by The Wall Street Journal ran an article on the conflict in Syria this past Monday. It was not the war news that caught my eye but the photo that they used to illustrate it. The photo from Reuters featured a Syrian rebel sniper preparing to shoot from inside a concrete and sandbag bunker. His weapon? A FN-FAL with a big rifle scope.
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| Reuters photo as seen in Wall Street Journal |
If you check out the front iron sights as well as the curve of the buttstock, you know that he is using a FN-FAL.
I don’t have any training or expertise as a sniper but I think the young man might have been better served if he used a sandbag rest for his FAL and had fired from further back in the bunker so as to minimize his muzzle flash.
And if he's not going to have a rest for the rifle, at least have his weak arm elbow resting on the sandbag that is there. But what do I know, not like I've ever had to hit something half a mile away with a 7.62 round.
Given he's joined the rebels, he may not have (military) sniper training, expertise, or experience, either. He might just be "that guy" who's pretty good with a rifle. We'll probably never know who he is or where he comes from.
Sticking the barrel out the hole would keep a lot of the noise down on his side of the shot, wouldn't it? I don't see any ear pro and that's a pretty confined space.
Not that that offsets any of the other issues mentioned, but people do stupid things for comfort reasons all the time.
@Matthew: Good point about the hearing protection. To follow up on your point about doing stupid things for comfort reasons, that may just get him killed.
I would bet that like many other pictures they put out this is staged.
I find the fact that they are getting after market dust covers to mount scopes far more interesting.
That model does not have a railed dustcover from the factory. And the railed covers available are of dubious utility. Someone is taking the trouble to get after market railed dustcovers and scopes. Knowing what is available in the US for this application I suspect they are aluminum and Chinese. DSA in the US make such a animal that is very good for this. It would be unlikely they came through that channel because of ITAR. Leapers Chinese stuff from international eBay seems likely.
@RoTAVAToR: I noticed the dust cover rails as well. I have one from DSA on my Imbel FAL and it is well-machined. It also isn't cheap. How the Syrian rebels are getting these dust covers does make for an interesting question.