Rifleman Archive
Thread: Riflemen Look Here Krayt T21 & Real Life Riflemen explained
Hello Riflemen & Women!!
My friend sent me an interesting article on real life army snipers. I figured I would post it here just for grins and to re-enforce some of the top 5 issues...
I am not a master rifleman. I had been 3-2-3-2 at one point in time and surrendered the skills to chase the holocron craze. I was forced to either give up rifleman or doctor to complete chef (yuck). Since I needed money badly due to many things including the decay issues I decided I wouldn't mind re-grinding the rifles since I enjoy them anyway. I have realized the folley of my ways and now that I have a good looking bank account, I can surrender most of doctor and not have to worry about cash while finishing up the other cron professions. So i picked up a laser rifle and whipped through the marksman part quickly and am nearing in on being able to use my beloved T21 again.
While I was not a rifleman I managed to acquire 11 consecutive krayt tissues and had a new T21 constructed. The tissues were 30max -0.3 speed so they weren't L337 tissues. Tell me what you guys think about the rifle that came out of the cooker:
Speed 7.0 Min 127 Max 408 wound chance 27% 74 mind cost
I also wasn't blessed with a good slice either ... well i guess it was ok. 21% damage so after slice my low end krayt tissue T21 came out to
Speed 7.0 Min 158 - Max 498 wound chance 27% 74 mind cost
So on that note I'll post the interesting article I was sent by a friend. Hope you guys enjoy it. Please note how they talk about not being able to survive a sustained fire-fight and how the reason they are successful is becuase their weapons are extremely accurate OUTSIDE the range of their opponents weapons. I think someone involved in the combat system needs to read this article Klaw.... and sorry for the long post guys I just had to. Any rifleman will appreciate this.
Reddius Maxximus - Scylla Master Doctor / Soon to be Master Rifleman (never to be surrendered again...)
Holo 1 artisan
Holo 2 chef (death of rifle skills)
Holo 3 entertainer (yet more no rifle skills)
Holo 4 weaponsmith (doc will have to go to finish this guy)
Army Snipers
Guys you want working for you
Jan. 02, 2004
Snipers give U.S. edge in Iraq fighting
By Eric Schmitt
The New York Times
SAMARRA, Iraq - The intimate horror of the guerrilla war in Iraq seems
most vivid through the sights of a sniper's rifle.
In an age of satellite-guided bombs dropped at featureless targets
from 30,000 feet, Army snipers can see the expression on a man's face
when the bullet hits.
"I shot one guy in the head, and his head exploded," said Sgt. Randy
Davis, one of about 40 snipers in the Army's new 3,600-soldier Stryker
Brigade, from Fort Lewis, Wash. "Usually, though, you just see a dust
cloud pop up off their clothes and see a little blood splatter come
out the front."
Working in teams of two or three, Army snipers in Iraq cloak
themselves in the shadows of empty city buildings or burrow into
desert sands with camouflage suits, waiting to fell guerrilla gunmen
and their leaders with a single shot from as far as half a mile away.
As the counterinsurgency grinds into its ninth month, the Army is
increasingly relying on snipers to protect infantry patrols sweeping
through urban streets and alleyways and to kill guerrilla leaders and
disrupt their attacks.
"Properly employed, we can break the enemy's back," said Davis, 25, of
Murfreesboro, Tenn. "Our main targets are their main
command-and-control elements and other high-value targets."
Soldiering is a violent business, and emotions in combat run high. But
commanders say snipers are a different breed of warrior -- quiet,
unflappable marksmen who bring a dispassionate intensity to their
deadly task.
"The good ones have to be calm, methodical and disciplined," said Lt.
Col. Karl Reed, who commands the Stryker Brigade's 5th Battalion, 20th
Infantry Regiment, Davis' parent unit.
In the month since Davis arrived here on his first combat tour, he has
eight confirmed kills -- including seven in a single day -- and two
"probables."
He and his partner, Spc. Chris Wilson, who has one confirmed kill, do
not brag about their feats. Their words reflect a certain icy
professionalism instilled in men who say that they take no pleasure in
killing and that they try not to see their Iraqi foes as men with
families and children.
"You don't think about it," said Wilson, 24, of Muncie, Ind., speaking
at an austere base camp near Samarra after a late-afternoon mission.
"You just think about the lives of the guys to your left and right."
Davis nodded in agreement: "As soon as they picked up a weapon and
tried to engage U.S. soldiers, they forfeited all their rights to
life, is how I look at it."
All soldiers are trained to destroy an opponent, but snipers have
honed the art of killing to a fine edge. At a five-week training
course at Fort Benning, Ga., they learn to stalk their prey, conceal
their own movements, spot telltale signs of an enemy shooter and take
down a target with a lone shot.
To qualify for the school, a soldier must be rated an expert marksman,
pass a physical examination and undergo a psychological screening ("To
make sure they're not training a nut," said Davis.). More than half
the students fail the rigorous course.
The demand for snipers is great enough that the Army has sent a team
of trainers to Iraq to keep churning out new ones for the war effort
there and in other hot spots.
