Because snipers are not the bloody infantry.
Snipers are specialists. They do a very specific job, and they do it well. But they’re squishy, as it were. As long as they can remain undetected, a sniper team can hold up a regiment. But as soon as that sniper is located, or even his general area is fixed…
…bye Vasily.
Furthermore, you generally just do not need snipers that much. Need to pick off one particular officer 800 meters away?
Sniper. Need to kill any of the other men with him from 500 meters? Riflemen will do.
But the biggest single reason is, snipers don’t assault.
You don’t send snipers into the trench or the bunker to clear the enemy out. You don’t send snipers in to kick the enemy off a particular piece of terrain at a particular time, stand on it, hold it, and keep it away from him.
They’re not equipped for it.
That’s the job of the Infantry.
Horses for courses.
Snipers are great in the urban warfare and creating panic and havoc behind the lines, but they aren’t that great in infantry warfare. For infantry, you need those doughboys with assault rifles.
The greatest asset of the assault rifle is that it can provide rapid fire when needed. A sniper rifle cannot. Snipers are bad on holding positions and defending anything.
Having said that, there is a difference between snipers and sharpshooters. Both shoot called targets with a high accuracy rifle, but they are used tactically differently. Sniper teams operate independently as assassins, while sharpshooters operate on the company level and they form a squad in the company HQ platoon.
I think another way to ask your question: why don’t more Infantry use a scope on their rifle?
This is my M-4 (I’m in the middle) for Ought-Three Invasion of Iraq, April 4th, 2003, modified with a 14x Leopold scope:
So, if you want to spend a little bit of money, you can change your Army issue rifle into a “sniper rifle” of sorts. That Leopold scope was better than binoculars, and was always ready. I still had an M2 laser to aim, and believe it or not, I could even still use the Iron-sight. That scope was extremely useful tactically. Just being able to check out whether movement at 500 yards was friend or foe was priceless.
Let me help you with some myths about snipers you might be entertaining:
Snipers are great at choosing a target, but they are not a mass casualty producing weapon. Mortars and Artillery are still today doing 60–90% of the killing. It’s true snipers can call in the artillery/mortars, and that makes them even more deadly, but you still have to realize any soldiers on the battlefield with a radio and a hiding spot can and does do the same thing.
There are tactical snipers and there are sniper teams. Tactical snipers are just a dude with a scope, in any Platoon. They will usually be in a Scout Platoon, but could be Infantry/Mortars as well. That is just a dude with a scope, and I agree with your question: units should have more dudes with scopes… Sniper teams are ultimately wasted resources, who do not assault or help with the attack beyond suppression.
However, it is a gamble; sometimes they spend weeks hiding, and hit a high value target. If you kill the enemy General, then the gamble of wasting your manpower for a week payed off. If you are a 30 man infantry platoon, dividing out a third of your force just to have three OP-sniper teams waiting in a hide, is ultimately wasteful. