sniping tactics

[Lt. Macka]

Re: sniping tactics

Cracking pics there guys! Very good.

[felix80]

Re: sniping tactics

second pic in are you sure some one is there as i can't find him lol awesome concealment there and great pics as well

[Proto]

Re: sniping tactics

second pic in are you sure some one is there as i can't find him lol awesome concealment there and great pics as well

Psst... He's under the bush...

[ZSA UK]

Re: sniping tactics

Only problem about this is that if there's an op going on in a large field with a bush right in the middle, then the OpFor will target the isolated cover. Your best bet is to go to the front and to the side, while leaving room to retreat and not be flanked.

[shooter1990]

Re: sniping tactics

i was having a sort out on my laptop and i stumbled upon this . I figured this could be of some use to someone on here .........

THIS IS NOT MY WORK , THIS WAS HANDED TO ME FROM A FREIND


The Art Of Sniping In Airsoft.

Introduction.

All opinions and recommendations in this document are mine, if you choose to listen to me, so be it.

So you want to be a sniper, why?



· You love the thought of ‘stealth’ kills.

· The whole camo thing does something for you.

· You think you’re a pretty good shot.

· You think a sniper’s just like being in a computer game and killing safely from a long way away!

All of the above are reasons I’ve heard. Personally I play as a sniper because I find spray and pray AEG style dull, there’s no challenge to it, I do own an AEG but its part of a complete load out for mil/film/realism games, I feel cheapened every time I use it.

If you want to score kills with the minimum of fuss in Airsoft, get an AEG, they are ‘easy mode’, don’t get me wrong there’s some extremely skilful AEG players out there, and I’ve seen and received some stunning shooting from AEG’s.


Definition
A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place.

Note in that definition there is no mention of long range, most people’s concept of a sniper is someone a mile away putting round after round on target!


Before you go out and buy a load of kit to become uber sniper, then in my opinion you need to learn to use a AEG first, once your confident that you can handle that, then there’s a couple of exercises to try out to see if you like/are suited to sniping.


1. Get a good pistol, practise with it, use it in every game until you are absolutely certain you can hit a target every time at 20 metres, the reason behind this is that we run a 20 metre minimum engagement range at Gunman, you need to be confident in your pistol skills to take away the urge to shoot your high powered rifle at that range.

2. Use a AEG on single shot with a max ammo load of 150 rounds for a couple of skirmishes, this will give you a feel of what it’s like to be a sniper, no firepower at all.

3. Buy/borrow yourself a TM Gspec, don’t upgrade it. Get used to how slow a bolt action really is to reload, also force your self to use the 20 metre engagement range.

4. I’m serious about the pistol practise.

Once you’ve gone through these 3 steps and you’re certain you want to ‘snipe then worry about upgrading the Gspec, sorting a half decent Ghillie etc.

Camouflage

The basics of camouflage:


· Shape

· Shine

· Shadow

· Smell

· Sound

· Silhouette

Shape, there are no straight lines in nature, disguise pouches, rifles trousers, anything that makes you look ‘human’ or man made.

Shine, Natures not shiny, dull anything that shines. Your skin will shine, cover it.
Your rifle will shine, cover it. Etc, Etc.

Shadow, when fighting in CQB I often use shadows to find where people are, beware where your shadow falls, also everything in nature casts a shadow, try to mimic this in your choice of clothing/kit/Ghillie.

Smell, strong aftershave or deodorant will give your position away very quickly, equally, being a soap dodger will give you away.

Sound, A really basic one, learn to move with the minimum of noise, make sure your kit does not rattle or bang.

Silhouette, never ever present a silhouette above a ridge/bushes etc, also when sniping from kneeling and standing positions, always check what’s behind you, is it a nice big anti-social bramble bush, or a open space that leads off into a field, make sure you blend with your backdrop.


How do we achieve this?

Uniform.

A Basic DPM pattern uniform, you can pick up British/American etc ones from any army surplus shop, they are cheap as chips and designed exactly for the purpose you need. It’s up to you what you get and what you spend.

I’ve 3 sets personally.

5.11 Trousers, black fleece. I tend to use this in urban, the trousers have some excellently placed pockets, and the fleece takes the sting out of impacts. Also the two tone tends to work as a basic camouflage, dark at the top for when you’re shooting from windows and light at the bottom where your legs are against walls etc.

British DPM. It’s designed to work in the British woodland people, why get anything else? Also pouches and entire rigs are made in this pattern. Used exclusively in woodland, I’ve about 4 sets of this stuff ranging from heavy winter style to lighter summer style; I even have a pre-production set of it (red label).

Multicam (really faded!) Trousers, shirt, under armour shirt. I tend to wear this in the summer when everything’s gone a little tan in colour.


Ghillie Suits

Walking bush style, there’s so much information about these online that I’ll not go into specifics yet.

