Feels like this is the decline of empire type shit. idk.

>eliminates artillery
>"we need to focus on armor and infantry"
>eliminates armor
>"we need to focus on infantry"
>eliminates elite infantry
>??????
Muhreens, explain why your entire branch is self destructing?

>>63941647 (OP)
>decline of empire shit
vanya, please

>>63941647 (OP)
I guess the idea is the platoon level drone operators will serve as more effective recon elements. I don't think that actually works, like Ukraine still uses humans in ghillie suits for a lot of their recon, but ukraine is a poorfag country that still had footwraps within the last 20 years, so I have to assume our drone assets are better.

>>63941653
you think america's not in decline?

https://archive.is/zA5dq

>>63941669
I am now demoralized.

>>63941669
>>63941647 (OP)
You live in an actual, legit shithole.

>USMC is giving every soldier a 1-8x and arming them with plates that provide full coverage of the upper body back and front
What fucking war are they preparing for? Are they just going to storm the fucking beaches in IFVs? Are strykers and humvess dead?

>>63941647 (OP)
>clickbait headline
Are they ending the program, or just shuffling snipers around in the TO&E?

>>63941669
You got me. I'm fully demoralized and I now believe in the death of America and the rise of Russia.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTT
Hang yourself you malnourished fucking golem. I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire.

>>63941751
>arming them with plates that provide full coverage of the upper body back and front
Are esapis not standard for everybody?
>What fucking war are they preparing for?
China, I guess. The ACV is the new LAV, USMC never used the stryker. JLTV replaced humvee in any frontline roles.

>>63941735
you're talking about america right?

>>63941759
>With the implementation of Force Design 2030, Marine scout snipers have been replaced with MOS 0322 Reconnaissance Sniper Marines, as part of a 26-Marine Scout Platoon.[2] The last 0317 class graduated December 15th, 2023.[8]

>>63941794
>Snipers are now a platoon-level asset instead of battalion
I have no strong opinion.

>>63941807
Here's the official announcement, but I don't really see how any of this matters.

https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/3342218/marine-corps-announces-decision-to-establish-the-scout-platoon-to-increase-infa/

>>63941647 (OP)
lol a time honored tradition

>>63941653
You can't even quote right, dumb fuck.

>>63941647 (OP)
The cycle of snipers:
>peacetime militaries close sniper schools to save money
>war kicks off
>wartime militaries say "oh shit" and stand sniper schools back up
>wartime snipers kill hella people
>war ends and experienced people get out
>newfags join up and decide to become snipers to look cool at the range and wear cryes and shit
>peacetime militaries close sniper schools to save money

>>63941647 (OP)
>Why Did They Do This?
Because the dumb bastards kept drawing sig runes on everything despite being told repeatedly to stop
This is why we can't have nice things

>>63941647 (OP)
>Why Did They Do This?
So that they can create PMCs instead and then fuck over the populace and the world. Gotta protect property, even if it was acquired through criminal enterprise.
If you ask me, its about time US armed forces showed Trump what an insurrection means. And then curbstomp russia because its their fault in the first place. Trumperino and his family have so much conflict of interest written allover them.
>russians murdered JFK
>russians got Trump 2016 win
>russians got dirt on him because he ordered assassination of his ex-wife and it was done by russians
>russians have joint business interests with his family
Like, get fuck real.

>>63941647 (OP)
These funds are needed for billionaire tax cuts anon, please understand.

>>63941669
This is a fitting filename.

>>63942152
I hope Hunter Biden bends Trump over on live television and rapes his disgusting old man ass while smoking a crack pipe.

>>63941810
>reorganizing the platoon structure
>removing the "you are infantry but also you know this one specific weapon" MOSs
Truly, America has fallen.

>>63941810
It means recon marines finally have a job again

>>63942103
>kept drawing sig runes on everything
Reeeeeeee I knew sign is to blame

>>63941891
You forgot
> snipers kill hella people
> command a bit squamish about sniper body count, "that's not proper warfare"
> command puts up with it because of unit effectiveness
> peace.jpg
> command still squeamish
> command eliminates snipers
> command feels better
> war.jpg
> "shit! where are my snipers?1!!1"

>>63941761
I would piss on him if he wasn't on fire.

Something about the US military complex dismissing sniper doctrine during peace time, only to come and reinvent/relearn it all again when another conflict arises.
Happened after WWI, after WWI, hell, even soldiers going into Korea had very little to work with, let alone Vietnam.

At least Field Manuals exist.

