Inside the Crosshairs

by Col. Michael Lee Lanning

  Between April and June 1967, the ACTIV, with assistance of the USAMTU at Fort Benning, secured four different sniper systems for evaluation. These included the M14 accurized rifle with a 2.5X M84 scope, the M14 National Match rifle with a 3X-9X adjustable range telescope (ART), the M16 rifle with 3X Realist commercial telescope, and the Winchester Model 70 with a 3X Weaver scope.

  Selection of the four weapon systems resulted from their availability and from the biases of the evaluators. For ease of procurement and maintenance, the members of the ACTIV favored adaptation of a rifle already in the supply system. In fact, it is unlikely that the Winchester Model 70 would have been included at all but for the fact that eight of the rifles were already in the possession of the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam.‡

  Except for a brief mention buried deep in Annex A of the ACTIV’s final report, there is no evidence that the army ever considered testing the rifle the Marines had chosen for their sniper system. The comment in the Annex about the Remington 700s stated that it and the Winchester Model 70 possessed “very close to the same potential” as the M14 National Match Service rifle and, therefore, “would not warrant their purchase.”

  The M16s used in the evaluation were standard issue, without modifications. No plans had ever been made to use the M16 in competition shooting so no match ammunition had ever been manufactured for it. As a result, regular-issue 5.56-mm rounds were used during the test. The Realist 3X scopes, commercially manufactured by the Colt Arms Company, also came without modifications for military use.

  Little difference existed between the “accurized” and the National Match M14s except for adaptations to the former for mounting the M84 telescope and the latter for the ART system. Both rifles had been modified to prevent automatic fire, and parts had been selected and fitted to increase accuracy. Stocks of the M14s were bedded with a glass fiber and epoxy resin to make them impervious to water and the swelling or warping that would decrease accuracy. The army supply system made available 7.62-mm M118 match ammunition manufactured by the Lake City plant for use in the rifle’s twenty-round magazine.

  The ACTIV post-test survey of snipers and their commanders found that while the snipers engaged three quarters of their targets between the ranges of 300 to 600 meters—the average at 400 meters—and the maximum at 1,300 meters, the shooters’ satisfaction in their weapon systems varied greatly. Of those using the Winchester Model 70, only 18 percent expressed satisfaction. Although reasonably happy with the rifle’s accuracy, the marksmen had concerns about its durability in the field. The Model 70 users also found that the Weaver 3X scope failed to provide adequate magnification and tended to collect moisture, which made it ineffective. Those snipers with M16s also expressed doubts about the rifle’s accuracy at ranges beyond 300 meters. They also found that moisture affected their Weaver scopes and that the instruments were difficult to adjust. Despite its drawbacks, a surprising 48 percent expressed approval of the M16 sniper system.

  Snipers using the M14s were much more satisfied. None found problems with the rifle itself; their only complaints were about the lack of resolving power of, and moisture buildup in, the M84 telescopes. In the survey, 74 percent of the users expressed approval of the M14 with the M84 scope system, while 100 percent declared the M14 with the ART scope satisfactory for sniper operations.

  The commanders of units with test snipers seconded the conclusions. According to the ACTIV final report, “The major reason for preference of the M14 was greater range and accuracy. The limited number of commanders who had experience with the M14 w/ART preferred it to the M14 w/M84 because of the power and the range finding feature of the telescope.”

  In conclusion, the final report recommended that “the accurized M14 be designated as the standard sniper rifle for Vietnam.” While the wording “for Vietnam” resulted from the ACTIV’s restricted authority to the war zone, everyone understood that the recommendation extended to army units worldwide.

  The final report did not recommend a telescope for the M14 because, while the ART came closer to meeting specifications than any other, none of the scopes tested possessed all the desired characteristics. As a result, the ACTIV recommended that more telescope development and testing be conducted. Ultimately, the Redfield 3X-9X proved to be the best available telescope for use with the M14.§

  Many of the army units kept the test sniper weapons after the conclusion of the evaluation and then requested additional M14s and scopes to increase their inventory. Both the Marksmanship Training Unit at Fort Benning and the Army Weapons Command produced accurized M14s and sent them to the war zone along with scopes from the Redfield plant.

