RE: An idea for spotters for snipers

Glover, spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> Yeah, like the suggestions Tom. From my experience specialist Infantry
> snipers do work in Teams of 2 or 3 men, unlike the lone rifleman (a
> soldier with no specialist markmanship or fieldcraft training) often
> incorrectly labelled a 'sniper'.

Precisely.
 
> May I suggest the modification to penalise the Sniper acting alone
> rather than reward the Sniper that you provide with  a No 2?	ie
Sniper
> with No2/Spotter receives the full bonus as is. Sniper without the
> spotter receives the penalty of down shift in range die.

My only defense of a positive shift is not changing the existing 
sniper. I too like this better. I already think the sniper is quite a 
devastating figure... so yes, this would be better. 

> This sounds okay; personally I'd arm the No2/Spotter with a SAW or
some
> other weapon with a little more Firepower than the FP3 Impact d10 of
an
> Advanced Assault Rifle with GL. Consider that today the standard
> Infantry rifle is somaething like the M16A2 and the No2 may carry a
203
> or M249/Minimi.

Los makes a good point. Most of the time, you see sniper spotters 
armed with either a normal rifle, a scoped rifle, or an assault 
carbine. The ultimate thing for a sniper team is mobility, and SAWs 
will eat up ammo fast and so the ammo and the SAW would weigh a lot - 
and we all know that sucks if you have to carry it for the distances 
sniper teams have to. And they often have to operate with stealth, 
which is hard when fully kitted out.  And if the spotter has a scoped 
AR and they are sniping at 'usual' ranges (200-600m), it is possible 
that if the sniper gets an IA and his weapon won't function, the 
spotter can take the shot (I know guys who can hit a man sized target 
75%-85% of the time at 500 m using iron sights on a standard 
non-accurized 5.56 AR). 

BTW, Some will argue that advanced scopes make spotting easier. I 
don't deny this - the sniper is already way deadly! But two sets of 
eyes will be better than one for the next thousand years I'd imagine 
(unless we develop the ability to watch behind us too....). For both 
spotting, and back covering, the spotter makes sense. 

Tom.