Snipers are one of the most important chunks of the military and law enforcement agencies. They are highly trained deadeyes who specialize in camouflaging, observation, tracking, infiltration and shooting targets from very large distances using modified weapons fitted with scopes. They play a very important role in reconnaissance, which is their main task. Then comes the other missions like elimination of high profile targets, providing support to the forces, destroying material targets, etc. They are effective force multipliers, they always move in groups of two which consist of a spotter and a sniper. The spotter with his scope makes observations and helps set up a shot along with valuable inputs like air speed and trajectory. The snipers use special rifles which are modified to suit the sniper’s needs. Majority of the snipers use bolt action rifles as it has very few moving parts compared to an automatic or semi automatic ones, but the rate of fire is very slow as after each shot, the bullet casing has to be removed and a new round has to be loaded. Semi automatic rifles like M-21 are also used in the field by the snipers.
While taking a shot from a distance, and on a moving target, for the point of aim and point of impact to be the same, conditions like range, heat, wind direction and velocity etc are taken into consideration and the scope adjusted accordingly by the sniper to get an accurate shot. To camouflage themselves they use outfits known as gillie suits which are painted to match the environment of the battlefield helping them blend with the background making them virtually invisible. The snipers were proved to be really efficient in the recent Iraq war, where the US & UK forces have used them to provide fire support in order to cover the infantry movement in urban areas.