Sniping in PR?

In most games, I feel that sniper's/recon whatever you like, are simply too common place. I refuse to play recon in BF3, as I just hate the class and don't see any thrill in picking them off like a coward. But... In PR? Because it's limited to 2 per 32 players, I find it so much better. Like today on fools road, I was the Militia overlooking the Compound thingy in the top right.. Found a TOW and a HMG. Took a few pops, nailed two at the tow. In CoD/BF3, they'd just res and return fire. In PR.. They panick, smoke, a good 5 minutes of an operation. An Officer pokes his head up.. Crack. He drops with a thud. suddenly 3 blokes just storm into the building, fleeing for their life. I got pwnt with a LAT when there arsebandits showed up, but the effect one sniper with comms can do to a whole squad or 2, is unreal. I don't "lonewolf", as those who play with me should (hopefully) know I'm a team player, so inbetween spotting TOW's and locations to the spandrels and my team, I also drop a few nobs who happen to give me shots.

What's your opinion on snipers?

Don't you mean Burning Sands? If it was tonight just a few minutes ago I was the one who got you with the LAT. I could barely see you for a palm tree but I had used binocs to see what balcony you were on and I just fired, I think I just splashed you or did I actually hit you? Either way it was a brilliant shot

Yeah in games like BF (vanilla) and COD "snipers" are really just long range shotguns; slow ROF but high damage. In PR they are more like real snipers: Long range accurate fire intimidation/suppression/High value target killers and so on. It's just another reason to love PR.

*fundemental c**k-up realised* -.-

Thanks man, rubbed it in even more than it wasn't a randomer!

Wait now I'm confused.. Was it really fools road? Because you write "Top corner" and militia but burning sands was a Brit and in the center.. also time doesn't add up (It shows 12 am but imo it should be 00 am so it does add up).. So 2 snipers got LATed tosday? huh

Wait? Brits VS Miltia? stupid maps getting me confused. I got hit by a LAT whilst snipin' brits as Militia on (I swear) Fools road.

I didn't get hit sniping today.

WHAT A SWAG ASS ROUND ON BURNING SANDS!

Oh lord.. not the swag :'(

correction: I got hit multiple time, needing several high-risk rezzes (THANKS) but not by a lat.

Love Sniping in Pr wish i could do more off it!

Sound's like a sweet shot Xazper, i remember a round on Kokan as US .. are CAS had been taking down and my squad was pinned by Sniper.. i had no LAT or long range weapon with me to take him out so i created a smoke screen to the West and my C.E guy went on the flank to the N.E he got under the Sniper and placed the C4 on the lower part of the tower.
Sniper didn't have a clue he was there but i guess he heard the bleep bleep! my C.E ran back as quick as he could as the sniper tried 2 get as far away from his nest as possible, My Engi took cover behind a Tree and sent the sniper 300ft into the air. Very memorable moment off PR.

first, i think the 'sniper' as a person shouldn't be in PR, the kit yes the person no, let me explain.
i have seen many many times a team wide advance stall because of a well placed TOW and HMG's, the ability for the team to advance safely with proper vehicle support is fucked by 2 vanilla's on the other side of the map with their l337 ego's and M40's.
the sniper rifle as a tool is indeed fun to use and in the situation explained above is a game changer.
today i took a sniper rifle from the kit box because i was in a squad that was initially set up for AA and TOW overlooking docks on Muttrah, such a squad in a fixed position ALWAYS attracts enemy snipers so the kit was requested as a counter sniper measure, as soon as the squad went armoured i dropped the kit and grabbed a crewman, 9 kills and a cobra in 7 minutes and we won the match.
the first hour of the game i got 1 kill with the M40 but discouraged many from attacking our successful enterprise of shooting down enemy aircraft etc etc.
the other sniper ? (generically) probably thinking his teamwork is teriffic cuz he got 15-0 in Alpha 12 k 6 (also taking a good player out of the team to serve as his 'Butler' "ooo yes sir, here's your binoculars sir, o yes sir juicy target for you sir")
pisses me off when all you need is a sniper rifle but they are all 'out' in the hands of people who have bread crumbs for brains.

that said

there are some very good recon dudes out there in PR world, our own Chris is one, there you are young man, someone to learn from and to aspire to.
your radio is mightier than your sword.

my opinion

well said speed

a good sniper does not fire a shot the entire round

Agreed speed. I hate people trying to take CoD's f**k about tactics into what's effectively a Military Sim. I have yet to play with Chris unfortunately, But I'm hoping to get into a squad with him then

Aswell, Understandably I'm not right next to my squad with the kit, but I'm usually always watching my squad, giving them re-routes for safety and crap, just because It's in my power and abilities given to me via the kit. Like you said, it's the 1337 Ego's who take the kit's when they're needed most.. (Like on Fools Road.. Our squad walked infront of armor with our hands up with no kits as we had no AT. Got mowed down.. Because everyone else had the HAT's!)

vincent wrote:a good sniper does not fire a shot the entire round

A widespread misunderstanding.
Turn it to "A good sniper knows how NOT to shoot." and you get something out of it.

Sniping is also a piece of "mental" warfare.
The intention is similar to what you said, Voodoo:

Voodoo wrote:An Officer pokes his head up.. Crack. He drops with a thud. suddenly 3
blokes just storm into the building, fleeing for their life.

"No battleplan survives contact with the enemy." (*Helmuth von Moltke*)
To stop a hostile operation, it sometimes just need one bullet. You've described such a situation. Evryone is headless in first seconds when a squadbuddy drops out of nowhere, if not panic. If that's happening, a sniper has achieved his goal.
But neither is the effect THIS big in a game, nor is this snipers first role.

The asset of a sniper (i see him as an asset to the team) can be used as:
- active scoutsniping(all insurgency and most AAS)
- defensive sniping(defensive AAS such as Ochamchira)

Roles of a scoutsniper, in a correct order:

1) find enemy troops/assets/mines
2) overwatch thier movement(not mines obviously)
3) report location/move direction to the team/commander
4) guide in CAS/armor/infantry and provide continual overwatch
5) evetually eliminate threads for guided in team (CAS - mob. or stat. AA / Armor - mob. or stat. AT / Infantry - AR, HMG, watchposts)
6) stop hostile movement for an ambush

The key is NOT to fire till point five, and sometimes not even then. The bigest advantage of a scoutsniper is stealth.
Reason is obvious: his firepower is very limited. Enemy assault rifles knowing you location closer than 100m are deadly in 9 out of 10 cases, not to speak from armor or CAS.
But he allways has to keep in mind firendlies might require his accureacy.

Roles of a defensive sniper:

- locate and report enemy attacks
- Countersniping (locate and eliminate hostile sniper)
- cover a wide area at long range
- provide accurate support fire for defending squads
- keep evryone informed about weak spots
(no order here, cause sniper has to do that all simultaniously)


Requirements:

- patience (it smoetimes takes loooooooooong time to spot enemies, more to get into a proper position towads them... and even more to get a shot on them)
- fire control (when in hostile turf, its often better to not give your position away)
- a spotter (very escential! he not only finds "fresh juicy targets" for him, he provides close range cover. a good sper mutiplies a snipers effectivenes by factor 3 at min)


Thats just the basics, and most of you will know it allready. Nothing noone can learn.
Next time, Voodoo, just ask. I show you.

Now, enough wiseass blubbering.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

IMO the sniping is very well ballanced in PR due to just 2 kits at max per team (kit bug doesn't count) and he is very weak, if not to say allmost defenseless, in CQB. You rarely see me sniping in other multiplayer games, cause they're either bunnyhopping attacksnipers (for witch i don't have the reflexes) or runway campers (witch is boring after 2 min).

Ofc, i sometimes just long for kills and ignore my own rules as said above. But most of theese rounds i die quickly


And after all its not my favourite asset for nothing.



Chris out.

thats a good guide chris thanks for sharing

good guide chris, and I like the ToDo list in your sig!

There used to be awesome recon sl leader playing here, called Fiethay.
He knew everything, the right colored background to lay against, all the tactics to get behind enemy lines unseen.

And his sniping was so good! When he missed ONE enemy it was "bad day" for him.

Sounds like a gimp!

Thanks a hell of a lot Chris. If you see me ingame, I'd be greatful to spot for you, or whatever you need, could learn a lot! My main issue seems to be my trigger-happiness. I wouldn't exactly call it that.. but I lack the patience sometimes depending on my mood, yet I can sit and overwatch a boring street with nothing but one civi moving some days.

My other mixed issue, is my fire control. I have a bit of a knack for knowing when and when not to shoot, but my dicipline also works as a curse. I remember playing (Scotty'll back me up, hopefully) on Fools Road 3 days ago? Scotty was SL, he told me to grab a sniper. He spotted a SPG being built, but we both knew not to fire, as 8 men at a distance of 600M~ would be hard to pick up effectively with one sniper. Suddenly, our AR infront sprays the area, not hitting any, and also not having any foresight to release tracers work both ways. Suddenly, we got SPG rounds and Fieldguns shot at us, and I was forced to open fire. I got about 5 of them, but my effectiveness was ruined, and so was our damn good position. And Muttrah, as much as I love the urban sniping, I hate the fact that with no spotter, I get killed easily as there's simply so many windows and arcs of fire that I can't contend with with one scope.

Jay Scott wrote:Sounds like a gimp!

hahaha

when I go sniper its on 2 maps, kashan in the hills and as the SL for the CAS squad.
All my pilots do as there told only attack on laze,
me, laze locked, on attack marker 1xtank south side of bunker, approach notheast egress east, approach clear, drop flares on egress AA south west I have it coverd, call on approach,
pilot, copy call on approach.
me, cleard in,
pilot, on approach,
me, AA CLEAR.
Pilot, bombs gone,
me, AA NUTRALISED
pilot, clear, running east….......

BOooooooom

tank and AA never new what hit them.

I pickup my swag and relocate ready to spot and laze new targets.

This thread is full of awesome, even though I rarely snipe and am more a medic type my self I do remember being in Chris his squad on Kokan once. It was so awesome, at a certain time we were being overrun by about 3 inf I think, we both hit the deck in the fields and pretty much skull-dragged about half the map to escape from there.

I like the way chris leads (any squad really, clear and effective), at the time I was in his recon squad the main objective was pretty much not to get killed

Orford wrote:when I go sniper its on 2 maps, kashan in the hills and as the SL for the CAS squad.
All my pilots do as there told only attack on laze,
me, laze locked, on attack marker 1xtank south side of bunker, approach notheast egress east, approach clear, drop flares on egress AA south west I have it coverd, call on approach,
pilot, copy call on approach.
me, cleard in,
pilot, on approach,
me, AA CLEAR.
Pilot, bombs gone,
me, AA NUTRALISED
pilot, clear, running east….......

BOooooooom

tank and AA never new what hit them.

I pickup my swag and relocate ready to spot and laze new targets.

"A" for coms and intel. Great example of guiding in CAS, target - location - threads - coutermesures - inbound route - active guiding. Do that with armor as well as INF and you will earn great results.

Kerrer, i remember that round... was fun to play

*Voodoo gets dumped with randomers with no VOIP*

FML. Again and again

That AR gunner pissed me off!

Suprised you can even remember a whole 3 days ago Scotty! :O


Yeah.. Really, REALLY fucked us up for the next 20 minutes as we had to flee the 8 odd blokes near the SPG, And then some random field gun. Some people genuinely need to learn dicipline and that tracers work both ways ::

All Stoner's are great gamers! Pick up your bongs B!tchez!

Haha, and you eating a bit of cheesecake whilst SL'ing, priceless tactics scotty :')

I think taking the sniper kit is a nice change of pace every now and then. Although I often try to use it in unconventional ways, at least by normal gaming standards regarding the sniper kit.

Its a great tool for just wasting peoples time. Shoot one guy in an infantry squad and then hide. Pop out your head 2 minutes later and its highly likely that they will have used too much smoke and still be waiting around. Let them move on a bit and then shoot another. In firing two or 3 shots you can keep an entire squad held up for freakin ages and even when they get into combat they will have all thrown their smoke like lemons. This also works great for getting a laze up. Instead of giving the CAS a moving target just shoot a guy and laze them whilst they sit around waiting for the smoke and revive.

If you can see a squad or stray infantry moving towards a friendly fob or position a simple shot to a nearby wall is enough to get them to change direction or at the least just panic and run, you don't even have to kill them. For some reason it also seems that if a sniper misses the enemy are more likely to run a fair distanc and hide rather than take immediate cover and search for the shooter if one of their squadmates actually goes down. Sometimes its also better to keep a squad pinned for any number of minutes than to actually kill them and let them respawn, the time you keep them occupied could be the differance between your team capping a flag and not capping it.

With most snipers you can literally guess where they are based purely on your surroundings as many players seem to go along with the idea that the best sniper position is the highest position rather than the one with the most cover. My idea of the best position sometimes means that although there is an entire squad I can only see one of them through a small gap or around a corner, this means than as soon as I shoot I can crawl backwards a tiny ammount and be in complete cover from the target area. Try sniping off a hotel roof in PR and see what I mean, its a case of you being able to see everything, but everything being able to see you. Whereas in reality all you need to see is the one target.

The trick to being a sniper is to not go overboard killing people as its a one way ticket to the dead city BUT don't get too stealthy and end up not doing anything. The mix between intel and actually disrupting the enemy has to be balanced. Also using upredictable and varying tactics means you will be exactly that.

One thing that gets on my tits with PR snipers is the fact that the majority are the kill whoring bastards. There is no intel. There is no countering of assets. No Lazes, anything useful. Just them sitting on top of a hill, with no cover thinking they're being awesome. Seriously, you don't need to be on top of a hill to see, or in a window with your barrel poking out basically yelling 'I'M A FREE KILL ARMOUR, OVER HERE'. So many times I've been in an APC or a tank only to see a lovely sniper barrel poking out over a window sill. Oh and the fact that a load of snipers operate alone. f**k. That.

A real sniper works along with a medic for some CQB support for himself and to help him locate targets (two pairs of square eyes are better than one), as Chris said one major weakness for said sniper is an engagement at close/medium range. A Medic helps in the fact that a few extra rounds going a squads way can help in a retreat, making that an alive sniper who can move (and who should be moving anyways) and provide continued support. They've just got to know the difference between a kill that helps and one that just gives them away for no reason.

One of my favourite things to do as a recon squad, (usually with fillsson as my trusty medic on kokan ) is to just support infantry moving up to locations to search and clear. Many times squads I'm in have had one or two talibananas run in from behind and wipe them with grenades over walls or through windows. A good sniper team can either eliminate the threat off the bat, or call where they are (helping without firing a shot, always good to your own survival) or if the bad times roll, go in and help res, with the sniper nabbing an AK in the meantime to cover the medic as he resses. Bang, you've just saved your team a fair few tickets, maybe nabbed some intel.

Thanks for the educated responses lads, it's some good reading. I've pretty much said my piece, so I'm afraid I don't have much to talk about

Hey Lone, unconventional? This tactic is what a sniper is engaging for: stop the movement. And the CAS-ambush is a great idea. Locating - reporting/guiding in CAS - stopping movement for succesfull run. Textbook-like


About the right spot...

The ideal sniping spot holds three factors:
- a good range to overview
- enough cover to not being seen
- (most importantly) an escape route!

I learned the hard way that a building with just one entrance is most times a death trap. After the third or forth shot you're most likley been spotted. If your area is easy to be reached, MOVE!

Overview does not allways mean HIGH. High means obvious, a mistake much players do.

But the cover is something much players OVERestimate. Effect over cover.
If you're well hidden, but can't see s**t, you're useless.
If a tank rolls in, run! Or call Armor/CAS first and then run! There is no cover if tank is after you.

But thats just the way i choose spots.



About the spotter...

He's essential and no sniper should go without him as he multiplies snipers effectiveness at least three times. Sometimes its good to have more than one with you.

Spotters role on the move:
- second pair of eyes
- give close range cover
- clearout sniping spots
- cover retreat

Spotters role within the sniping spot
- second pair of eyes
- cover the flanks/six
- find movement, estimate distance

The first choice of a spotter (as shadee said right) is the medic. CQB-weapon, much smoke to cover retreat, health/revive if needed. In all maps and situations, hes good to work with.

The next one would be the specialist as he has the shotgun for CQB and a rope. This is an awesome asset for evry city map as he provides a variable escape route and ofc spots in hard-to-reach-areas.

The third choice is the officer. When you have him with you, hes squad leader so he takes over all commutication, target identification, marking, lazing and estimating distances, so you're able to concentrate yourself on the shots. Helpfull in asset-heavy-maps.


Vary your spots/squadmembers/tactics to different situations. Its no use being in A12 in Yamalia when the northern route is on.
Listen to your team. Being in the same spot as a tank doesn't make you invinceble. It just meks you useless. Or even better, victim to AT/hostile armor/CAS/area att./Garry.


All for now.
C

Nothing I love more then seeing a taliban, inform my sniper mate of him, wait 3 seconds and then see him drop
It's like I'm death and everyone I point at dies (muahahahahaha)

Haha, awesome!

About the moving part of a sniper, I think most people don't do it enough. Most of the times you will probaply be seen or at the very least heard by your opponent. It isnt hard to find the general direction a shot is coming from, and that is just for the guys you are shooting at. Other enemy forces might be near your or their position, if you fire a second/third shot you're most likely to be spotted allready (even though they might not have seen you yet).

On a completly different note. Jarhead quote:

"Most of my co's think that S.T.A. (Surveillance and Target Acquisition) stands for 'Sun Tan Association'"

This should show the reality...

The bloodshot eyes, the cramps, the defocating in your own trousers. All common signs of a gamer.

My reality.. and I'm the sniper.

The Anti-Sniper Suit

Imagine filming that in public.. Haha