A new report from the U.K. Ministry of Defence tells the story of how a British sharpshooter took out six Taliban insurgents with a single bullet. How? By taking out the trigger of a suicide bomb from 930 yards away.
I bought a ghillie suit last year for deer hunting. Wore it out the back and scared the shit out a load of kids. Think they thought I was a swamp monster 🤣🤣
I delivered a detailed target intelligence brief to a sniper in Musa Qal-eh district, Helmand in 2010, just me and him, one to one. He was the most unbelievably cool-minded, softly-spoken man. Unbelievably chilled out and sanguine, I doubt his resting heart beat is more than 2 beats per minute! It takes a certain kind of person and he left me very, very impressed by his personality alone.
I was there in MusaQala 08, was my best but most scary experience, I’m big enough to admit that, contact almost daily. Was glad to go home but weirdly enough I wanted to go back once back home 🤷♂️, glad you are home safe and sound 🤝
I love the story of how Accuracy International came to be a supplier of military weapons, first to the UK then obviously now to basically everybody else. It's the most British thing ever.
Hey buddy. Some info from personal experience. [please see EDIT 3 below] This is the Sniper Instructor Course (course is in the Specialist Weapons School, based in Warminster and using Otterburn and Salisbury Plain due to the certified ranges for the longs). These future Instructors then return to their respective Regiments and assist their Battalion's Master Sniper (the most senior qual'd sniper) in running the Skill At Arms training and the various course intricacies (Obs, camouflage, Nav, fitness assessments, stalks etc). They will all be already qual'd instructors in SAA and likely no lower than Cpl and upwards to be able to apply for this course (SAA Instr is a requirement to go for promotion to Sgt, at least in the Infantry). You are correct that their ghillies will have been made on their initial Sniper cadre (to become one, as opposed to this Instructor/Sniper Section Commander course) as it's one of the initial 'tasks' after pre-course assessments. When I passed my Sniper Cadre, I buried my ghillie in a hole for 3 weeks to get natural staining and to 'ground in'. Dunno if that was actually a joke one of the Instructors told us, but we all did it anyway. Definitely my favourite role out of the various 'trades' I had. Learned a hell of a lot about advanced fieldcraft etc. It's often said that it's the hardest course outside of SAS selection in the Army, but certainly one of the most rewarding and fulfilling. AFAIK The RM Commando Sniper Course (not this one) do it much the same way but at their own training locations, as it's the same course syllabus across the profession in the UK, but I think the Sniper Section Commander course (the one in the vid) is the same one that RM Cmdos attend. I vaguely remember RMs on mine, but that was 12 years ago or something. Edit: Added paragraphs after I figured out how to...thought hitting Enter was going to post it so it was originally a wall of text. EDIT 2: BTW, the Co-ordinated shoot is something that I was taught, but seems to give those that may a bit of a hard-on. Always seemed like a show-piece. We do do it though. And with resets if some fucker mis-times. EDIT 3 : This is actually not the Instructor/Sniper Section Commander course. Watching it back again, this is all 'basic' stuff, and it's either the 'base' Sniper course or it's highly edited to miss out things like OP Matrixes, tactics, deployment etc. It barely covers stalks, and that's the good shit. Shit for another day and likely never to be seen online. It looks like nothing's based in Warminster at all, so it looks like a Regimental sniper course that has pooled in folk from other units to complete the cadre (happens quite a lot). My points still stand in relation to the Section Commander/Instructor Course so haven't removed them. All this stuff is actually really fundamental and baseline when I reassess. The SC/PC course would cook your head lol. A lot of ISTAR "Bob took a shit 3m from here" crossover training, with Recce, A/T etc. A lot of ISTAR interacts with eachother, due to the literal optics with Jav and so on. I remember watching a buck hump another buck in France on ex at 0300 in NFOV thermal, and thinking 'this is fucking A1, wont get this on the hub'. Not even gay.
@@tridentuk6885 Its the commanders course my mate was on this one. Oh and Master Sniper? Lol I know what you mean but that’s not a thing other than maybe the DS at SWS, I would say “John” is a master sniper because he was my DS years ago lol
The idea of multiple sniper teams was looked at after the first gulf war. The idea is that 4 or 5 sniper teams working together can keep an enemy units head down and prevent them falling back whilst a large unit (battalion/battle group) attacks them. Snipers working in the urban environment was mastered in Northern Ireland back in the 70’s & 80’s with loft shoots etc. 7 years of my 18 years in was as a sniper, loved it.
