The Question: To what extent does the US military allow augmentations to the combat uniform which are not standard issue? This applies to the use of civilian kevlar vests for combat personnel as well. If I show up for the war with a Survivors of Hollywood, Inc. kevlar torso shield with the solar-powered cooling feature, or if I reject the standard issue .50 cal sniper blaster rifle in favor of my daddy’s more stealthy Marlin .22 that can knock a squirrel’s eye out at 300 yards, wouldn’t I be out of uniform?
What are the limits? I know in garrison if it wasn’t issued to you and it wasn’t a coffee cup you’d best not have it in your A of O.
I’m a frequent reader of Sniper Paradise. I have no reason to believe they would allow themselves to be included in a big ol’ hoax.
1- The military issue sniper weapon is usually a modified Win700. The .50 BMG’s are actually used to “snipe” lightly armored vehicles and in INCREDIBLY long distance shots might be used against a single person. But usually it’s just not very cost effective.
2- The history of the sniping program in the US shows that, outside of actual combat, snipers are viewed as a bit of an oddity. It took several years AFTER the formation of the modern sniper school for armories to start carrying weapons and equipment for the scout-sniper.
3- Extrapolate from that, and the fact that the military tries to fit the sniper into the role of Infantry support, with standard kit… the thought that the military doesn’t supply the sniper with, say, a dragbag or other “standard” sniper gear isn’t that hard to come up with.
If I had the money, I would be sending stuff right and left. Snipers are the black sheep of the modern army, and are often misunderstood by those that direct their movement and missions.
True enough, usually. But for military purposes, it doesn’t make sense to spend $2 on a round designed to take out a target a mile away, when a .27 round designed to take out a target 1000 yrds away will work just as well. alessan, I certainly hope you’re right, but since the US Sniper program has had to be revamped and in most cases completely rebuilt everytime we start a conflict, I’m not as optimistic. While it’s nice that we’ve had our sniper program in place now for about 30 years, our urban combat tactics still don’t seem to be utilizing the sniper in the way he would be most useful.
Airstrikes seem to rule the day, whereas calmly eliminating leadership cadre would do more in the long run, IMHO.
Let me get that nit for you. You may be confusing the Winchester model 70 with the army’s M24 and USMC M40 which are both based on the Remington model 700.
Inigo, they aren’t asking for weapons but specialty accessories and supplies that aren’t issued to regular GIs and therefore may be hard to come by.
In addition to the cost, doesn’t the widely-held belief that the Geneva Convention prohibits using .50 cal weapons against personnel often play a part in discouraging the practice? I don’t know whether it’s strictly true (at least one well-written blog entry makes a case that it’s not) but accounts such as in the book Jarhead suggest it affected snipers’ rules of engagement with Barrett rifles in the first Gulf War.
This has been covered before many time, the Geneva convention only covers rules concerning treatment of prisoners of war. The Hague accord has covers prohibited types of ammunition and some of the relavent passages are quoted and commented on as they relate to sniper ammunition here: http://www.thegunzone.com/hague.html .50BMG is not typically used as an antipersonnel round but it certainly has been and I’m aware of any law or agreement that forbids it. As for cost I thikn the army can afford $1 for a cartridge when they get UBL in the crosshairs
Believe me, the army won’t blink at spending a 1$ per enemy head. That’s damned good money. How much regular ammo do you think we go through killing every single enemy? It’s a lot…
It’s just that even with a .50, I don’t think snipers can usually make shots at that range. It’s not impossible mind you (heck, there’s a recorded incident where an arrow traveled several miles in a storm because it kept getting pulled by the updrafts and actually killed someone) but really, really difficult.
I believe some sniper units do go out and try to get their own weapons. But the armories will customize the standard ones anyway.
On a couple night-vision equipment forums I occasionally visit, it is not uncommon to get posts from people who are military (or friends thereof) who are asking “what product is most-simliar to [some-particular] military night-vision goggle”. Usually the situation is that the person-in-the-military is occasionally given a night-vision goggle to use at times, but doesn’t have one to use all the time because the military doesn’t have enough to issue them to everybody, but they’d really like one to use whever they want. So what the poster is trying to do is buy the closest commercially-available product, in order to send it to the military person so they can have one to use all the time.
Also a while back two people were convicted of stealing military supplies and selling them on eBay. One of the things that was being sold were anti-ballistic vests. Many of the people buying the vests off eBay were buying them so they could send them to loved ones overseas in the military… -who did not have one issued, because there weren’t enough to go around.
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