>>63941647 (OP)
because we dont need some high test devgru 1337 sniper to belly crawl 3 weeks thru the jungle to take out a target anymore. we use predator drones or some $50 aliexpress drone to bomb the target

>>63943363
>sniper are only good for taking out enemy
Literally like a 5th of the tasking they get

>>63943363
Predator drones can't hold a position or act at all in contested airspace/bad weather.
Snipers were always recon first, pop heads second.

>>63943363
CAS was making snipers obsolete 15 years ago. And the Marines do combined arms pretty well compared to the Army. With drones as well. But it still feels crappy they're just 86'ing the whole idea.

>>63942152
Thanks chang, I feel really divided and conquered now.

>>63943767
> it still feels crappy they're just 86'ing the whole idea.
But they didn't. Swear to god more than half the people in this thread are retarded. There are still USMC scout snipers.

>what didn't happen
They got rid of scout snipers
>what did happen
They restructured USMC battalions and platoons and now the scout sniper gets a different MOS number

Meanwhile third worlders try to gloat over crayon eaters or something because they think they finally "won" somehow.

drones with thermals make snipers irrelevant

>>63943099
I got to work with, and witness marine corps snipers. Their 300 winmag bolt rifles are big tits to see in person. They're almost as long a the shooters. The scopes and suppressors are gigantic on the rifle. I hope iits all disinfo

everyone a sniper now, grunt and soldier
only a fool would be willing to take a varmint round at 800 meters from a grunt
and bigger fools would think they're safe at 2000 meters when a soldier activates his AI aiming scope

>>63941647 (OP)
>>63941891
Name a modern war where snipers were a decisive factor in battles. Maybe between the War of 1812 to the Civil War were guns were finally becoming accurate enough and high-ranking officers were still just close enough to the front that they could be sniped by a sharpshooter (the Battle of New Orleans was essentially won after somebody shot the Duke of Wellington's brother-in-law). In modern war, snipers are only good for killing fodder, but killing fodder alone doesn't really win you wars anymore, as seen in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and basically every war involving Russia and China in the past century.

>>63943815
It's not disinfo you just can't read.

>>63941647 (OP)
They do it every time a war ends and they get a budget cut or have to downsize. Then when a war happens they bring it back. But you're probably too young or foreign to know this

>>63941663
>I guess the idea is [shit nobody mentioned, talked about, spoke about, isn't shown anywhere in the OP or link etc]
Why does this stupid nerd shit keep happeing

>>63941669
>you think [politically provocative garbage]
>link: hasbeen shitty pseudo-intellectual rag
A big increase in links to garbage rags of faggot motherless university graduates since 2022. I wonder why...

>>63942152
Imagine being so mindfucked by a combination of Lyndon LaRouche, John Birch and 2000s Democrat anti-Neocon propaganda and still having basic bitch Murican views like this.

Why are so many retards taking this article at face value and pretending like the USMC is losing sniper capability?

dedicated scouts are a waste of money for a first world military.

>>63944145
because its not against the rules to post a screencap of a news article without a link to it, even though it should be.

the entire internet has been mindbroken by twitter and news headline screencaps, even tho everyone knows headlines are written by the editor and not the journalist.

>>63941647 (OP)
snipers are useless now that drones are a thing

>>63943363
Extremely American-Officer-Class post.

>we don't need lame arrogant pricks who think they're special, we have [expensive convulated technology that needs a major war to be used] to bomb people
You could be a US Army general. They said the same shit to Kennedy when the US Army SF were formed and the same thing when the Marine Raiders were kicking ass in WWII and they dissolved them. And the same thing when the Marine Raiders were being formed, again.

What's next, they don't need snipers because very marine is already special?

>>63943793
Well they did close down the SS school so I guess they're going back to being just regular snipers.

>>63943886
>all war is centered around "decisive factors"
You're the reason the US lost Vietnam.

>>63941647 (OP)
This started happening while I was still in. (I was in from 2016 to late 2022)
They are renovating the Scout Sniper program. Instead of going to sniper selection, you will be assigned 0321 (Force Recon) and you will go through recon selection, training, and then your specialty will be decided by how you do in training. They basically want to make it to where anyone who shoots really fucking good during Force Recon school is forced into a Designated Marksman role or Sniper role.

The old system did not work too well. They had way too many guys come for selection who were very physically fit, but unable to perform on the long range. This new selection process will make sure that only the most qualified personnel are getting in. But in order to do this, yes, the old Scout Sniper program is going to be completely shut down. They will all be 0321's now, but with just certain specialties, and the ability to move into MARSOC if selected.