  Official funding approval for the procurement of additional accurized M14s came in a Department of the Army message on February 14, 1969. The Rock Island Arsenal subsequently manufactured more than 1,200 M14s as sniper rifles and shipped them to Vietnam. Together with the ART scope, this weaponry was called the XM21 system (although that did not become the formal designation until the following November). The XM21 name remained for most of the remainder of the war. In 1972, staffing and paperwork finally caught up with actual field developments; the official system name then became the “Rifle, 7.62 mm Sniper M21” or simply the M21.

  Neither the Marine Remington M40 system nor the army XM21 proved to be perfect for sniper use in Vietnam, though each did have its advantages. The M40 demonstrated a slight edge in accuracy but the XM21 exhibited greater durability. The most positive aspect of the XM21 lay in its capability to mount night vision devices, allowing shooters to see in the dark. That was a particularly significant tool because the hours of darkness, in guerrilla warfare tactics important for obscuring movement, had virtually neutralized the Allied aerial observation and firepower.

  Night vision devices were not unique to Vietnam. During the later months of World War II and throughout the Korean War, the United States had experimented with various infrared instruments that allowed night observation. But problems with the infrared systems, which used light rays just below the red end of the visible spectrum, were many. In the early models, the combined weight of the device and its power source was nearly thirty pounds. The second obstacle was that a decent picture through the view finder at ranges of 100 to 200 meters required total darkness. But most problematic in terms of popularity with field troops was the fact that, although infrared was invisible to the naked eye, an enemy with a similar device could easily pinpoint the infrared source.

  In the late 1950s, U.S. manufacturers began experimenting with “passive night-observation” devices that enhanced available moon, star, and ambient light sources many thousands of times to produce a green-tinged field of view. Despite advances in technology after the Korean War, the instruments were still too heavy and cumbersome for any widespread early use in Vietnam except at fixed defensive positions such as base camps and fire support facilities. The war created an urgent need for a portable device that allowed soldiers to “see” at night.

  Developers tested several models of passive device in Vietnam on a limited basis. But it was not until November 1966 that the United States fielded the Starlight scope—the “Small Hand-Held or Individual Weapons Model No. 6060.” After a few final adjustments, Model 6060 became widely available to field units in 1967 as the AN/PVS-1 (Army-Navy Portable Visible-Light Detection Series Number 1). Measuring 18.5 inches long and weighing six pounds, the AN/PVS-1 enhanced available light 40,000 times. In 1969, the U.S. military in Vietnam replaced those scopes with the AN/PVS-2. An inch shorter but weighing the same, those replacements magnified available light 75,000 times.‖

  The Starlight scopes, as the AN/PVS-2s were more commonly known, came with mounting brackets for the M14 and the M16, which made them highly desirable to snipers. A report, “Sniper Training and Employment in the 9th Infantry Division,” illustrates that they had become an integral part of army sniper training by 1969: “Students learn the methods of zeroing their weapons equipped with the adjustable ranging
telescopic sight (ART), Starlight scope, and the fixed power M84 telescopic scope. Night firing is included in the course and each student learns to engage targets with his Starlight scope at ranges of 150, 300, and 600 meters.”

  Written by the division’s assistant operations office, Major Robert G. Hilchey, in July of that year, the report continued, “The AN/PVS-2 Starlight scope has proven more effective for sniper use than the AN/PVS-1. Focusing is improved on the AN/PVS-2, and the windage/elevation controls are more reliable than on the latter sight. The sight reticle in the AN/PVS-2 better lends itself to engagement of long-range targets. Students bring a Starlight scope and mount to the sniper school when they report for training. The scope is mounted on the rifle and zeroed during training. The sniper retains that scope/rifle during subsequent operations. This procedure assures retention of zero even though the sight is dismounted during daylight operations and remounted for night operations.”

