The Airsoft Sniper - Serial - Part 3

Firekitten

The Airsoft Sniper – Part 3

This article is perhaps, the one many will be waiting for… How to be a sneaky devil… This was billed as the third article in the series by design… I wanted the reader to have a grasp on equipment, and weapons, before progressing to this more practical stage. After all, there’s very little point in teaching someone how to be stealthy, when they can’t hit the broad side of a barn with a superglue soaked badger. With these three articles, the reader may be in a position to try things for themselves… to ‘get down and dirty’ as the saying goes… Happy reading, and no dirty please…

Fieldcraft Part One

I’ll begin this section without the use of the ghillie suit; that comes later. Like all advantages, the ghillie suit is an enhancement, not a replacement for good old fashioned skill. GPS units are lovely, but when they break, and you never learned to read a map, you’re ****ed… For the sniper, the ghillie suit assists in camouflage and concealment, but done improperly and without the prerequisite skills, it can have revealing, not concealing properties.

The basics
Like all things, its best to begin at the start. How can you hide yourself? How do you mask your presence with only your bdus, gear, and rifle? It isn’t as hard as you may think. In Airsoft, the stalking and combat are all very close range, compared to that of the real world sniper. You are practically on top of your target, for the entire time. The smallest mistake can reveal you. However, like all hunting, you must learn to play to his disadvantages, to successfully stalk the target. Learn to make their domain your own.

Let’s look at the target… Homo Airsofterus… an elusive and unpredictable prey… He has a tendency to shoot at anything that looks shiny and talks too loudly… Occasionally you may find one of the species, Homo Milsimus… These are more elusive, quieter, and more observant, but both have the same fatal flaws, and disadvantages of the human eyeball, and ear. Should you, the hunter, not make a sound, or perhaps, not be seen, you are invisible… Whether it is indeed an ancient Chinese proverb, or my mind dredging up the karate kid…. A phrase comes to mind here… “If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, or see it fall, did the tree ever exist?” You can be that tree… You can walk out into the game zone at the start, and return at the end, and to the other players on the field, you haven’t been there… That is satisfying.

How does one achieve this stealthy mantle? In truth, it isn’t that hard. The human eye is a simple device, as much as we lord its viewing properties. It can overlook things, miss things, and misinterpret a scene; this is what we play on. Stop considering the target a person, and consider it an animal… for sake of argument, we shall refer to the animal as the Meerkat. After all, they share a lot of common behavioural similarities.

For the large part, the Meerkat will hop along happy as Larry with a severe case of tunnel vision; their objective is ahead, as is any potential threat, and the extent of any flank observation is cursory at best. Should you remain still, there is a significant chance you will not be seen, regardless of camouflage. Secondly, the more ‘aware’ of the meerkats will be looking all around themselves, and trying to spot the slightest thing… That is, however, a bad idea. The human eyeball has strong peripheral vision. The more you LOOK for a target, the less likely you are to see it. Slight movement in our peripheral vision is one of the key ways we can spot the enemy in such an environment as a forest or dense foliage, where only extended careful observation would pick up signs of human presence through direct searching.


The key points to camouflage and concealment are as follows… While all are basic infantry skills, that is what the sniper is to an extent. They are the pinnacle of infantry Fieldcraft and it starts with seven simple points:

Shape,
Shine,
Silhouette,
Surface,
Shadow,
Spacing,
Movement.

To be effective, you will come to know all of these words. In fact no… To truly excel, you will obsess over these words, because to do so, means you will blend seamlessly with the environment about you. While by themselves, these words mean very little to the overall picture, but just like the members of a finely oiled team, they make a significant impact.

Shape:

No, not the yoghurt… Shape refers to the distinctive ‘figure 11’ human outline of a soldier against the natural environment. Through an unfortunately bad wardrobe choice, nearly everyone turned up to the party of life, with a head, arms, legs, and a torso. This combination forms a distinctive image that we, humans are very adept at picking out. Combine that with webbing, helmet, and rifle, and we start to look very alike, and that isn’t a good thing. Also, shape can refer to the specifics of the word. An example being straight edges; these are very rare in nature and rifles and gear are full of them.

How is it applied? Break up the distinctive shapes that appear unnatural by using a combination of natural and unnatural materials. For webbing, helmets, or clothing, natural foliage may be added to change the shape to something one would expect to find in that environment: key principal to the ghillie suit. Rifles and equipment offer a different challenge. Straight edges on a rifle can be broken up with camouflage tape, or even plain fabric tape. Spray paint can be used to affect the same result… an uneven, uninteresting shape that does not draw the eye anymore than the surrounding environment. Rifle ghillies also play a key role here in changing the shape of a weapon to something more natural. A useful idea that I often apply, is to shroud the objective lens of my optics. A triangle of card around the lens with scrim over changes a distinctive black circle into something that could easily be a gap between leaves.

Note, it’s also perfectly possible to apply tape over most of the lens, while leaving a small slit around 1cm deep open. It will still operate perfectly well, but be warned… it will hamper your ability to use the optic in dusk, and night time due to the reduced ability to gather light.

Shine:

Brilliant if you’re a disco ball, but rather unhelpful if you’re hiding carefully in a bush: That lovely Casio watch your mother bought you for Christmas might just prove to be the end of you. The same goes for buttons, buckles, karabiners, and anything that could possibly aid your disco career… Flashes of light are very obvious to the human eye, and the sun is adept at shining off things.

Often, the best ways to solve this is to fully assemble your equipment, then go outside at night and get someone to shine a light at you. If it twinkles to them, sort it. ( While this night time method seems odd, artificial light will make more things shine… and gives you a chance to catch things the naked eye won’t see close up, making you less likely to twinkle in the day time.) Fabric tape over buckles and buttons, electrical tape, spray paint… anything to remove shine. If you simply must wear a watch, invert the face so that it’s facing inside your arm, and make sure it’s covered by your sleeve unless you’re reading it. Personally, I keep an old watch (minus the straps) inside my shirt pocket with a Para cord lanyard.

Silhouette:

Now depending on the prevalence of ridge tops at your Airsoft site, this can be a dual meaning. Silhouetting ones self, is to stand exposed against the sky, usually when walking along the crest of a hill. A soldier walking along a hilltop will be ten times more visible than one walking ten meters down from the crest, regardless of camouflage. Secondly, this applies to foliage and surfaces in an environment, and is especially relevant to the sniper. In the natural environment, you will find foliage of different colours, and patterns at different heights. Standing against a tree blossoming with white flowers, in a green based ghillie suit or camouflage will make you very obvious, just as wearing a ghillie suited to dry grass in front of a green tree line… you get the picture right? This also works in urban environments…. A soldier against a wall is very obvious, as general issue military camouflage isn’t brick coloured. As much as I hate to admit it, ACU is rather effective against concrete and brick patterns. The principal here class, is that the more similarity between yourself and your background, the higher the likelihood of not being seen.

If you intend to operate in environments with specific obvious colours that are different from the main environment, take spare camouflage… the top half of a painters paper boiler suit with hood stuffed in a pouch makes an excellent camouflage to throw over yourself when indoors to reduce the chance of being silhouetted against a light wall. The same can work for areas with sandy colours, is easily prepared for with a little forethought and research.

An example for this is in my kit for events at Sennybridge training area’s OBUA village in South Wales (Operations in Built Up Areas). The buildings are predominantly concrete, and when possible, I’ll carry an ACU gortex jacket with hood that I’ll put on when indoors. The pattern blends quite seamlessly with the wall behind me, allowing a greater degree of concealment. However… at Winney Hill OBUA village in North Yorkshire, the interiors of buildings are more often darker, requiring a different camouflage to remain undetected. Things like this are easily found out for the would-be sniper. Visiting a site’s website and photo galleries can give tips on the environment without having to physically visit before hand. Some of the differences I mentioned above will become immediately obvious.


Surface:

The surface of you… Most of the other principals are aids to camouflage, but the surface is the key. One can successfully apply of the other principals with regimented precision, but if you’re wearing a pink neon windbreaker, you will most likely fail at your task short of skirmishing in a rave club… This is where a careful choice of base camouflage applies… different bdu pattens suit different environments, and a good selection will aid your concealment. This is also where camouflage paint comes in… a big pink face is a bit obvious against a woodland backdrop. I remember that I was told a very fetching lie back when I didn’t know better: A very astute instructor told us that camouflage cream was produced by max factor for the army… that it would come off easily and be good for my skin. They lied… but more on that another time. A key consideration here is to avoid the stylised American camouflage paint look… The object is not to make yourself look ‘scary’ or ‘warlike’ or ‘special farces’… the regimented patterns of lines and shapes or even symbols are frankly a crock of ****. The more random and close to nature the finished article, the more likely it is to be effective. This goes well with camouflage clothing too… some may look pretty, some may claim all year round, any location concealment, but in truth,. Nothing is perfect, and nothing will do what it says on the tin. Try things for yourself, and find out what works for you, I’m not about to advise what I use, or prefer, because individual opinion and experience counts above all here.

Shadow;

Very important in urban conditions, shadow is an unfortunate side effect of light operating in straight lines. When you stand between the sun and the ground, it has an awkward habit of creating a dark patch. Be aware of your position relative to the sun, and the effect this will have on your camouflage. Don’t forget… a patch of ground in shadow makes excellent cover, but be aware that in roughly two hours, it won’t be in shadow anymore.

Spacing:


More relevant to squads than pairs, but the distance between yourself, and others around you is a very easy way to spot soldiers in an environment. Make it irregular… objects with regular spacing are rare in nature, and even rarer, are tight groups of even spacing. God bless Airsofters for making our job easier... Even homo Milsimus gets this one wrong.

Naturally, as a sniper team or individual, this is less of an issue to you, but a helpful consideration when searching for targets. For the marksman however… a useful consideration is to make their eyes work for you. An even spaced squad, with a marksman 20m away will draw the eye to the gaggle, not the lone individual out of sync… you will have longer to react, and more chance of remaining concealed and effective.

Movement:
As I mentioned earlier, movement is the most visible thing in nature. Be it waving treetops, or a camouflaged individual adjusting their position too quickly. Due to the nature of the human eye, we can sense movement easily. That means that any movement you undertake must be relative to the threat level. As you get closer to the enemy, move slower, and move more deliberately and more smoothly. Movement draws the eye, at the end of the day, it may not give you away, but it will draw attention to your general area, and attention has a good friend called suspicion. Both generally hang out with their mutual acquaintance full-auto.





While these points individually seem quite obvious as one reads, you’d be surprised the number of people that get them wrong, forget them, or don’t understand them in combination. These form a key basis of the sniper’s Fieldcraft skills… With these, one can adapt to any environment and any situation by maintaining constant observation of themselves and their surroundings. Naturally, this works both ways… and the what not to do’s can give you an excellent way of picking out enemy snipers and infantry that carelessly expose themselves.




From the Author:
Hope you like this peps... sorry its been so long... other things on my plate, and university starting up again plus getting settled in my house. Anyway... part one of fieldcraft as you just read, is the basics, ill be covering more in following parts, as usual, comments welcome, and please feel free to suggest things you want covered!

The next issue will be a bonus 'Dear Firekitten...' agony sniper - section, due to the fact i wont be able to get 4 out for a bit, as i'm very busy with my degree. So questions on a postcard... you know where to put them.