>>63944145
What article nigger, all we got is a fucking editied headline post probably from some /int/ troll whos doing slide threads because of Russians/Iranians being humiliated.

>>63944365
That seems cool but also kinda convulated? And where do the new scout platoons fit into this?

>>63944376
They are transitioned in Force Recon. Either 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th Recon Batt. Either that, or Direct Action Batt., or Deep Recon Batt.

It's very likely that they will all be forced to re-eval for their new orders. Or, they will be given the opportunity for early retirement, depending on how long they have been in. Force Recon and MARSOC have full retirement options after eight years due to the nature of their jobs.

Most of the guys in Scout Sniper platoons will most likely be teaching and instructing the new courses.

How's the fentanyl lol?

>>63944073
>They do it every time a war ends and they get a budget cut or have to downsize
Are snipers very expensive to train or maintain?

>>63944376
>doing slide threads because of Russians/Iranians being humiliated
I'd talk about what blew up but...

>“All leadership of Russia’s 155th Naval Infantry Brigade has been eliminated, according to a Russian war correspondent.”
The cursed brigade has been given a mercy kill.

Those rifles are really expensive. Probably a budget thing more than anything else.

>>63944686
Kinda. You need a dedicated schoolhouse, dedicated sniper units, and dedicated training resources to keep the skillset fresh. When budget cuts start getting floated they're often an easy target because people erroneously assume you can do the same shit with designated marksmen or home station training or whatever. Much cheaper to disband all that shit and tell units "figure it out lol" until a war kicks off again and you realize you need people who can provide precise, continuous, on-the-ground reconnaissance with dedicated training and tradecraft for mitigating enemy detection systems.
>>63943886
They don't need to be a "decisive factor" to be worth having, and if that's your argument, then I challenge you to name a war in which infantry, or armor, or artillery were the "decisive factor." Modern war is combined arms, and really modern war is multi-domain combined arms. Having people with one foot in the infantry skillset and one foot in the intelligence skillset is great for both the line units and the S2.
I know people also say drones made snipers obsolete, but I'd ask these people if they've ever tried hunting a sniper team in a disguised firing position from the air, or performing continuous recon using a DJI. Like everything in combined arms, there are drawbacks and advantages to both systems, and they compliment rather than detract from each other.
>>63944721
Doesn't help that the DoD keeps making retarded decisions with procurement. See the MRAD debacle.
That said, compared to consumable drone systems, armored vehicles, or missiles, sniper rifles are dirt cheap. Maybe $20-30k for the rifle with all accessories included, $1-5 per shot depending on caliber and projectile. Compare to a $100k Javelin, $1000 drones that you expend thousands of per month, etc.

>>63944738
>Effortposting this hard without actually reading OP's article and realizing it's two years old and just talking about a force restructuring, not the elimination of snipers

>>63944745
I know it's two years old. I watched it happen live. They didn't "restructure," they genuinely did axe the Scout Sniper school and make franken-scout platoons and tell units to figure out how to train their guys themselves.

>>63944749
>To be awarded the 0322 MOS, Reconnaissance Marines will attend the Reconnaissance Sniper Course to enhance the training received at the Basic Reconnaissance Course with the skills and abilities historically taught at the Basic Scout Sniper Course.
Oh no, they renamed the school! Truly the West has fallen.

>>63941647 (OP)
>sniper
probably dei. shooting at individuals is discriminatory.

>>63944759
Recon Marines are not Scout Snipers and BRC is not the Scout Sniper school. Recon Marines have their own special recon units, scout snipers are in the force. Removing the SS course means there's no institutional sniper school for line Marines, just the recon schoolhouse for recon niggas. The Army equivalent would be axing the USASC and keeping SFSC, you're losing the ability to teach those skills to a lot of the force.

>>63941669
I mean, yeah Putin has won, but that's just because Trump bent the knee to Putin.

>>63942210
What I'm hearing is Marines are actually going to have good actual snipers now and not just sniper larpers

>>63944738
>I'd ask these people if they've ever tried hunting a sniper team in a disguised firing position from the air

This isn't meant in a snarky way but sincerely, have thermals made it much easier to discern sniper teams? Is sufficient bush cover enough to mitigate that (all the recent footage from Uke is generally blasted empty steppe and all), or are there means to mitigate your body temperature from such thermals? Or would the thermals on a DJI kind of drone not be very effective against snipers?

>>63941794
Making Sniper a MOS is stupid imo, find your top shots from reconnaissance platoon and put them on a sniper course. They already have a strong recce and infantry background to enhance and acquire sniper skills.

