Guide to Sniping

[BlackwaterSaxon]

This guide is intended to offer snipers alternative methods to perform their duties in Project Reality. The role of Sniper itself is a role that has come under criticism both on the servers and in game for some time, mainly because of the way the sniper kit has been used in the game, creating a stereotype that unfortunately, through personal experience, many snipers seem to typify. This guide is merely a rough draft, so any comments or criticisms of the guide are welcome so that it can be updated and provide beginners and veterans alike greater options for maintaining effectiveness as a Sniper. It is important to note that citing real world practices in order to diminish this practical guide are not welcome.


What Should I Be Doing?
The role of a sniper in PR can vary greatly, from providing intelligence on enemy positions from a position behind enemy lines to reinforcing an infantry-heavy attack on an objective from a concealed location. One of the best tips in terms of finding out what you should be doing is asking the commander, an infantry squad leader or a CAS squad, the effectiveness of the Sniper team depending on the ability to remain flexible from detail to detail. It may even be wise to embed yourself directly into the control of a CAS squad, feeding them targets through lazing and generally harassing enemy infantry and crew served weapons at cappable objectives when an armoured enemy unit does not present itself.

Establishing Your Team –
The first area to look at upon choosing/being given a role as a sniper on the battlefield is the composition of your squad itself. Many players prefer to “lonewolf” with snipers, citing the supposed ease of remaining hidden while working solo, or simply because players see the sniper kit as being the quintessential anti-social role in PR. Your options for creating a squad can differ depending on whether you have established yourself as a separate squad working alongside a sniper or as part of a larger squad. Whatever the reason, this guide will focus specifically on separate squads composing of two squad members, a sniper and a spotter, mainly because this has become the norm. Options for the composition of the squad can vary greatly, and each have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. The squads listed below are squads that I have tried in various servers but also the most commonly encountered within public servers. Note that within these two man squads, the spotter will always be the squad leader, due to the fact that marking targets or areas of interest for the sniper is much easier with the squad leader markers, and is also an effective means of judging distance.

Sniper/Medic
The Sniper/Medic duo provides the squad with a means of healing itself (and therefore retaining the sniper kit), minimizing the risk to the Sniper and ensuring that even being clipped with a stray 5.56mm round will not result in the death of the sniper. This squad also provides some much needed, albeit limited, firepower should it be required. The downside to this squad is that it has no real team orientated abilities outside of the squad itself, the inability to laze targets (without the Sniper going off target) and the lack of any defensive options outside of the Medics rifle means that this squad has to rely heavily on itself in order to remain effective. It is not possible to have a two man squad set up like this upon spawn so asking a Tank or APC squad whether or not you can request Medic and Sniper and then leave their squad after would be the best way to overcome this, just ensure that you ask their permission beforehand, as no one likes someone running off with their squads medic kit.

Sniper/Officer
This duo is very effective in conventional PR engagements and rewards teamwork. The officer has a fair few options in terms of establishing FOBs and other deployable assets which makes them a versatile accompaniment for the sniper class and also encourages inter-squad play, embedding the sniper squad alongside an infantry squad becoming a viable option with the inclusion of an officer in the role of spotter. Having the officer as squad leader within this two man squad can also effect the way the team operates. The officer can mark targets on the HUD using the squad leaders command markers but can also laze targets for friendly assets.

Sniper/Specialist
Sniping in built up areas such as cities and small towns can be very difficult due to the fairly limited options in terms of movement and locations from which to shoot/observe from. Having a Specialist in place of an Officer or Medic helps compensate for these limitations due to the equipment that the Specialists carry, the most important of which being the grappling hook. The hook itself can allow the Sniper team to establish firing/observation positions which will not only provide a greater viewing platform than can be found traversing buildings that can be entered but it also allows the Sniper to stay in a much more secure position since it has no direct access.
The remaining equipment that the Specialist carries are also much more adept when put in an urban area, the shotgun and reflex sighted rifle allowing the two man squad a greater degree of firepower when in built up areas. Personally I prefer to use this set up in Insurgency games as opposed to games fought between two conventional armies, I find that the limited range of insurgent weapons brings the game into the Specialists range, increasing localized security for the Sniper team. That being said, that is simply my opinion and using this two man in a conventional AAS game could be quite interesting.

Vehicles
Now that you have chosen the composition of your squad the next undertaking is the transport that you will use in order to move into your first hide of the game and perhaps move from position to position throughout the game. Choosing which vehicle to use at the start of the game is important and a choice that will direct where and how you should approach your hide. Three options have been outlined below.

Humvee/Landy/Light Skinned Vehicles
The main transport of infantry units can also be the sniper teams’ greatest asset. The advantages of having a low profile soft skinned vehicle are apparent at once, on insurgency mode in particular, the limited armour of the vehicle will absorb most small arms fire, giving you time to move away from the area and take another route. Light skinned vehicles are fairly low on the priority list within servers and as far as I am aware, no one can claim a light skinned vehicle as a team asset, so you have the added benefit of having a vehicle which you can use yourself, rather than simply being a passenger.

The low profile will also benefit your squad greatly when used in insurgency maps, parking in a ditch on maps featuring clear desert such as Al Basrah will allow the sniper team a vehicle from which to move from should their hide be discovered or a move is requested by the commander, maneuverability is key on maps such as these and a light skinned vehicle affords you much more flexibility when it comes to properly supporting your teams movements. If you do not intend to use the light skinned vehicle throughout the game, asking a friendly infantry squad to carpool can also be an option, such as when fighting in Fallujah West.

On conventional maps, the light skinned vehicle is at a distinct disadvantage, vehicles fitted with large caliber weapons can react much more effectively and quickly to a sniper team using a vehicle to move from hide to hide and it is here where a sniper teams tactics must change and adapt to the situation, perhaps relying on a mounted infantry unit to drop you off at your first hide and then relying further on transport requests from transport squads throughout the game should your move require.

APC
For conventional AAS engagements, the APC should be your secondary transport behind helicopters when moving towards your first hide. Please note that you should only be in an APC as a passenger, running away with your sniper in the back of an APC that has no one on the main gun and only transporting yourselves will not make you friends on the game. The advantages of having a more heavily armoured vehicle when faced with a conventional army are clear as day, survivability is key to the sniper squad and being dropped off at your hide by an APC is much safer than trying to go it alone on foot or in a light skinned vehicle. It is important to note that you should request a drop off before your intended hide, limiting your presence and allowing you to move to your intended hide without being spotted from 1km away because you approached in a huge APC.
On open insurgency maps, APCs really should be a secondary transport option to the light skinned vehicles available, simply because relying on transport squads can be time consuming and limit your freedom on the map. The lethality of APCs also makes them bullet magnets on Insurgency mode, reducing your ability to move to your hide without repercussions.

Helicopter
Because a snipers role relies on moving into positions from which to observe and eliminate enemy forces from, the speed at which you arrive at your first hide is of paramount importance. For conventional AAS games, helicopters are the best transport for providing you with this. The advantages of being dropped off at your first hide by a helicopter revolve around speed, helicopters can move away from your position much faster than an APC can, reducing the chances of being engaged early on in the game and ensuring that you have sufficient time in which to set up in your hide prior to enemy forces moving in.

The disadvantages of being dropped off by helicopter are not of real concern on AAS maps, the first disadvantage being that you must be dropped off in an area which does not have dense cover, to ensure that the pilot can land and lift off without crashing. This problem means that you must run into cover upon landing, but due to the speed of the helicopter, this only becomes a problem should you move from position to position by helicopter. The second disadvantage is that you must rely on transport squads in order to move great distances during the game, drawing out the time it takes for you to move from hide to hide.

Foot
Moving on foot can be difficult in both AAS and Insurgency, reaching your first hide will take much longer and the lack of any flexibility means that the game may move faster than you can keep up with. During the game however, movement by foot through urban and forested areas is very important, not only does moving on foot reduce your presence on the battlefield and therefore increase your chances of not being spotted, but it also means that your two man team will be ready straight away should a contact engage you, increasing your survivability in close quarters.

