Snipering

tyger is definantly right with the moving thing, even when im stuck in house type area, i move all over it and in and out shooting from as many areas as possible, and stopped a group of about 15 people from taking me out and some other people that were following me for no particular reason (of course when they saw people coming they ran...) where as most people would just try to shoot everyone from one window, and a "sniper" would just try to hide behind a pile of leaves and lay there

omg...i gonna solve this...directly from dictionary.com ...

snip·er    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (snpr)
n.

One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.

 

that's wat every1 does in paintball...so in a sense...were all snipers...just not military like snipers

wat about concealed shooter or something...our new mission:create a new name for the word sniper that fits piantball needs

i splooge

One more time.

You have to define the environment, what seperates the skill/title/role, AND whether or not it can be effectively applied to the enviroment.


First some basics need to be established. The game is paintball and for the purposes of this class it is played in the woods where the terrain dictates that you’ll be engaging each other most of the time at between 20 and 25 meters. (In other words close range) It is played most often by 2 opposing sides of roughly equal size. For all intent and purposes this game is modeled on military small unit combat.

Now several you are going "whoo hoo, my kind of sniper country"…without knowing what makes a sniper. Many of you have gone to the dictionary and found a reference saying something to the effect that a sniper is someone who fires from concealment and have used this a your basis for your claim to being one in paintball. That's all well and dandy, except you ignore the rest of the definition.

snip·er ( P ) Pronunciation Key (sn p r)n. A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place. One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.

Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth EditionCopyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

Now you’ll note that this expanded definition is still quite general in it scope, after all anyone who squats behind bush to fire is a sniper which is not the case.

So, since the dictionary has not resolved this we must consult the experts for a better definition of what makes a sniper in our chosen environment. It happens that I’ve had the opportunity to do just that from time to time in my 22 years in the Army.

In summary here are the extreme basics of what is an effective sniper:
· A superior marksman
· Expert knowledge in the art camouflage for concealment
· The ability to approach the target without being detected
· Engage the target from beyond effective range of return fire
· The ability to engage the target without revealing your position
· The ability to egress the area after successfully engaging the target without being positively identified and engaged

The first three of these points are possible in the game of paintball, but do not make you a sniper, they just take some training and practice.

Let’s look at them one at a time.

A superior marksman

Basically someone who’s shooting skills are well above that of the average player. No big problem here, skill levels very, some people are just plain better than others.

Expert knowledge in the art camouflage for concealment

This one is a little tougher. It takes knowledge of what will fool the eye into not seeing what is really there. It’s still doable though. Trained military have an advantage over the someone whose camouflage skills are solely based on hunting. Not because the non-military hunter is any less skilled but because of who the camouflage is intended to fool. But once armed with the knowledge of what the differences are this isn’t even a problem. So, yes this can be effectively applied to paintball.

The ability to approach the target without being detected

This one is a bigger problem. If just taken as being able to move close enough to a player that is already in place to make your shot undetected is very difficult. Since instinctively humans are hunters, our attention is automatically drawn to movement or things that are out of place. It’s takes someone that is extremely skilled in moving undected to pull this one off. But I have seen it done.

I should add to this the ability to setup a position that provides an undetected position from which to shoot that covers an area you expect your opponent to move through. A basic ambush.

Both require an undetected shooting position and can be effectively applied to paintball depending on skill level


The last three points are where the concept of a sniper in paintball fails.

Engage the target from beyond effective range of return fire

No matter what you do, as long as everyone has the same approximate muzzle velocity, everyone has about the same effective range. Yes, that means Flatlines too. While Flatlines do have the ability, do to an aerodynamic backspin, shoot farther than other barrel systems the paintball still loses velocity at the same rate. What this means is that a paintball from a flatline loses the energy to break its shell at the same rate as one fired from a conventional barrel. The advantage of the flatline is initial flat trajectory that paintball has, which allows someone to fire under foliage that would otherwise break the ball. (The first failed point in being an effective sniper)

The ability to engage the target without revealing your position

Since the effective range is around 20-25m means that when you fire you have effectively revealed your general position. What I mean is this. Your shooting from such a close range that either the pop of your ball leaving the barrel or the sound of your bolt cycling (or both) will give your general position away to anyone with average hearing as far away as 40m. Unless you are only engaging 1 or 2 people or are extremely lucking you yourself can now be effectively counted as a mission kill. (The second failed point in being an effective sniper)

The ability to egress the area after successfully engaging the target without being positively identified and engaged

What this means is the ability move to a new shooting position after having engaged a target without being detected and counter-engaged your self. Since it’s been demonstrated that you can’t effectively engage a target without revealing your initial shooting position and exposing yourself to effective counter fire this one automatically fails. (The third failed point in being an effective sniper)



Now just because you can’t effectively apply all of the above tactics of what makes an effective sniper doesn’t mean that the first 3 listed can’t be applied to paintball. Do they make you a sniper? No. But they do give you the ability to setup an effective close ambush. Just a word of advice here, bring along several friends and you might even be effective at it.