I personally have two.

Webtex concealment vest. Lightweight with hoops for vegetation, cracking piece of kit for the money, garnished with a little Hessian and random other stuff it works wonderfully. I’ve cut the bottom third off mine as well, i use this for a rifle wrap. I tend to use this ghillie when I want some concealment but still need to move around fairly rapidly. Its easy to add natural foliage to this suit, the results can be amazing if done correctly.
The suit comes in 3 pieces, hood, jacket and a small bag to carry it in.





Jackal full body Ghillie. Lightweight, expensive but good, tends to work best if your laying in shadow. I’ve personally spray painted mine a little with some brown, I’ve also added in some hessian and seagrass to further break up the colours a little. Theres no foliage loops on this ghillie, but its built on a light mesh, there is space to shove foliage in but its not particularly secure.
I tend to use this suit in longer woodland games where I will be hidden for quite a while in the same spot.
The suit comes in 4 parts, 2x gaiters, 1x hood and the main jacket.



How I wear the clothing

Lets work from the head down.

Hat, I’ve various pieces of headwear, helmets, berets, caps and hats.
The two most common ones i wear are the boonie hat, and the baseball cap.
The boonie i tend to wear when I’ve got a ghillie on, the all around brim does a good job of keeping the ghillie away from my ears so it impedes my hearing less.
The baseball cap i wear when playing CQB games, its just a comfortable hat to wear.

Also whilst on the subject, i wear a hat all year, i don’t care how hot it gets, your head must be covered!


Next the single most important part of Airsoft for any player, your eyes, good eye protection is a must, I personally wear lumberjack goggles, they are mesh and don’t steam up. Below that I wear a neoprene mask to protect my face and teeth from bb hits. I’ve camouflaged this to hide its deep black colour. There’s the option of camo cream if you don’t wear lower face protection.

Next your shirts, even in summer I wear two layers, a under armour shirt and something long sleeved over the top of it, remember your going to be crawling through nettles and barging your way through bramble bushes.

Gloves, i wear gloves all year around, in summer they protect my hands from nettles etc, in winter they protect from the cold. All year around they protect from BB hits.

Trousers, winter time I wear one thick pair, summer time I wear one thin pair and a single kneepad, the knee pads there for kneeling in brambles/stingers, blouse them over your boots to keep the crap out.

Socks, I always wear issue socks, two pairs in winter, one in summer, keep a spare pair in your daysack. Theres nothing like dry socks when your feet get soaked!

Boots, the second most important thing in Airsoft, don’t be cheap with your boots, a good pair of british army pro-boots cost very little and may save a painful trip to A&E.

Waterproofs, I wear issue gore-tex waterproofs, they keep the water out and allow your sweat to escape. I wear them under my uniform otherwise they rustle when i move, I’ve also got a dutch armour gore-tex undershirt that i picked up fairly cheap, cracking piece of kit.

Webbing

Quite a hot topic amongst snipers, as to what to carry, where to carry it.
My webbing is fairly basic and consists of:

OD Blast Belt
OD Suspenders
OD Camelback
OD Pouches
Various Pouches.
Various Holsters for the pistols

I have a variety of pouches to fit to this, the most common you’ll see on my webbing are:

3x Double mag pouches
1x Waterbottle Pouch
1x Utility Pouch
1x M4 Magazine Pouch

I’ve a few others that i can mix and match depending on the game style being played. A extra utility pouch/comms pouch/more m4 pouches.

I’ve tried various vests and other setups over the years, and if theres something I’ve learnt is that airsofters carry far to much junk. Your web gear is for ‘bombs bullets and water’, translated carry your mags, enough spare ammo to last the game, any pyro you want to use and water, thats it.
Any more slows you down, makes noise and generally gets on your nerves.

Trouser belt, on this are a drop leg holster, and a folding dump pouch.

I’ve got a 35 litre daysack that everything else goes into, even on skirmish days this comes with me, it carries everything else, I’ll go into detail later in this document.


Contents of the webbing

In my webbing this is what i carry:

11x 1911 magazines (one in the pistol)
1x p99 magazines (one in the pistol)
4x Gspec magazines (one in the rifle)
1x 1 litre waterbottle (summertime)
Ammo enough to last
Small first aid kit
Small penknife
Munchies (Chocs, sweets, energy bars)
1x TM 1911

Now this may not sound a lot, but 12 pistol magazines is a lot of metal to carry about, hence the suspenders on the belt, your trousers will end up around your ankles without them. Also when loading your webbing be aware of how much you personally can carry, I’ve a fairly large bloke, and I’m very used to carrying things so it does not bother me to much. But if your not used to carrying things it can wear you down quickly.

As a addenum here, summers arrived so I’ve put my camelback onto my belt instead of the suspenders, you can never have enough water in the hot weather.