>>63944773
Read it again, maybe try and sound out the big words if you need to.

>>63944785
Depends. From high altitude it's hard as fuck to spot people on the ground through thermal, doubly so if your sensor is moving, though if the people you're trying to spot are also moving it's easier. Human-like movement is pretty obvious in thermal, you don't need a full outline or human shape to spot it. That said there are several very clever products out there that mitigate thermal signatures and also several simple TTPs that make it difficult for a sensor operator to spot a trained sniper team in several frequency bands (optical and otherwise). Sufficient brush cover will make it hard as fuck to see ground troops from the air, even if they aren't wearing counterthermal shit or occupying a disguised position they specifically built to look like its surroundings. Time of day and microterrain also significantly affect who spots who first and how hard it is to spot someone under thermal. On the flip side, it's more difficult and time-consuming to make a firing position disguised in 360 degrees, which makes the team more vulnerable to exposure as they set up the position. The snipers have to trade speed for security while setting up positions, while the drone crews trade speed for how much of the terrain they can examine closely at one time. And of course this is ignoring all the other shit present on the combined arms battlefield.

>>63944807
Dawg you're still not understanding. Recon marines are not line marines, they're closer to SOF. They have their own separate sniper course and always have, only now that SS school is kill it's the only sniper school the USMC has. A line battalion is still not benefiting from this since they can't just send their guys to RSC as easily as they could send them to SSC.

>>63944831
If you had started with your goalposts here I might have given you some credit. Instead I'll assume you're a clueless retard.

>>63944839
What the fuck are you even trying to say?

>>63941669
Of course it's a coping zigger.

>>63944845
You went from saying "the Marines got rid of snipers because they were too expensive" to saying "there's still snipers but there's no sniper school" to saying "okay, there's still snipers and they have to go to sniper school but they're not sufficiently accessible at the battalion level."

>>63944869
You appear to have constructed an argument in your head that I was never a part of. It's not my fault you don't know the difference between scout snipers and recon marines. Try doing a little research before putting words in other people's mouths and then throwing a fit over them.

>>63944884
Here, I'll walk you through it:

>>63944073
>>63944738
"snipers are too expensive"

>>63944749
>>63944773
"there is no sniper school"

>>63944831
"there's still a sniper school, but a line battalion doesn't benefit from recon snipers (although infantry battalions have a 26-man recon platoon that includes recon snipers)"

>>63944903
Dawg I never said any of that shit. You're reading an argument into my posts that was never there. Words mean things, and when I say "Scout Sniper school" I don't mean "all sniper schools."
I'll also point out, again, that Recon Marines assigned to Recon Battalions are *not* the same thing as the recon platoon at a line battalion elsewhere in the USMC.
Are you actually autistic? Do you happen to be an HQMC G1 staffer with a hateboner for Scout Sniper School who can't stop seething even in his off time?

>>63944738
>That said, compared to consumable drone systems, armored vehicles, or missiles, sniper rifles are dirt cheap. Maybe $20-30k for the rifle with all accessories included, $1-5 per shot depending on caliber and projectile. Compare to a $100k Javelin, $1000 drones that you expend thousands of per month, etc.
You're ignoring the human carrying that rifle which costs like 100k a year for base model and even more for specialists (not salary, the combined cost of recruiting, training and supporting them). And nobody cares if the drone gets blown up, no gold star families. Grunts aren't cheap, they're actually expensive as shit.

>>63941651
there is no such thing as "elite infantry"
Snipers are completely irrelevant in the modern remote weapon era

>>63944923
Are we arguing that drones should replace humans entirely now?

>>63944917
>You're reading an argument into my posts that was never there. Words mean things, and when I say "Scout Sniper school" I don't mean "all sniper schools."
So what did you mean by this?
>>63944749
>they genuinely did... tell units to figure out how to train their guys themselves

>I'll also point out, again, that Recon Marines assigned to Recon Battalions are *not* the same thing as the recon platoon at a line battalion elsewhere in the USMC.
So what did the USMC mean by this?
>though the service will retain the precision marksmanship capability within the infantry battalion to be employed as necessary for specific missions. The sniper weapons and designated marksmen will be sustained in the infantry companies to provide a precision shooting capability.

>>63943903
Do you even know what can't read means?

>>63941647 (OP)
>>63941651
The USMC was never meant to be Army 2.0.1 instead of light amphibious infantry, which is what the corps is doing right now, returning to its roots and using all the surplus budget to equip the individual marine with better kit (like the IAR) and get more missiles. (The army will do the same, even if for them it makes no sense).