The next section will deal with choosing your hides and how you can increase your survivability while moving from each hide to the other, but I would like some feedback before I continue writing it.

[Infantry4Ever]

I like it so far! Very informational and well structured!

[RHYS4190]

OK heres some facts about spotting ya can't do it in this game, in real life you tend to be able to get a general idea where the bullet is flying( ether by noting where it impacted or other means, At long distances and with the right equipment and perhaps time of day and location you can see the disturbances in the air coursed by the flight of the bullet, and then you can then adjust your aim for any discrepancies.

But unfortunately in BF2, all non tracer shots are totally invisible, and also the impact of the bullet at the distances you will be operating are too , this makes spotter impractical in this game, what the point, he can pick out targets for you but that it, he can't do the most important job and actually give you feed back on your drift or how far off you are, or where you rounds are landing. So there is little to no gain.


It good to have some one pick out target for you, but, if you in a squad why don't you get them to help you. be just as effective.


If some one what to test this out to prove me wrong go ahead, but i think im pretty right on this one.

PR is a game, and stuff that works well in real life don't necessarily work in PR.

[Deathangel_321boom]

I would downplay the officers ability to deploy assets: if you are playing as a 2 man squad you will have no shovel with you unless you grab a kit from a crate to build something... but mainly FOBs and MG emplacements are of little help to a sniper and will noly give you away, any infantry squad should provide this sort of role... It does depend however, I played muttrah in a 4 man sniper squad in the hills, got the chopper to drop crates for building a FOB, we had 2 snipers, a SL and medic, then the SL grabbed aanother kit to build the FOB.
The main advantage is the ability to ues the radio to put enemies on the map for all, and use the laser designator if you have have air support. Id say use if theres aircraft available, no commander (otherwise you can get him to mark enemies at the squad attack marker) and officer has several bandages IIRC

I mainly play INS maps but I wouldn't take a soft skin vehicle for myself especially if taking up an urban hide, it's hard to hide, it'll give away your position massively to any insurgent who manages to get close and they can destroy it for tickets, denial of transport etc. I'd say giving no clue about your location is the best way to stay alive- due to no ticket counter for insurgents if they find you they will come back repeatedly.

Using a specialist in urban hides is a good point, medic is very helpful otherwise. I dont think using the sniper for lasing is a negative, destroying a big asset whilst the spotter scans for the next target is more useful than taking out a lone infantryman or two.


Will you be saying anything about sniping as insurgents? Its something to consider, the teammate support being more helpful as you get no pistol as normal ins faction... But civis can heal you and use cellphones... Im undecided, maybe one of each nearby


Good guide so far though! I like the help such as getting the medic kit which will be very helpful for those who wont think about you needing a larger squad to get one. If you search the forum Im pretty sure there are similar posts you could check, i recall one about firing the rifle somewhere
EDIT such as this

[BlackwaterSaxon]

Originally Posted by Deathangel_321boom

I would downplay the officers ability to deploy assets: if you are playing as a 2 man squad you will have no shovel with you unless you grab a kit from a crate to build something... but mainly FOBs and MG emplacements are of little help to a sniper and will noly give you away, any infantry squad should provide this sort of role... It does depend however, I played muttrah in a 4 man sniper squad in the hills, got the chopper to drop crates for building a FOB, we had 2 snipers, a SL and medic, then the SL grabbed aanother kit to build the FOB.
The main advantage is the ability to ues the radio to put enemies on the map for all, and use the laser designator if you have have air support. Id say use if theres aircraft available, no commander (otherwise you can get him to mark enemies at the squad attack marker) and officer has several bandages IIRC.

The ability of the officer to place assets, as part of a sniper team at least, would depend on infantry support being close in order to build the asset, but on the off chance that there SL has no officer kit, or there officer is down, it's useful to the team to have someone around that can perform that duty.

Originally Posted by Deathangel_321boom

I mainly play INS maps but I wouldn't take a soft skin vehicle for myself especially if taking up an urban hide, it's hard to hide, it'll give away your position massively to any insurgent who manages to get close and they can destroy it for tickets, denial of transport etc. I'd say giving no clue about your location is the best way to stay alive- due to no ticket counter for insurgents if they find you they will come back repeatedly.