The ghillies are made using hessian sacks(sand Bags) woven usually in to a ghillie shroud or combat jacket. elastic is also sewn in to allow the sniper to stuff a heap of natural foliage in to the system to create the most effective camouflage. It is normal to work in sniper teams which consists of multiple pairs with the same objective.
Hello, still don't know your name, but allways watch you videos. Never been involved with the British Army, but allways respect them. Very good of you to praise our soldiers. Too many don't praise them. Again also the U.S.A. Army, dad served in the 2 W.W. and met a number of American troops and did respected them and their vehicles 👍. He was a sargent in the Remy and loved his Diamond "T" trucks. Great video's. Will keep watching for them. Best wishes, Geoff Lewis, Wales, UK 🏴.
You need to check out “Behind the lines”, the RM Arctic and Mountain Warfare cadre from the eighties. It’s retro but it’s so interesting. All the episodes are on RU-vid.
Being captured by the enemy while wearing a ghillie suit is likely to result in a long, slow, agonizing death: just goes to show how brave snipers need to be.
I was in the British Army and did A sniper course in 2001.There were 20 of us on it and none of us passed.It was a very enjoyable course.We had to make our own Ghillie suits with sand bags and lots of sewing!
When I think of the UK I think of it being rain wet and grey lol 🤣🤣 and as a brit I can tell you your spot on mate lol love the channel great content keep em coming✌
I was in the kielder reservoir area of Northumberland and while I was walking along a forest track I noticed things at the bottom of the trees, they were claymore type things. I wasn't sure as it is in the area of this video so I thought that they may have been forgot about from an exercise. I wasn't going to touch one and kept walking, and as I came to a falling tree, I could see another of these claymore things and as I got closer, I saw what I thought was a rabbit hole or fox den, and I saw someone smile and gave me a thumbs up, he had his face black and ferns in a parting and it looked like a hole, or rabbit run, and a few yards into the trees I saw about 20 soldiers and with the trees planted so close it's very dark even during the day. If you can ever make it to the UK, then Northumberland is the best part, and the coastline is amazing.
@4:33 where the captions say "auto burn"... What she actually said was Otterburn ranges, it's in Northumberland, Northern England. I went there for pre-tour training before being deployed in Iraq. It's a fascinating place in that the training officers can plot a tabbing route that takes you in one big circle, all uphill. Maybe it was just my perspective but I swear there wasn't one bit of that hike that was downhill, yet we ended up back where we started...
Loads of respect for these guys. Yearly small arms tests were a nightmare, though I always scraped through and at least never had to re-take. I could trim your moustache with a 30mm Raden canon but shooting a rifle was really hard for me.
i did a 2 day course when in the RAF about observation in the field. We had a field in front of us and about 50 to 80 metres away were two snipers in gilly suits standing up. they had 45 minutes to get as close as they could to us without us seeing then. I'm not joking, 45 minutes later they were asked to stand back up and they were both 10 metres away!!! British army are fucking brilliant
If you think about it, having a few teams out is a good idea. Where there is one high-value target, there are likely to be more. Plus if one team is compromised, there are others who can proceed on task. And Ghillie suits are only the base of the camo. Once on task you use local foliage to blend in. That way it always matches the seasonal colours as well as the type of foliage.
I remember watching a documentary on the selection process for the Royal Marine Mountain and Arctic Warfare Cadre. A marine failed a test because, although he successfully shot at his target without being seen, he was deemed to have got unnecessarily close to his target.
Not being just patriotic (Scottish) but modern snipers come from Scotland, hence ghillie suit, WW1 Scottish. Ghillies or game keepers pioneered snipers for the British Army, so you see nigh on 100 years of evolution
Some years ago, this time of year at the works Christmas party, one of my former work colleges revealed he was a sniper in the Portuguese army, who at the time where deployed as part of the UN force protecting Sarajevo, credited with something like 26 conformed kills and 1 possible. The non glamorous part of being a sniper he told me, was that you have to stay still, if you need to relive your self, you piss or shit your pants, because the moment you move, the other guy gets you.
The location at the beginning is Otterburn in Northumberland, it is a massive training area in the north of England near the Scottish border. It can be a very bleak area and can get all sorts of weather in a day. But is a beautiful area
Probably not suitable for YT Reaction unless 18+ Really Upsetting is an Understatement. Literally PTSD recorded on VHS. But for Personal Education on why Saddam Should have Paid for His Crimes in 91, I Highly Recommend it. Politics got in the way of Justice in 91 and cost Millions of Lives since.
