Shooting and Hunting During Childhood of Any Value For Being Military Sniper?

[Linstrum]

Something that has probably been noticed by most all of us is that when a difficult skill is picked up and used a lot by a kid, like skiing, speaking more than one language, working with horses, etc., that when these kids grow up they are usually far better at doing the things they learned as a kid than people who acquire the same skills later on after childhood is over. I'm defining childhood as ending at about 16 to about 20, depending on the individual.

Does anyone know how many of the legendary snipers, past or present, had a lot of experience in childhood with hunting and shooting in general and target shooting in particular? I know that being a modern sniper is far more than being a good shot, a sniper has to work with a spotter, know how to set up a shot, dope wind, use a ghillie suite, be able to effectively hide in plain site, plan an escape route, and on and on with things that no deer hunter ever had to do (turkey and antelope hunters maybe). But a sniper is totally useless unless he does one particular thing REAL well, and that is make a bullet go where he wants it to go under a range of varying conditions.

The one sniper I really admire is Simo Häyhä of Finland, he shot and hunted as a boy and joined the Finnish military at 17 and became one of the world's most prolific snipers under grueling, physically very uncomfortable conditions during the Winter and Continuation Wars with Russia starting in 1939.

I have heard about some pretty amazing long shots coming out of Afghanistan and I think British Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison holds the record at 2475 meters using a .338 Lapua chambered L115A3 rifle. U.S.M.C. Gunnery Sargeant Carlos Hathcock did almost as far, 2286 meters, with a .50 BMG Browning M2 machine gun in 1967 during Vietnam! I think I heard of a recent long shot coming out of Afghanistan that is longer than the 2009 record of 2475 meters that now stands as the all-time record, but I can't find it.

But my point, and question, is I wonder how many of these guys who are making these shots developed their skill as children? One thing that is not going to disappear from the modern battlefield anytime soon is the need for riflemen and snipers and if the world's best riflemen are the product of childhood, then we sure need to keep training our youth.


rl912

[btroj]

Being a sniper is about much more than shooting. It is about being an excellent observer. Being able to handle stress without breaking. Being able to move quietly, evade others, and deal with cold, wet, heat, bugs, etc without getting killed.
To me becoming a military sniper is as much mental as it is physical. Shooting can be trained.the mental aspects are someing you either have or don't.

[Thumbcocker]

I read some where that almost no one washes out of sniper training for not being able to shoot well.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

In my opinion the average kid grew up like me! I took my hunter safety course at ten years old . . . took the 22 out and shot alot! I also did not have any basic training, or better . . . today I feel I have a lot of "un-training" of bad habits!

A kid with proper training and motivation I think could turn into a sniper, but most I think get there by having some natural ability that is observed, and nurtured, that turns into serious training.

[crabo]

In my opinion the average kid grew up like me! I took my hunter safety course at ten years old . . . took the 22 out and shot alot!

That sure isn't average now.

[Linstrum]

123.DieselBenz is kind of on the track of what I'm getting at, I thought like 123.DieselBenz did that everybody had a childhood like mine of crawling around in brush (in my case chaparral) on your belly staying quiet for two hours sneaking up on whatever kind of deer it is we have in Southern California (they are a hybrid of black tail, white tail, and mulie from a trainload of deer that escaped in 1911 at Somis, California that were on their way to Santa Catalina Island private hunting preserve owned by the Wrigley Family). I've had to make shots with flies buzzing around my face and crawling in my eyes and ears, and that is NOTHING compared to the conditions a sniper routinely puts up with! As far as a sniper having to have more than just good shooting skills, I did say in my original post above:

"I know that being a modern sniper is far more than being a good shot - - - - " and

" - - - and on and on with things that no deer hunter ever had to do - - - - - "

I figured it goes without saying that the job is not even close to being easy, it involves many things that take discipline most people don't have, extraordinary patience, skills of observation, being totally at one with your surroundings, and being tough enough to ignore being darned uncomfortable, such as Simo Häyhä put up with by working in harsh below freezing conditions of the Scandinavian winter, and Carlos Hathcock spending four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling to snipe an NVA general and then extract himself unnoticed. Like btroj and thumbcocker were getting at, it takes discipline that not everyone has!


rl913

[Geraldo]

If you look up the requirements for entrance into the USMC Scout Sniper school, and the requirements for passing it, you will see that childhood doesn't do much to prepare one for it.

