Re: [DS and SG] Regiments of the Crown

Thomas Barclay wrote:

> varied in length. Let us take Vietnam for example. Marine snipers
> initially had 3 days of training and were left sniping with M1-Cs and
> M1-Ds from the previous wars. Some got Winchester Model 70s. Scopes
> were problematic. (This is early to mid-war). Army snipers got 5-7
> days training. Some of them used scoped standard M-16s, and M-14s.

How many of them got weeded out the hard way?  Snipers have a rather
steep learning curve.  It's also difficult to train them to the right
level if you don't have a live war to pitch them into to 'sink or
swim'.	It's also easier if you start with combat veterans to begin
with, as they have presumably learned how not to attract enemy
attention.

> is in a program that did not start until late war. Some of these
> snipers had over 90 confirmed kills, and over 200 probables. In the

Some of them had two before they got smacked themselves, right?

> If I could read history (and some can), and saw the effect of snipers
> from the Roman age up to the latest wars, I think I'd be a fool for
> trying to put together a formation without an organic sniper

Right.	I'm just hesitant to stick them into formal TO&Es for the
following reasons:
1)My TOs are set up for Dirtside, which doesn't have sniper rules (Yes,
Andrew, I know about yours.  I havn't decided whether to make them
official or not in my universe).
2)I don't have any hard numbers for how many you can reasonably hope to
produce in a peace time environment.  The Russians issue a SVD to every
platoon and a private is assigned to it almost at random.  This doesn't
encourage me think they've got a Gunny Haithcock (or whatever his name
was) in every platoon.
3)Until recently, I didn't have any 6mm sniper miniatures.  I do now. 
Now I have to sit down and think about this.  I've only got one painted
up Nea Rhomaioi, one painted US Army Modern/Sword of the Messiah, and
one painted Russian/Kievan Russ.  Yes, I do save money and painting time
by using M1A2s for Georgians and T-62s and BMP-1s for Free Ukranians. 
:)

John M. Atkinson