  Although the 9th Division snipers trained with the Starlight scope at ranges up to 600 meters, that proved to be a realistic distance only under optimum conditions. Most night shots were at less than 400 meters, and, in fact, the majority of snipers zeroed their Starlight scopes at 150 meters. Because of the limited range at night, sniper teams as well as infantrymen often mounted the Starlight scopes on M16s for use during darkness.

  Marine infantry units used the Starlight scopes for night observation, both unmounted and on M16s, in the same manner as the army. Marine armorers also made a prototype mount to affix the AN/PVS-2 to the Winchester Model 70 and discussed doing the same for the Remington M40. No modifications of this sort proved successful,a however, so the corps’s marksmen in Vietnam did not employ the night observation devices with their primary weapons.

  Even though not generally mounted on their sniper rifles, the Starlight scopes did prove beneficial to the marksmen. On October 14, 1967, a 4th Marine sniper team joined the regiment’s 2nd Battalion in defense of a bridge on the supply route to Con Thien, near the DMZ. In the middle of the night the sniper team, using an unmounted Starlight scope, spotted a large group of NVA massing for attack. The snipers warned the 2nd Battalion Marines, whose fire broke up the enemy assault and killed most of its attackers.

  The Starlight scopes also allowed snipers to be innovative. Frustrated at visual and ground-radar sightings of enemy personnel at ranges beyond the capabilities of their M40s or XM21s, the shooters sought other methods to “reach out and touch” enemy soldiers. Both army and Marine snipers experimented with mounting telescopes and night vision devices on .50-caliber machine guns to hit targets at long range. Because of its slow rate of fire, its traversing and elevating (T&E) mechanism, and its stable M3 tripod, the Browning .50 caliber fired accurate single shots. Using them primarily at fixed installations such as firebases, snipers could prefire the .50 calibers at identifiable targets downrange and work the data into a range card to provide increased first-round accuracy.

  An article, “.50 Caliber Sniper,” by army Captain Albert R. Amos Jr. in the September-October 1970 issue of Infantry magazine discussed the heavy machine gun sniper program in the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. Amos described how the unit constructed twenty- to thirty-foot-high shooting platforms at firebases, added steel base plates and posts to further stabilize the .50 caliber’s M3 mount, and trained gun crews to use them. In conclusion he wrote, “The end result more than made up for the intensive work that was required. Base defenses were strengthened through more efficient use of long-range night observation devices and the enemy no longer could operate securely within 1,000 meters of a sniper team without putting his life on the line.”

  Marine marksmen also experimented with .50 calibers. In February 1967, Sergeant Carlos Hathcock used the large-bore machine gun to accomplish what is generally accepted as the longest-range confirmed sniper kill of the Vietnam War. Firing from a hillside position using an Unertl 8X scope on a .50-caliber machine gun stabilized by a sandbag-supported M3 tripod, Hathcock engaged a Vietcong pushing a weapon-laden bicycle at 2,500 yards. Hathcock’s first round disabled the bicycle; the second stuck the enemy soldier in the chest.

  These shots at a little more than 1.4 miles were, of course, extraordinary. Many former snipers reflect that, even with scopes, targets beyond 1,200 yards are extremely difficult to see, much less hit with any consistency. The .50 caliber snipers undoubtedly harassed the enemy and caused them to move with even more circumspection than usual in the vicinity of U.S. bases. However, the extremely heavy, nonmobile machine guns are a mere footnote to Vietnam War sniper history, and their use and impact were extremely limited.

  Yet to the sniper, every little innovation helped, and so the marksmen tested and experimented with any tool that could provide an advantage. Snipers of both services also tried, in addition to the .50-caliber machine guns, a wide variety of noise and flash suppressors, because remaining undetected was essential to the sniper’s success in killing the enemy and his own survival. Muzzle flashes and rifle discharge noise were the greatest threats to the sniper. The commercial-manufacture Winchester and Remington sniper models did not have flash suppressors which resulted in a sound signature that was distinct from those of the M14 and M16 military rifles, which did have devices to disperse the fire and gases that follow a bullet from the muzzle.

  Soldier and Marine snipers experimented with various suppressors to reduce muzzle flash but none worked to any degree. The most widely used method of reducing the visual firing signature was quite simple. Many snipers carried a one- to two-foot-square of olive drab canvas that they placed beneath the rifle muzzle when firing from a prone position. This cloth prevented the muzzle blast from kicking up dust or vegetation.

  Along with a visual signature, each sniper’s shot also provided an audio compromise to the firer’s position.b Not only did the Winchester and Remington sniper rifles lack flash suppressors, they also lacked the threaded barrel end for attaching a silencer—usually a tube containing sound baffles that was screwed onto the rifle’s muzzle. Although Marine snipers and armorers and commercial developers worked to design effective noise suppressors for the bolt rifles, none proved successful.

  The army made a slightly greater, if misguided, effort to develop silencers for snipers and other special operatives, but the noise-suppression program focused on M16s instead of M14s and XM21s. In May 1966, the army sanctioned development and procurement of M16 silencers and tested various models, including a 12-inch H4 and a 9.5 inch H4A, in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968.

  Because those noise suppressors did decrease the audio signature of a gunshot and decreased its flash, development continued, and in the fall of 1968 the army selected the 12.5-inch Noise and Flash Suppressor Assembly MAW-A1 manufactured by the Sionics Company of Atlanta, Georgia, for use with the M16 rifle. Then, and only then, did the fabricators of the XM21 adapt the same basic design of the MAW-A1 to what they called the “M14SS-1 Noise and Flash Suppressor Assembly” for the sniper system.

  While the Sionics and other silencers certainly looked impressive when mounted on weapons, they looked much better than they actually performed. Each shot still produced a flash, albeit somewhat reduced, and the sound became more a “spew” than a “crack,” so the wise sniper still moved to a different position after each shot. Most veteran snipers viewed the devices as extra weight rather than as real security.

  Subsonic ammunition provided still another method of reducing the audio signature of sniper weapons because they produced no sound-breaking “crack.” Subsonic cartridges also made less noise simply because they contained less powder, which, of course, resulted in reduced power, range, and accuracy. The special ammunition was available in ample supply for the M40, XM21, and M16, but its actual use in the field was extremely limited. The quieter ammunition simply did not outweigh the disadvantages of reducing range and accuracy. And the smaller charge of the subsonic cartridge did not provide enough power to automatically eject spent cartridges in the semiautomatic XM21
and M16 systems, requiring manual ejection of each used shell case. Ultimately, the snipers relied more on their hunter’s instincts than on high-tech solutions.

  While the rifle and scope were the dominant tools of the sniper trade, the special marksmen required other equipment and supplies to sustain themselves in the field. Sniper operations rarely lasted more than a few days so the marksmen did not need to carry the heavy burdens of the typical infantrymen. There were many items necessary, however, for their survival and for the success of their missions.

  The two-man sniper team, composed of a shooter and an observer, nearly always operated as an attachment to an infantry or a reconnaissance unit.c They nevertheless equipped themselves individually and as a team to act independently. However, as with all other aspects of sniper operations in Vietnam, the weapons, ammunition, and equipment carried by the two-man teams varied greatly from unit to unit and from individual to individual. Snipers in Vietnam procured or adapted any item they thought would aid their ability to successfully hit enemy targets while increasing their own chances of survival.

  Scoped rifles were ill suited for defense in a sustained firefight, so snipers and their observers armed themselves with a variety of supplemental weapons. Many snipers carried pistols, the .45-caliber M1911A1 being the most common choice because it required little care and maintenance, ammo was plentiful, and its use by the U.S. armed forces since 1911 spoke well for its reliability. Other sidearms included .38-caliber revolvers procured from aviation units and various civilian models sent by family or friends back home.

  Some snipers also carried M16s. Others, especially the boltgun-armed Marines, brought full-automatic M14s. The weapons of the observer, or the second man in the two-man sniper team, also varied with situation and personal preference. Observers most often carried either M14s or M16s, and they, too, frequently added .45s or other sidearms to their web gear.