An Army of Snipers?

[whitecrow]

The difference is that normally any unit operating independently is an all-arms formation - look at a modern Russian motor rifle regiment, for example, or a British battalion task group. That means that while the individual soldier might not be able to cope with the threat that emerges, there's someone else not too far away who does have the tools for the job.
Making everyone a sniper is ok against enemy infantry under some circumstances, but is no more effective in general than arming everyone with a minigun or a flamethrower would be.

I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the OP only suggested substituting snipers for grunts with assault rifles. So you would still have anti-tank infantry, MANPAD infantry, etc.

 

[Evermourn]

Why don't you post this in the ASB section, something like "ASBs make all armies use only sniper rifles - what happens?" and see what you get. Then everyone won't get hung up on infantry vs tanks etc.

 

[Gunnarnz]

I assumed (perhaps incorrectly) that the OP only suggested substituting snipers for grunts with assault rifles. So you would still have anti-tank infantry, MANPAD infantry, etc.

I went back and reread the OP, and you're absolutely correct. In general terms then the situation is much less dire. Sniper rifles are still not really suitable for many situations, but this will be more of a handicap than a crippling blow to their ability to operate.

Moving to the psychology of it, the reality is that armies engaged in combat are already capable of killing quite large numbers of people, and army PR doesn't emphasise that. I'm not sure why the manner in which the deaths are achieved should change the way the role of the army is presented, unless that is changed as well. You might see something more like what happens in countries like New Zealand - advertisements for the army emphasise non-combat trades, comradeship, opportunities for travel, and allude to but do not necessarily spend much time on the combat arms. Still, most civilians are able to avoid thinking about the actual job of the army in any case, so I don't see that being too much of an issue.
The effects on the individuals are more problematic to determine. The army in general doesn't like psychopaths or thrill-killers, they're not reliable enough and don't work well with others (quite apart from the moral dimensions of the issue). But I've heard that snipers say that the face in their scopes isn't really a person to them, just an image that, with a few ounces of finger pressure, just... goes away. This implies a degree of emotional detachment from what they're doing, and if that same quality is required of all infantry it's going to differentiate soldiers significantly from the population they're drawn from.
Also bear in mind that all soldiers are expected to be able to operate as infantry at need, and that means all of them will have had the same basic training in infantry techniques. This is the time when this sort of detachment would have to be fostered, so there might be implications for the other arms of service as well.

 

[soutgun2]

Myself

I was in a Cdn. Militia Regt.(Lincs & Wincs) for 4 years. With training, I was a decent shot. I never had to fire a shot to kill. Firing at colored blobs with my FNC1A1 is one thing. Add a scope, show me a man thru it? I honestly can not say what I would do?

 

[Theodoric]

MacCaulay makes the point that this isn't really intended to be a practical suggestion, and instead it's about the effects on the soldiers themselves of having to see their enemies demise. I haven't personally seen any research into whether snipers suffer greater PTSD rates than other arms - I'm not saying it doesn't exist, I just haven't bothered looking for it. But that strikes me as a good place to start, because the difference between shooting someone with a .50 cal bullet and landing a propelled grenade at their feet seems academic in most respects.

From what I've read, since snipers of the non-marksman type actually don't do a lot of shooting, and mostly wait (in tense situations), they get a lot of what the Dutch military calls 'observation fatigue', which can be just as bad as battle fatigue.

People's brains are just not wired to live in constant tension of having small bits of metal launched at them at high speeds, and taking people way from such situations after they've accustomed to it can make it even worse.

 

[Osakadave]

One thing not yet mentioned is cost effectiveness. Snipers require a much more expensive selection and training process than your average grunt. Just to give you an idea, the budget for training ammunition for SEAL team 6 is supposedly more than that of the USArmy (at least according to some of the books I've read). Even with the proverbial grain of salt, extrapolating out, it's easy to guesstimate that the training budget for all sniper infantry will be far more expensive and will limit numbers.

 

[Dave Howery]

WI: A Country outfitted its infantry with modern .50 Cal. scoped rifles. Training was keep your distance and kill at long range. How are the soldiers affected? They can not lie to themselves that they did not kill. Are their enemies less likely to attack due to their projected losses?

not sure I see the point of this. Soldiers without sniper rifles are also going to have to face up to the fact that they killed someone too; things may get complicated in a firefight, but there are times when a soldier will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he used his ordinary rifle/pistol/whatever to take a life. And snipers don't always see their targets 'up close and personal'... as I understand it, they operate at quite long range, and what they see in their scopes isn't 'the whites of their eyes' so much as a figure of a man far far away. To be sure, a sniper will generally always know that he took that particular life consistently, but any regular soldier who sees combat on a regular basis is going to face up to it as well...

 

[seraphim74]

How effective are snipers when you have to attack? Especially in urban area? Imagine you have to take control of a village or a small town without destrouing it. Sure, snipers can make defenders' life really unpleasant, but can they push them out? In close combat between a sniper and a rifleman with an AK-47 I think a rifleman has an advantage.

 

[Marc Pasquin]

not sure I see the point of this. Soldiers without sniper rifles are also going to have to face up to the fact that they killed someone too; things may get complicated in a firefight, but there are times when a soldier will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he used his ordinary rifle/pistol/whatever to take a life. And snipers don't always see their targets 'up close and personal'... as I understand it, they operate at quite long range, and what they see in their scopes isn't 'the whites of their eyes' so much as a figure of a man far far away. To be sure, a sniper will generally always know that he took that particular life consistently, but any regular soldier who sees combat on a regular basis is going to face up to it as well...

I think one difference though is that in the case of close combat, you can tell yourself "I was defending myself". The sniper on the other hand isn't killing someone who is *immediatly* threatening him. It makes a difference when it comes to justifying your actions to yourself.