. Nowadays, it’s a quarter million rounds of spraying and praying to kill a single Taliban. By comparison, on average, a sniper requires only 1.3 bullets to kill an enemy. During the Vietnam War, it was noted on many occasions that a handful of snipers accounted for more enemy killed than the entire infantry battalion (and sometimes even regiment) they were assigned to.
Frank Jardim
February 27, 2015
History of the Sniper
[250 K rounds to kill one Taliban? Can anyone who has actually “been there and done that” recently confirm this? It seems like a lot.
And of course bullets and kills are not necessarily the appropriate measure of battle efficiency. You could consume 0.9 bullets per dead enemy by firing nine rounds for ten kills where one bullet killed two of the enemy and lose the battle because your enemy fired 10,000 rounds and killed 1000 of your troops.
Or you could roll your 1000 tanks supported by 10K troops into your enemy’s capital and the enemy gives up without firing a shot and no one dies.
But still, there is something to be said for one person being able to take out a selected enemy at will with a good chance of escape. This makes moderate numbers of individuals without a lot of infrastructure supporting them very powerful.
This is Why Boomershoot.—Joe]