My uncle was a sniper Britis army in 1982 during Falklands campaign .i was a child at the time ,he was based on Mount longden and Mount harriet and had a lot of confirmed kills,
The British army believed there was no requirement for snipers after WW2 so stopped training them, the Royal Marines took a different view and continued doing so. Subsequently the army realised their mistake and reinstated them however by then the Marines course had become the UK's de-facto Sniper training and as well as train Marines it was also first choice for SF.
I highly recommend a book called sniper one by Sgt. Dan Mills. Where a group of snipers during peace keeping mission ending up in the longest, most sustained fire fight the British troops has faced in over 50 years.
I will post this before watching. I just watched a Chris Thrall podcast with Robin Horsfall (SAS sniper) and Georgina Roberts (Olymic target shooter). I am fascinated watching and listening to those who walk the walk. Looking forward to this one.
I don't know about the rest of the Army but being infantry I know we all do our sniper course at one location and then sniper commanders course in another. for obvious reasons I won't disclose the locations. my experience of sniping is 99% boredom- 1% excitement. its hard graft but I loved the fact of working with like minded individuals who were extremely professional. I found normal rifle companies to be a bit childish and bullshitty.
My Grandad told me that during WWII. He lay on the ground an in the bush, sometimes for weeks without moving. Just for that one shot at an officer. He won many medals, if not the Uk and the Usa may be speaking german today. THANK YOU GRANDAD XX
They make there gillie suits from hessian and paint it black green brown and shred it down into like individual strands it can have elastic bands aswell so you can attach local foliage and tie in stuff aswell they are all made by the individuals hot in summer and dam heavy when wet
The best instruction the snipers can give to a unit is how to react when you are being sniped.... I remember the US ww2 doctrine from the film the big red one... they would send a man out.. see where he is hit and then know where that particular sniper is placed... I don't know what they are trained to do in the 2020s but given the availability of night sights.. these days.. it's probably equally as grim a situation to find yourself in...
Cant understand why IT is not used to identify sniper location, It must be 20 years ago when i saw a demonstration of vehicle roof mounted kit that would instantly identify where a incoming shot came from and an automated gun would shoot back. It seemed pretty good, not fooled by echo's or other shots, the shot detected had to be incoming.
Very interesting! When I did my Police Rifleman course way back in the late 1990's it ran on very similar lines to the Sniper Course. We had to learn and pass all the disciplines expected of a Sniper including marksmanship (up to 500 yards although we did shoot to 800 yards on occasion on training days - most Police rifle work would be under 100 yards for the purposes of identification), camouflage and concealment both urban and rural, navigation, static OP's, intelligence gathering, stalking etc etc. I really loved the role, but to be clear I NEVER considered myself a Sniper, as that role carries far more risk and a higher skill level in my opinion. Back then my rifle was a Steyer SSG 69 7.62 bolt action with Schmidt & Bender scope....no side arm.
Schmit & bender scopes on a lot of sniper rifles nowadays too, them and Leopold are the only ones I've seen when I've watched stuff on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many years ago the Lee Enfield was the snipers choice of weapon and used to be shot from laying on their back with the end of the rifle resting on crossed feet. Many things have changed but as this is more than a compatition for marksmanship but would be used in the field.
Fair play to the British guy for saying the Americans are better at things like CQB, he didn't have to say that but we are all on the same side and brothers in arms at the end of day!
I keep thinking our forces go and train in these wilderness areas but in reality these are becoming rare environments that they probably wont encounter in a real war. They'lll probably take place in car parks where the best camo is the colour of a shiny Ford
When the subtitles say "auto burn ranges" read "Otterburn Ranges" an area owned by the MoD, comprising 93 sq miles (about a quarter) of the Northumberland National Park, up near the Scottish Border. Some public access is allowed.
Sometimes the sniper teams work together to eliminate a HVT, the confusion allows them a greater chance to avoid detection, a single sniper will be the focus of all retaliation.
A few years ago the Scottish black watch had their home coming march through the streets of Glasgow, i was there and witnessed it, it was cool af. At the back of the parade was the black watch infantry marching, in front of them were the pipers playing their tunes, in front of them were the armoured vehicles and tanks, in front of them were the black watch snipers in their ghillie gear and sniper rifles (there were 6 of them). The snipers were behaving like they were marching through enemy territory, they were not actually marching, they were just walking, but they would walk a bit then turn and look down the line whilste walking backwards then turn back facing front, they kept repeating this, they seems like they were still on high alert or something. I suppose it was just their training, old habbits and all that. They looked cool af as they were doing it. I come from a military family that has served in the British army since the act of union between Scotland and England, i however was the only son in my family that did not join up although i did go to the army careers office to sign up and did the entry exam but i decided later i did not want to join up. Wish i did now and would have liked to have been a black watch sniper. Regrets? I've had a few. Quote Frank Sinatra.