One of the biggest reasons people wash out of a lot of special schools is poor land navigation skills, followed by marginal levels of fitness.

[JSnover]

Early exposure, done properly, teaches a lot of other important principles. It can help make you a better person but it doesn't really carry over into sniper training.
Having served in two branches of the armed forces over the last 28 years, every time the subject came up, the same observation: During basic training it was not uncommon for the top shooter to be a novice with little or no firearms experience. This doesn't make anyone a sniper but it supports the contention that precision marksmanship is more about the students' ability learn and complete the training than about whether or not they handled guns as a kid.

[blackthorn]

I believe there must be a very strong physological barrier to overcome. We are tought from a very early age that it is wrong to kill another human. Many years ago I had the good fortune to get to know a man who had been a sniper in Korea, and his atitude toward life was somewhat "different". I put the word different in quotation marks because I cant really put words to the way he came across! He was a great guy and a good friend!

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

That sure isn't average now.

What I should have said was the "average kid with a gun" . . . I agree most kids are not familiar with firearms these days, unless it is a movie scene or one of their video games . . .

[1Shirt]

Also having server in two branches of the military, I am very much in agreement with
JSnover. I would rather teach a young woman to shoot who has never had a gun in her hand than a young man who has preconcieved TV/Movie influanced gun training. The young woman will pay attention, not try to play cowboy, etc.etc.etc.
1Shirt!:coffee:

[mike in co]

no.....
a modern sniper is much more that just a good shooter....

and has been pointed out...there is no way of knowing if what you learned as you grew up was the "good" stuff, or just what you were doing.

my nephew is a seal sniper.....never touched a gun till he joined the marines.
( he quit the marines to join the navy so he could try out for seals...made it first try)


mike in co

[82nd airborne]

NO,
In fact alot of modern sniping is in the city, which makes a good ole country boy nervous.
Shooting has very little to do with sniping. All the actual sniper does is pull the trigger when he is told.
The spotter is the ranking guy on the team, and he finds the targets, does the math, and adjusts the scope propperly for the shot. I know alot of guys who went through sniper school with me, and they still cant shoot!
I shot competition before I went into the military, and was very familiar with the AR and the 700. I had taken shots on game at some decent distances, and on paper out to ,1,000.
What you cannot learn as a child hunting game is how loud a 10" bbl m4 is when you go to set up in a room and it is already preoccupied by the enemy. Then having to lay next to that guy for a couple days.

It cant prepare you for what a barrett .50 does to someone at any range.

It cannot prepare you for the day that you hold down on a chest wound as hard as you can to stop your best freind from bleeding out, and fail.

It cannot prepare you for visiting his mother when you get back.

There is no substitute for receiving training that has been developed from hundreds of years of battle.

However, and this is a big however,
Those of us that grew up in the country, with a less than plush life, had the intestinal fortitude to complete the training, and to prevail under less than ideal conditions in combat. I would say 9 out of 10 guys that make it into that kind of position in war are good ole backwoods boys that grew up shooting. But the shooting is not what got them there...
Aaron

[82nd airborne]

If you look up the requirements for entrance into the USMC Scout Sniper school, and the requirements for passing it, you will see that childhood doesn't do much to prepare one for it.

One of the biggest reasons people wash out of a lot of special schools is poor land navigation skills, followed by marginal levels of fitness.

+1 very true. There is something to be said about boys that grew up coon hunting the hills in the dark when it comes to land nav though!
People not having the will to suck through the training is another reason for failure.

[RBak]

Also having server in two branches of the military, I am very much in agreement with
JSnover. I would rather teach a young woman to shoot who has never had a gun in her hand than a young man who has preconcieved TV/Movie influanced gun training. The young woman will pay attention, not try to play cowboy, etc.etc.etc.
1Shirt!:coffee:

Amen to that!

Basic training scores from the mid to late 1970's at Ft. McClellan Alabama proved beyond a doubt that young women growing up with very little exposure to fire arms, and no preconceived ideas on how it should be done, turned in very high, and often higher scores in Marksmanship than men at the end of their Basic Training Cycle.

Of course, with the Army doing what the Army does, such results required a lot of study, and then following my retirement in 1979 I read in the Army Times that the study had been completed and was to be released soon by the Pentagon's Armed Services committee.

If they would have asked me first I could have saved 'em a lot of time and money....you can't teach a young man anything when he already knows all there is to know about the subject!