As the Army faces more conflicts in which enemies use the tight
confines of city blocks and rooftops to stage hit-and-run strikes, the
sniper school has placed increasing emphasis on urban tactics. That
makes sense in places like Samarra, a city of 250,000 people and a
hotbed of Saddam Hussein supporters, 65 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The training paid off on Dec. 18. Dusk was setting in and Davis was
wrapping up a countersniper mission when he spotted an armed Iraqi on
a rooftop about 300 yards away. He said he knew the gunman was a
sniper by the way he snuck along the roofline to track a squad from
Davis' unit -- Company B, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment.
"The guy made a mistake when he silhouetted himself against the
rooftop," said Davis, who has 20/10 vision. "He was trying to look
over to see where the guys were in the courtyard."
As the gunman rose from the shadows to fire, Davis said he saw his
head and then the distinctive shape of a Dragunov SVD Russian-made
sniper rifle. Davis drew a bead on the shooter with his weapon of
choice, an M-14 rifle equipped with an optic sight that has cross
hairs and a red aiming dot.
"I went ahead and engaged him and shot him one time to the chest," he
said. "I watched him kick back, his rifle flew back, and I saw a
little blood come out of his chest. It was a good hit."
Three days earlier, Company B had walked into an ambush in downtown
Samarra in which gunmen on motorcycles used children leaving school as
cover to attack the patrol. Davis, armed this time with an M-4 rifle,
shot seven of the 11 attackers who U.S. commanders say were killed in
the 45-minute skirmish.
"We don't have civilian casualties," Davis said of how he avoided the
schoolchildren. "Everything you hit, you know exactly what it is. You
know where every round is going."
In city or desert, Army snipers spend hours planning and setting up
their positions, often under cover of darkness. "We don't have the
capability to survive a sustained firefight," said Davis, noting that
snipers fire from distances well beyond the range of their
adversaries' weapons. "We use surprise and stealth to accomplish
missions."
Army snipers generally choose from four different weapons, depending
on the mission. Davis' standard M-24 sniper rifle, painted sand color
to blend in with the desert, is simple in design. It has an adjustable
Kevlar stock, a thick stainless steel barrel, a telescopic sight and a
day/night scope. It is bolt action rather than semiautomatic, like
many sniper rifles. It sets up on a bipod and fires 7.62 mm
ammunition, hitting targets up to 1,000 yards away.
In the desert, snipers wrap plastic bags or condoms over the gun
muzzle to keep the sand out. They carry their weapons in padded green
canvas bags. "We baby the hell out of them," Davis said. They also
carry spotting scopes, laser range finders and barometers (humidity
can alter a bullet's trajectory). In Iraq, the hot, dry air can cause
a shot to run high.
Most snipers are familiar with firearms even before joining the armed
forces. Davis and Wilson grew up on farms, and both owned their first
rifles before they were 10. They fondly remember hunting deer as
youngsters.
Both men are married and have children, and they say they do not talk
much about their work outside their tight-knit clan.
"We try to get away from stereotypes that you're a psychotic gun nut
running around, like the guy in D.C., or like in the movies, a
cool-guy assassin," Davis said.
There are not many targets these men dread, but in the shifting
battlefield of Iraq, where seemingly everyone is armed, one candidate
emerges. Would they ever shoot a child who aimed at them?
"I couldn't imagine that," said Wilson, a father of five.
But Davis had a different view: "I'd shoot him; otherwise he'd shoot
me. But I wouldn't feel good about it...
I understand reality vs virtual. Just wanted to post since it is interesting to see the differences. It wasn't meant to be a post saying, "Here is how it works in real life make it exactly the same..." I wanted to highlight that yes in the game a rifleman can't survive a sustained close range fire fight. And yes, it would be nice to increase the range in the game. Alsothat real life snipers"take cover" to be able to fight effectively.
Either way it is interesting to get a glimpse of how real life rifleman operate and how the game "tries" to mimic that in certain ways.
I bet the real life snipers don't have a krayt T21... lol
- Reddius Maxximus
Yes it brings new meaning to the words "ice cold".... Never thought they would be ice cold because they might not be able to do it otherwise.
-Reddius Maxximus
Great post, and an even better article.
Having actually served my country in the past, this reminds of what and who real heroes are.
Chakka
Kauri
Even at 100 meters we would be sittin pretty even w/out fixes to some other weapons that shouldn't do as well at 64m....
Is it just me or did anyone else think the stats on that krayt weapon should be higher? I have seen some non-krayt t21s that were almost identical to it. I wish i had gotten better tissues, but i guess i was lucky enough to get 11 so I'm not gonna complain.
BTW got back novice rifleman last night and hit the nightsister cave on dath w/ my guild. Had a good time. That place is pretty challenging for almost anyone i would say. I'm happy to get back rifles and get to climb that tree but sad I'm going to have to give up doc temporarily (well at least 2 out of the 4 doc skill lines). Those buffs really helped me whip through the 150k to novice. I got 110k the night before last and finished up the last 15k last night before heading to dath. Its just too handy. Oh well it won't be for long i guess. My original goal had been to do rifleman, and I lost sight of the real goal thanks to my cursed holocrons. I won't let that happen again... At least I'll be able to stock up on T21 while master weaponsmith. i have good quality resources for almost every part needed. By the time i get there I should have them all if some good spawns happen.
-Reddius Maxximus - Scylla Master Doc / soon to be master rifleman
cron 1 - artisan
cron 2 - chef
cron 3 - entertainer
cron 4 - weaponsmith