Contents of the day sack.

More ammo
More Water
Gas
More food
Dry socks
Waterproofs
Poncho
Larger first aid kit
Spare 1911
Weapon specific toolkit

[Lt. Macka]

Re: sniping tactics

Great post.
11 pistol mags seems excessive to me but each to their own. Lol.


Only thing I would say is about the smell aspect. Extremely strong aftershave and heavy smokers are the only things I really notice the smell of in the field. Extreme BO maybe. But you would have to be within a few meters to notice some one in this way. And even then I doubt you'd really think much of it.

Still. Great post.


Anyone preparing for another harsh winter with a snow ghillie?

[fangsnatcher]

Re: sniping tactics

here are my ghille offerings based on a jungle hat and garden netting and the webtex concealment cape. materiel wise ive used dyed hessian and jute string and kicked them about in the mud. they also had a light rub down with a wire brush. the string is tied on to the veg loops to allow easy location in the field when adding natual cam

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

and

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

[fangsnatcher]

Re: sniping tactics

a couple of better pics, one with added dog (trigger)

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

[Lt. Macka]

Re: sniping tactics

Looks good mate! Well done.

[Lt. Macka]

Re: sniping tactics

Right time for me to add some thoughts from a few games I've been at recently.

Most of this stuff has been touched on in the thread already. But I'd like to make some additions for the new guys.

What follows are just my opinions....

Ammo:
Use as heavy ammo as you can. There are other members on here who know the maths etc behind this but as a general rule, heavier ammo retains more energy down range.
Don't go mad with this but if you can try to use a decent weight.

The other thing worth mentioning here is that ammo can make a big difference. I'm not suggestion you should buy in bulk from one manufacturer from the same batch but if you find a particular brand works well at a particular weight then by all means stick to it. Changing weights and brands around all the time will make small differences.


Camo:
This is something I've noticed a lot. Many people are playing in a full ghillie but are then running around like mad men. So why bother wearing it? If you know you play fast games then maybe you would be better off in a lighter camo option. It doesn't make you less of a sniper, so unless you're after that specific look then try and tailor your camo to your game type.

Incidentally I said this on the first page. A ghillie suit is not a ninja suit. You can't simply put one on and expect to be invisible. You need to tailor it to your environment and stick to places that your are unlikely to be seen. Ie not in the middle of a field. Try instead the over grown ditch to the one side.

Unfortunately if you really do want to be invisible you will have to get used to the idea of crawling through the mud and water to stay hidden.

Learn your five S's and stick to the shadows. You are far harder to spot. You can also try and shoot from behind cover, with you body mostly covered by a large tree for example.


This brings me to a point I raised elsewhere. Your site and its size and style of play.

Smaller sites who run short 1-2 hour games are much more suited to a marksman role. Simply because you don't really have time to crawl into a good position. It's not impossible obviously but it does make life a lot more difficult. Especially when you have large numbers of players in a smaller area.
Larger sites running longer games are better for a full sniper set up. These are great fun I must say.

Obviously that all have variables: player numbers and game length is the big one. I'd say 2 hours is the shortest time you can really go for it in.


Lastly,

Movement:
This is the one thing that gives everyone away. Either moving into position too fast or simply bobbing about, the human eye is drawn to movement. I know I've given myself away on a number of occasions by moving too much.

The only advice I can offer for this is for you guys to slow down. Wait a couple of seconds before you reload, try and stay calm and don't get too hyped up by being in the game.
If you get too excited, that's when you start snapping shots and missing what your would normally hit easily.


All the best guys
Safe shooting

Andy

[Mattias139]

Re: sniping tactics

Hope this is not a repost, but i can´t remember if this has been asked already

What are your guys opinion about Silencers and Bi-pods?

Personally i find bi-pods to be clumsy and heavy, so i have removed them, but i just added a silencer to hide a 600mm innerbarrel, and also it leaves alittle space for sound reduction which i like

[Broady]

Re: sniping tactics

Hope this is not a repost, but i can´t remember if this has been asked already

What are your guys opinion about Silencers and Bi-pods?

Personally i find bi-pods to be clumsy and heavy, so i have removed them, but i just added a silencer to hide a 600mm innerbarrel, and also it leaves alittle space for sound reduction which i like

I started off using the bi-pod that I bought with my rifle, but as you said, i found the extra weight and bulk on the front to be unnecessary (also the lug mounted ones can be extremely rattly!) so I ditched it to save the weight, and now only use the bi-pod for zeroing my scope and setting my hop etc.
I'm currently looking for a decent length and width silencer for my L96, but such a thing seems hard to find in stock lately!
Got to say that foam filled suppressors do seem to muffle the muzzle report of spring rifles somewhat, even if they just change the tone, it does make a slight difference from the target's perspective.