>>63941751
>Are strykers and humvess dead?
Yes, but actually no (depends if we find some third-worlder gullible enough to offload them to).

>>63941669
I'm John Johnson from Oklahoma Oblast and I'm terribly demoralized by this turn of events that were perfectly logical and inevitable.

>>63941647 (OP)
>end of empire
>The Marines are moving Scout Snipers to Recon battalions
Go
Out
Side

>>63944943
>IAR
>Better
So why are the Marines wasting money on shittier equipment?

>>63944933
They meant what I've been telling you the whole time. The institutional scout sniper school (the standardization and quality control point for the skillset for line units) goes away, but units retain their recon sections/scout platoons and the equipment. The problem here is that without a force-wide standard for what skills a sniper should possess, quality of troops will begin to vary significantly, and institutional experience and knowledge will bleed out of the force. The quote you posted is saying that units will keep the equipment, but not trained snipers, just designated marksmen (which are not the same thing at all). It's also saying that units will train their own precision shooting personnel ("...and designated marksmen will be sustained") instead of having an institutional school to rely on... like I've been saying... the whole time.

>>63944981
>Scout sniper course renamed to reconnaissance sniper course
IT'S GOING AWAY!!!!

>Battalions get to keep their Mk.13s, which will be handed out to squad designated marksmen
Seems unlikely that's what they meant.

>>63944973
Because the USN is a cruel and petty mistress. There was a spot open for an LMG in terms of procurement, the IAR fitted the bill in term of specs and gave everyone the chance to ditch all the old M16A2s that were beaten to shit and back.

Every marine is now an "automatic rifleman". Out. Fucking. Skilled.

>>63941647 (OP)
Why not just roll them into the navy into gutting the branch entirely

>>63944938
It means you're a nigger.

What you think is happening
>omg they're getting rid of snipers this is so sad waaah it's the end oh my god
What is actually happening
>scout snipers are now called reconnaissance snipers and the platoon/battalion structure has been changed

The only loss here is the media not freaking out every few years over SS flags, but fuck it they'll probably keep doing that anyway.

>>63945181
You don't understand what's heppening either

>>63945396
I just told you exactly what's happening.

>>63941647 (OP)
DEI requirements. Apparently loud big black women don't make good stealthy scout snipers.

>>63945408
Sorry retard but they still have scout snipers they just got renamed reconnaissance snipers.

>>63945410
>>63945004
There were always two separate sniper courses. The scout sniper course is now gone. The recon sniper course - which a conventional line guy can't go to - is still there. Whatever they call their line precision shooters now, they lack a quality control and standardization institution, which is fucking disastrous for the body of knowledge and experience involved.

>>63945410
Are there any big loud black women in whatever role you want to call it? If not, then I'm proven right. Retard.

>>63945398
Too bad you have no idea what you're talking about
See >>63944773
Scout Snipers came from line Marines. Now the only snipers will be Recon Marines

>>63945422
nope, still wrong
>>63945420
>Instead of scouting now it's reconnaissance, you know, the word that means scouting
it doesn't matter and frankly this entire discussion is retarded.
>b-but it's slightly more exclusive only reconnaissance marines can do the reconnaissance sniper course
It's not like everyone was going to scout sniper school either, no difference
>they lack a quality control and standardization institution
well now that's just blatantly false and retarded.
>>63945429
And why does that matter at all?

>>63945451
Nigger you're still not understanding that Recon Marines are a completely different organization, with its own tasking scheme and chain of command, than line infantry battalions. At this point I think you're just deliberately acting retarded to bait for (You)s.

>>63945457
And that doesn't matter. At all.
>aaah fuck rangers are totally different from regular infantry if you have rangers the regular infantry will uh
>uh actually they'll be just fine
Nothing happened.

>>63945462

>>63944073
Do you think the point of 4chan is just to reword and regurgitate the text of the OP, like scrabble?

>>63943006
> > command a bit squamish about sniper body count, "that's not proper warfare"
This has NEVER happened you lying retard

>>63945451
neverserved

>>63945420
>There were always two separate sniper courses.
The recon sniper course was started in 2021.

USMC boot camp is on the level of ranger school so each Marine is already at a sniper level so it's pointless to make dedicated sniper section because every marine is already a sniper.

>>63946070
Considering every front-line Marine is armed with a sub-MOA rifle and OTM ammo, and the Army is about to adopt a rifle that shoots 3 MOA brand new with match ammo that the Army will not be buying, I'd say you're not far off the mark.