India has come a long way when it comes to its sniping capabilities. Recently, the Army inducted sniper rifles from Finland, which boast of an effective range of 1,500 metres
The Indian Army’s firepower capabilities has received a massive boost as it officially inducted the Sako .338 TRG-42 sniper rifles from Finland for soldiers deployed along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to a report filed by news agency PTI, the move is to make the snipers more lethal amid a change in operational dynamics along the LoC.
An official told PTI that between 2018 and 2019, there was a sudden increase in the number of sniping incidents along the LoC and International Border (IB) prompting the Armed Forces to induct better sniper rifles and train its snipers against such attacks.
India has a long history of using sniper rifles and the .338 TRG-42 sniper will replace the .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT by Beretta, and the .50 Calibre M95 by Barrett.
We take a look back at the different sniper rifles that the Indian Army has used and their evolution over the years.
Indian Army snipers
Before we delve into the matter of sniper rifles, let’s first understand who are snipers and the role they play in the Indian Army.
The word ‘sniper’ owes its origin to the British Indian Army of the late 18th century. A snipe is a migratory water bird, which has now become rare in India. An elusive bird, the snipe was difficult to shoot — both on the ground and on the wing, due to its habitat in slushy waters, its alertness and its dodgy, ever-changing flight.
To shoot a snipe on the ground or on the wing, extraordinary skills of field craft and marksmanship were required. A soldier proficient in shooting snipes was called a ‘sniper’.
A sniper is a marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target’s detection capabilities. The name comes from the verb “to snipe”, which originated among soldiers in British India in reference to shooting snipes, a bird that was considered an extremely challenging for hunters due to its alertness, camouflaging colour and erratic flight behaviour. AFP
Today, sniping is a highly skilled, precision killing business for most armed forces. They are highly effective in conventional and counter-insurgency (CI) operations.
In the Indian Army, soldiers training to become these skilled marksmen are sent to Infantry School at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh for a four-six week training capsule.
The training at Mhow includes a combination of firing practice and attempts to mentally attune the marksman to patiently await their target through aerobic and yoga lessons and breathing exercises to enhance concentration.
Weaponry used by Indian Army snipers
In the 1950s, there used to be a Sniper Section of 10 men in each Infantry Battalion. They used the Lee Enfield .303 No 4 Mark 1(T) Rifle, considered to be one of the greatest sniper rifles which proved its mettle during World War II.
The experts at Discovery Channel have named it the third best rifle of all time (behind the AK-47 and the American M16).
According to a report published in Livemint, the .303 was not only used by the British to defeat the Germans in the War, but also the rifle with which Lawrence of Arabia captured Aqaba. It is the rifle that cut down the Sikhs at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919.
The gun gained cult status when Rudyard Kipling penned the poem The Grave of the Hundred Head.
When the Indian Army switched over to the semi-automatic 7.62 mm Rifle in the 1960s, no replacement was found for the old sniper rifle. For the next 30 years, the Indian Army had no specialised sniper rifle.
That changed in the early 1990s when the Dragunov SVDN Sniper Rifle with a range of 1300 metres was introduced.
The Dragunov was designed by Soviet weapon designer Yevgeny Dragunov in the late 1950s. The weapon was put through exhaustive testing across environments before the former Soviet armed forces began inducting them. By the late 1970s, the weapon was used in combat in several countries across continents.
An Indian soldier wields a Dragunov sniper rifle as he patrols a road overlooking army barracks in Gingal Uri, some 90 km north of Srinagar near the Line of Control (LoC). AFP
The Russian Dragunov sniper rifle uses a 7.62×54-MMR cartridge and was extensively used by the Indian Army.
Till the late 2000s, the Indian Army continued to use the Dragunov sniper rifle. It was in 2019 that it was announced that the Dragunov would be replaced with the Beretta .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT and the Barrett .50 calibre M95.
The US-made Barrett M95 is an anti-material rifle which has a range of 1,800 metres. An anti-material rifle means the bullet can actually pierce through metal.
According to reports, the gun is a bolt-action sniper rifle chambered in a .50 Browing Machine Gun cartridge (12.7x99mm).
The Victrix Armaments .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT, owned by Italian firm Beretta. Image Courtesy: Victrix Armaments/Facebook
The other rifle was the Victrix Armaments .338 Lapua Magnum Scorpio TGT, owned by Italian firm Beretta.
This rifle uses the .338 Lapua Magnum (8.6x70mm or 8.58x70mm), a rimless, bottle-necked, centre-fire rifle cartridge.
The .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge is based on the legendary .416 Rigby hunting round that was used extensively in Africa during the first half of the previous century.
The .338 Lapua Magnum is a high-velocity round, translating into a flat trajectory for distances well beyond the accurate range of standard assault rifles. Since it is no lightweight round either, this means the bullet has high energy too, which translates into greater penetration and knockdown power.
A shot fired from this rifle can thus penetrate ordinary body armour of an enemy soldier at ranges exceeding a kilometre.
No wonder then that British corporal Craig Harrison in 2009 set the then world record for longest confirmed sniper kill in combat when he killed two Taliban fighters with two consecutive .338 Lapua Magnum shots from almost two-and-a-half km.
Harrison’s third shot destroyed the machine gun these men were operating. The flight time of the bullet was an unbelievable five seconds.
Both these guns were used in the Afghanistan and the Iraq wars.
The TRG 42 is a bolt-action sniper rifle designed and developed by the Finnish gun maker Sako. Image Courtesy: Sako
And now comes the Sako .338 TRG-42 sniper rifles. The TRG 42 is a bolt-action sniper rifle designed and developed by the Finnish gun maker Sako.
The rifle is designed to fire powerful .338 Lapua Magnum-sized cartridges. These rifles weigh 6.55 kg without ammunition, and have an effective range of 1,500 metres.
According to defence experts, it is considered one of the most accurate and trustworthy weapons worldwide.
Snipers in pop culture
Snipers have earned a special place in popular culture with many books and movies reflecting their popularity.
Hollywood movies such as The Deer Hunter and Enemy at the Gates have glorified the role of snipers.
There was also the 1993 movie called Snipers and the famous 2014’s American Sniper which saw Bradley Cooper playing the role of Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle whose pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield.
With inputs from agencies
Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News,
India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.