[Trouble]

Re: sniping tactics

Really enjoyed following this thread, some great contributions.

I'm far from an 'expert' but I've been putting a few hours in on the field as a 'recon' (not sure I call it sniping as I use an AEG) and been putting much thought and man hours into crafting my camo and reading up on bush craft and I'd like to share some of my experience and ideas...

For me, I very much enjoy being where the enemy least expects, whether that's going on a long slow stalk to get around the enemy and harass them before fading away and moving to another position keeping them on their toes or getting into the most unlikely uncomfortable prickly stingyest darkest, wettest stink hole and ambushing a group who are totally unprepared for you or reporting back to team mates the enemy positions through a radio.

I very much enjoy the role of being a 'ghost' or a guerrilla and have not yet felt the need to invest in a sniper rifle. I use an AEG (Masada) with long tight bore, hop up upgrades and zoom scope at 340 FPS, which is fab for popping up at close range and taking out a number of enemies before they know what's hit them without having to worry about minimum engagement range as well as having a good range.

Here is my ghillie that I have made myself, a mix of various materials, lots of old hessian sacks, some artificial burlap, old bits of rage shredded, elastic loops for natural veg and some spray paint.

photo.jpg

photo copy 2.jpg

photo copy 3.jpg

Would very much welcome some feedback on what the more experienced stalkers on here think about it?

The one thing that I have found frustrating is site rules. One of the sites I play at seems to have an 'anti ghillie' policy.

This weekend for example, I was wearing a ghillie suit at the start of the day. The guy who was running the day, and also playing said to me that if I am wearing a ghillie if anyone shoots at me I have to take that as a hit.

I said ok, but I take my hits it won't be a problem. So game one.

I teamed up with a pal, who has a bolt action, we were holding a position and we had been on fire, I had an 8 kill streak, 2 of those kills had been the marshal.

There was a lot of full auto fire in the general direction of our position, a lot of it was kind of lob shots, my partner + I had a chat about it. We believed they were firing randomly knowing we were in the general area but could not see us. The shots were wild, a long way from hitting us. Then there's shouting up at our position "you in the ghillie take a hit", the shots had not been within 2-3 meters of us. He said you know the rules, if you are being shot at in a ghillie take your hit. He said "yes, you are very well hidden I only knew you were up here because the 2nd time you shot me the direction of your BBs gave you away, good shooting but it gave your position away"

I didn't want to argue, but I said he was shooting wild and his shots had not hit me but I'll take the hit if that's how he wants to play. So I let it go and took off my ghillie, leaving my ghillied hat and guns ghillie on. His rules, his game...

Later, similar situation, I was in a good position and had taken a couple of folks out, I believe one of them had again been the marshal. Same thing happens, wild fire in the general direction, I wasn't hit, I returned fire hitting him. He shouted again "you in the ghillie take your hit and your are within minimum engagement range"

This time I protested, told him I hasn't wearing a ghillie and this is silly that just because I am wearing some fluff on top of a baseball cap to break up my outline I have to take his wild fire as a hit.

I didn't have a 'sniper', it's an AEG with a scope chronoed at 340fps, and he said because i was wearing a ghillie hat I had to take his wild fire in the general direction i was in as a hit and that they are the rules.

I totally understand that some feel there may be a problem with ghillies cushioning the blow from BBs, but it really does feel very harsh if marshals are imposing what seems like a very extreme rule if someone is wearing a camouflaged hat.

Has anyone experienced this kind of ruling against our kind? Is there anything that can be done about it, other than to play at sniper friendly sites? Which would be a shame as I really enjoy the venue and the games there.

- - - Updated - - -

a couple of better pics, one with added dog (trigger)

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

http://s1287.photobucket.com/albums/...er_media_share

That is very similar to how mine looked a few weeks ago. I ended up pulling out the horizontal bits of hessian from the sack strips.

I think I am going to make another smaller 'cape' very similar to this style for summer use, small enough to keep in a dump pouch to whip out when needed without having to cook in the hot sun walking around in a rug...

[TriggerHappy]

Re: sniping tactics

Sounds like he's playing the rules more to the letter than the spirit, but if he's a Marshall/Owner of the site arguing about it probably isn't going to help, unfortunately. Definitely don't think thats how the 'ghillie-rule' should be enforced though. Concentrated fire around you, yes, take a hit. Wild spray in your vicinity, no.

[fangsnatcher]

Re: sniping tactics

Sound like a bit of a draconian rule to be honest mate. yes it can be difficult to feel a hit in a ghille suit but i'm sure that most of us who snipe get cheesed off with players who dont take hit, and are therefore more likely to call their own. I have always struggled with the player/marshal concept and prefer the non playing, hi vis type marshalling.

On a seperate note the ghille is weathering nicely and starting to look a bit "fluffier"; just need to abuse it some more.