WDR-Tyger wrote: ...Well, first of all you give paintball players too much on the intelligence front.    I've met a lot of people that...  well...  are not "Frontal Lobe" people, if oyu get my meaning? Lol, understood. Real world expirence tells me that people don't like to look around if they don't have to.  I also know what my range effectively is with a paintball, so why not use all the tools in my arsenal?  If I don't need to get closer, why risk it?  When you're playing you need to balance risk/reward constantly.  This goes for everything from moving up to the next bunker to long range shooting. Good point. I guess we're both right, it just depends on the situation. You are correct about moving targets, but I hate to say this by most paintball players don't MOVE anymore.  They find a nice place to stay, put out the white picket fence, and homestead.  The advantage goes to the mobile player, or at least the flexable one, who can move and maneuver to meet the needs of the moment. Very true sadly, that's why I said the player had to be somewhat intelligent. Newbies tend to lack concentration when being shot at so they don't think clearly enough to make the decision to move to better cover. An experienced player on the other hand will instinctively try to cover themself better when they see paint coming from an angle where they are vulnerable. Long range shooting is a tool in your "bag of tricks".  It shouldn't be your only tool, but it should be there.  The well rounded player can pull tricks out of his bag ad infinitum as needed to meet the situation.  Having more skills at my disposal gives me a lot of options for risk/reward.  To bring it to the main point, if crawling up on the other guys is "high risk", and long range shooting is "low risk" but yields the same eventual "reward", why go the hard route? Again, you have a good point. Most of the time it's better to move in closer but if you can't always do that without getting shot. The key is to know your limits. You need to know how close you can get before being noticed and how far away you can land a shot from. Based on those two things you have to decide whether to take a shot or move in closer. Either one can get the job done but it never hurts to take a shot from a shorter distance if you can manage it, that's why I recommend moving in as close as you can and not taking the shot from farther away than you have to. It basically comes down to knowing your capabilities when it comes to stealth and marksmanship. If you know your boundaries well then chances are you can manage to pick people off without them having a clue but if not you'll probably end up learning all the shortcuts to the dead zone.

Also, please, stop posting the definition of sniper/sniping. It's been posted a thousand times before and it's too vague to prove anything. By the military definition of sniping, paintball snipers only fulfull half of the requirements if they're good. I think the reason why there is so much conflict over this is because there are just as many reasons for paintball snipers to exist as there are for them not to. Because of that, people make their decision and they stick to it which leads to what we're reading here. If you ask me, there are sniper-like players but you can't be exactly like a military sniper in paintball, it just isn't possible yet. What do exist are players that use sniper tactics in their game but that in itself isn't enough to classify them as snipers.

Since these players tend to mimic snipers, people call them that since it's a familiar term. The problem is that you get ex-military players and others who like to analyze everything who are bothered by the fact that they don't meet all the criteria and they argue that the name doesn't work. I don't see what the big deal is really. I may call a player a sniper because nobody knows where they are and they're shooting people out in one or two shots but I'm well aware that I'm not up against Carlos Hathcock. It's just a quick way of describing a threat to people since the word gives the idea of a person shooting others from an unknown location. If you want to get technical, the player is not a sniper but, at the time, it gets the point across quickly and that's what matters.

I wanted to be a sniper at first but then i relized the price of good sights, camo, and gettin the flatline. At that point i decided to be lik another friend and run around the field like a madman. It saves me money for that stuff and for paint seeing as your close up. By the way ever since your back your on the forums a lot more aren't you Tyger. Oh yeah I also would like to apoligize for previous pro-sniper posts after lookinng very "feminine" by ataying in the back I relized it sucks and snipers are very....."feminine"

Edited by Blue Hopper

Either works brilliantly. The A5 flatline is easier to install; the 98 is a cheaper marker to begin with. Either system will perform about the same unless you need to get into really high rates of fire. Couple a flatline with a stock and remote line, and you're all set.

www.pbreview.com has great reviews on both.

Blue Hopper wrote: By the way ever since your back your on the forums a lot more aren't you Tyger.

Well surgery will give you a LOT more free time than you think, ya know.

-Tyger

WDR-Tyger wrote: ...Ok, so what else would be needed to "fill" the requrements?  Just a thought expirement. -Tyger

I think Crewchief would be the best person to ask on this one since he has the military knowledge. My guess is that it's not possible to have a true paintball sniper because for the ranges to be the same as the military snipers, the paint would have to fly really far which means super high velocity (we're talking thousands of fps) and that is incredibly dangerous. With real guns that's acceptable because the goal is to kill the target but I think most paintball players would like to see their enemy live through the game, especially their friends. I guess it's possible to extend the range of some guns a little so snipers could at least fire from outside the range of return fire from the target. It's not an easy thing to do when safety is important.