I perhaps should have made it a bit clearer in the guide, using the soff skin in an INS map, especially on maps like Al Basrah, simply means that you can get around faster, if you can find a ditch somewhere to park it, so that it is only visible if you're right on top of it, then it can be useful to bring one. As an insurgency player I'm sure you can appreciate the problem with moving around the map as a sniper, especially when the game is moving fast. I wouldn't reccomend taking a soft skinned vehicle if you intend to move into the cities and town themselves, nothing shouts "I AM HERE" more than a humvee parked up on a street.

Apart from ditches there are numerous other places that you can hide vehicles so that they are only viewable from minimal directions, such as keeping your vehicle behind a wall, visible from only friendly lines.

Using a specialist in urban hides is a good point, medic is very helpful otherwise. I dont think using the sniper for lasing is a negative, destroying a big asset whilst the spotter scans for the next target is more useful than taking out a lone infantryman or two.

Originally Posted by Deathangel_321boom

Will you be saying anything about sniping as insurgents? Its something to consider, the teammate support being more helpful as you get no pistol as normal ins faction... But civis can heal you and use cellphones... Im undecided, maybe one of each nearby

Might be an interesting guide to write, this guide in particular will deal with conventional military snipers, although I may consider doing an article about sniping as an insurgent, once I've done a little more research in that role.

Originally Posted by Deathangel_321boom

Good guide so far though! I like the help such as getting the medic kit which will be very helpful for those who wont think about you needing a larger squad to get one. If you search the forum Im pretty sure there are similar posts you could check, i recall one about firing the rifle somewhere
EDIT such as this

Little points like that are important when you're playing one of the limited classes, many people skipped the manual, so just offering these little nuggets of info can be quite useful.

I've read a couple of the other sniper guides around this forum and on team forums, and they mostly deal with the actual firing of the rifle, I'm going for a more generalised guide to sniping, offering people alternatives outside of the firing, trying to show the versatility of a sniper class.

[Deathangel_321boom]

Yep fair points there, you did kinda mention in the main post about hiding the vehicle, I just thought maybe you should say don't take it into the town or leave it too close by.
Im still not entirely convinced with the SL needing to build, you'd hope if you had or they have a medic you could get their SL up, also getting crates near you is dangerous but you're right it may be helpful, ideally the hide would remain a little distance away.

OK all good so far and well done for not concentrating too much on shooting

[Jarryd_455495]

I don't snipe except when in PRSP (KILL 'EM ALL ), but i just thought maybe take the light vehcile, then try and get maybe 200-300m away from it in a position where you can shoot back on to it and then when the enemy find it and decide to have a look around or destroy it you can just 'pop 'em' at your own will then evac away before they know what hit them. With the 200-300m head start your sure to get away if you use a planned escape route.

Problem is here you an't really helping your team, but still good fun.

[Pronck]

As insurgent sniper, I often use the Dragunov to take out several soldiers from one squad, that are for example clearing a compound and waiting to move further on. When their medic comes to them I take him out too, then you only need to wait for the guys to get the medic kit and kill them.

I also like to irritate .50Cal gunners on humvees/jeeps and tanks, they hate it when they get under fire.

As insurgent sniper you need to get on a balcony for example, because the BLUFOR doesn't expect people firing from balconies that you can't reach without a grappling hook.

[BlackwaterSaxon]

Originally Posted by Deathangel_321boom

Yep fair points there, you did kinda mention in the main post about hiding the vehicle, I just thought maybe you should say don't take it into the town or leave it too close by.
Im still not entirely convinced with the SL needing to build, you'd hope if you had or they have a medic you could get their SL up, also getting crates near you is dangerous but you're right it may be helpful, ideally the hide would remain a little distance away.

OK all good so far and well done for not concentrating too much on shooting

Oh, definitely, the hide would have to be a significant distance from where you're building, but in the event that you've moved back from your hide in order to rearm or to RV with a new squad member, taking the time to help bring up the defences of a FOB or other area, it's purely out of opportunity and really shouldn't be your primary concern if using the officer/sniper team.