This might sound off track.. But my DAUGHTER has been shooting her entire life. We live in the Ozark mountains and have a gun and bow range on our property. She even started teaching and running the range at camp crossed arrows When She was a teen.. and I swear that by 16 she could group her shots dead center.. less than a half inch apart.. from 200 yds.. free sight. With a scope she could put one into a bucks heart from 500 yds every TIME lol. I wonder Bout the fact that the forces have no women snipers here in the states.. because when I would take all the local kids shooting it sure seemed the girls were better shots than the boys. The top 2 Russian snipers of all time were girls.
When it comes to weather..the reason for the not so great weather here in UK is that most folks don't realise that folks living in London..live further north than most people in Canada!....and most folks would generally see Canada as a snowy cold country...So it's not surprising our weather isn't like the sunny med!. So those living is Scotland...are more than likely living further north than 99.9% of Canandians..if not 100%.
Hey man, hope you are cool. Royal Marines snipers go through the Royal Marines sniper course, SAS snipers have been known to also attend and other Army unit snipers. Royal Marine snipers I know also cross train with other army units snipers in the UK and US and overseas.
Great stuff, particularly the urban section which seems to have come on leaps and bounds. From what i heard it used to be a plastic sheet in front of the window, now they use white camouflaged stuff. Cool.
Noway when you said you picture England wet an cloudy an rainy all the time lol that was the perfect picture you had there bro don’t get any closer than that haha we have crap weather here
Just so you know one of the rifles I believe you commented on and liked towards the end of the video was the latest a3 variant of the l85. Just if you were interested to know.
Being that the original American sniper school is based on the UK sniper school i would say that that the UK is better. Though, when you look at it, it means both the UK and USA have amazing snipers because of it. An both UK/USA snipers have adapted it and made the school the best in the world.
Royal Marines have their own snipe course and it’s considered the toughest one in the world it lasts around 10 weeks also and it’s pass rate is really quite low
I worked with a guy that has been a Brit Army sniper during the cold war based in Germany. His secondary roll was anti tank. He told me that their life expectancy during combat was 4 minutes. Thank Dog it never kicked off.
Look up the British sniper who took out the 6 taliban with one round. However no the sniper school is like one of the 3 hardest courses in the British army this video doesn’t touch on any of that, when they are instructors they will go back to the unit and will be able to instruct other snipers in there unit refreshers matts etc, the course itself is a completely different ball game, out of unit etc, normally blokes will join snipers learn off them then jump on the course.
While not exactly accurate (historically or otherwise) the series, Sharpe's Rifles, gives a good account of how "sniping" was introduced as a doctrine to the British army - the birth of our light infantry. (It misses out how the tactic had been used by other nations previously, which irks a little.) Most modern British infantry can still largely still fulfil this role, acting as a light raiding force; having several men sowing discord and chaos to sap enemy morale while an assault is made is a huge boon. They can also still act in the traditional sniper manner. I sat with one out on a bridge gantry while in Iraq back in '03 - he was potshoting any heads that popped out above trench lines. (I was supposed to be helping my Sgt recce the bridge for its suitability in a tank crossing, but watching skulls burst like melons, through my binoculars, was too gruesomely entertaining.)
The best snipers in WW2 were the Finns and the Soviets. From 1 to 5 ..Soviets ..Vladimir Pchelintsev-456 confirmed kills; Ivan Kulbertinov-487 confirmed kills; Nikolay Ilyan-494 confirmed kills; Ivan Sidorenko-500 confirmed kills; the highest number of confirmed kills tho' was by a Finn (the "White Death") Simo Häyhä with 505 confirmed, 705 unconfirmed . It was said he would even keep snow in his mouth, believing the steam produced from his mouth could fog up his scope, causing issues. The Soviets also had excellent female snipers. (I've just noticed you did a clip on Simo Häyhä).The top female sniper was the Ukrainian-born Lyudmila Pavlichenko , nicked-named "Lady Death" with 309 confirmed kills, including 36 enemy snipers. Now that's something! (And often they were shooting at each other with the same rifle (a Mosin-Nagant Model with a PU scope)).
Mismanagement of snipers and other specially trained soldiers has always been a problem for US/UK teams. It often comes down to the officer in command and, since Delta and 22 SAS get their orders from Olympus, their time isn't wasted on battalion commanders' great ideas.