Just doing a lot of reading, talking with current military, and documentaries, the role of the sniper has changed. What use to be a one or two man crew is now a crew of three or more especially for urban environments. They have run into the problems of being ambushed from behind when held up in a building providing a support role. So now they have teams of shooter/snipers, with coms, and armed rear support watching the doors.
When in towns and cities their shots are from a 20 or 30 yards up to 600 depending on their position. One recorded sniper sat for an afternoon picking taliban off out to 600yrds watching down a street trying to run from building to building to get close enough. The need for better calibers other than the .308 Win. is why we see a lot of hype about the 338 Lapua and 300WM. They need that support much farther out than what they are use too. 50BMG sniper systems are being used quite often and with good effect.
Out in the field they have had to change tactics both at company level through military policy on fighting. The taliban has learned that "most" soldiers can't hit much past 300m with the M16 and M4's. So the taliban move back into a position just outside of effective range and launch their attacks with rockets, mortars and heavy machines guns. They know if they get too close they will more than likely be killed. So the Military has adopted squad level marksman for this purpose. They are trained at sniper schools on shooting skills verses sniper tactics for stealth. They are usually issued an M14 highly modified or the M110 (I believe) for those long shots. These guys are able and regularly take shots in excess of 600m. The battle field is now a long range battle verses traditional up close and personal battle.
Sniper teams have been deployed in higher numbers for this war than any other war that I can think of. The necessity of shooting 800m plus is in a much higher demand than ever. Because of the terrain it is also suitable to the snipers abilities.
Tank
