Snipers need commanders to learn how to use them
Haley Britzky - Yesterday 1:50 PM
At their most basic function, snipers throughout history have been used to create “dilemmas for opposing commanders,” Brig. Gen. Larry Burris, the commandant of the Army Infantry School, said last month. Not only are they expert shots, but they’re talented intelligence gatherers that can outlast and outperform most. They can provide commanders with extremely valuable information that could change the course of battle. That is, if commanders know how to use them.
While April's International Sniper Competition at Fort Benning, Georgia, was exactly that — a competition — it also served as an opportunity for those writing the Army’s sniper playbook to learn what needs to improve. Among those takeaways is that commanders need to better learn how to use and train their snipers.
There’s “no real formal [program of instruction] to educate officers on how to employ snipers,” Capt. David Wright, the commander of the sniper school, told Task & Purpose last month. That can result in commanders taking a back seat in their sniper teams’ training, and assuming that their snipers are doing what they need to do without really checking in on or understanding their training progress, Wright added.
And closing that gap could have huge benefits for training and combat.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/snipers-need-commanders-to-learn-how-to-use-them/ar-AAX7vip?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d24a4d480e2b4e0994a7e93587dda40d