Russ

[82nd airborne]

Another asset to being a succeeding as a sniper is Copenhagen, I kid you not.
When you have to lay in one place for a couple days, smelling your pee, Copenhagen is a wonderful comfort.

[Linstrum]

Hey, thanks guys, I only knew one sniper, he was in Vietnam and he wouldn't talk about it much other than saying his first kill was a Russian advisor and he had a good look at him.

82nd airborne, you mentioned one thing I wondered about, if chew would be of any benefit in helping cope with some aspects of doing the job. Nicotine is what is called an "assignable drug", which means it will pretty much do what you need at the moment. If you are tired, nicotine perks you up, if you can't sleep nicotine puts you to sleep, when you are blue nicotine makes you feel better, if you are agitated nicotine calms you down, if you are too hot nicotine helps feel cool, if you are cold nicotine helps you ignore it, if you are in pain nicotine numbs it. What a wonderful drug! Too bad it is the second most highly addictive drug there is and can also kill you after about 40 years of abusing it (I smoked cigars and cigarettes and chewed Copenhagen for 20 years). By the way, the most highly addictive drug is anabasine and is readily available in the South American wild tobacco Nicotinia glauca that grows wild all over California. Quite pleasant stuff.


rl914

[Harter66]

No question woods skills are an asset. The Corps now runs a 2 week cram course for remedial tracking and blood trailing. I have a former BIL that was a Corps sniper,he was precision light artilery. Much more than shooting involved to be sure,I believe that nothing can prepare you to take a human life in a face to face much less to pick a single target a mile away that poses no direct immediate threat to your person. Imagine being able to just turn off all of your learned comfort perceptions and run on only suvival gut do a job that goes against everything you've learned your whole life maybe even your very core beliefs and basic instict. Then come home and kiss your wife hug your kids .................................................. ................. I can't go there.......................

[82nd airborne]

Linstrum,
Even after going for a couple days without food, there was times when I would take a pinch of copenhagen over a meal, if you could call it that! fulahfuls get old after a year of not much else, but they are better than MRE's.
Another trick of the sniper, or rediculously long observation periods is to stick a small peice of chew in the corner of your eye, over the tear duct. It burns like crazy, and you just cannot close your eye and nod off to sleep when your buddies lives depend on it!
It is also a very absorbant part of the body, so you take in the nicotine very quickly, once your mouth is too used to it to get the desired effect.
It is very uncomfortable, but do what youve gotta do to stay alive, and keep others alive.
It also passes time, and a buddy will talk you into it eventually anyways.

[Recluse]

Something that has probably been noticed by most all of us is that when a difficult skill is picked up and used a lot by a kid, like skiing, speaking more than one language, working with horses, etc., that when these kids grow up they are usually far better at doing the things they learned as a kid than people who acquire the same skills later on after childhood is over. I'm defining childhood as ending at about 16 to about 20, depending on the individual.

Does anyone know how many of the legendary snipers, past or present, had a lot of experience in childhood with hunting and shooting in general and target shooting in particular?

If I remember correctly, Carlos Hathcock grew up extremely impoverished and had to hunt just to put food on the table for his family.

You could tell the guys in my basic training outfit that grew up in the country or with guns--we had no problems on the range and everyone got their pretty little marksmanship ribbon. Those who had no experience with guns struggled a bit, but caught on pretty good.

But today? I agree. I'd much rather teach a woman than a man, give all else is equal such as neither has handled a firearm before.

:coffee:

[cajun shooter]

One of the preferred talents that was asked when I went to sniper training was if I had any time hunting deer while still hunting off a tree stand. My answer was yes. I could not understand why they would ask such a question until I was in training. You have two people on a sniper team. One is the spotter and the other is the sniper on the weapon. Both men are cross trained for each job. When you are what THEY CALL "on the rifle" you are ready to shoot and may be required to hold this position for long periods of time. You may also have to stay in one position for hours with out moving. A person who can stay on a deer stand waiting for hours without moving or getting down will have this type of mentality. Being able to shoot as most people think is a small part of the total training.

[82nd airborne]

Im not sexist at all men, and I love women, 1 quite dearly, and I agree that it is easier to train a woman to shoot, but I dont think the role of sniper which is what the OP mentions, is suitable for women for many many reasons.
My wife and my mother are excellent shots. Melissa, said wife, has all but given up rifle hunting whitetails as the challenge isnt there. She now bowhunts almost exclusively.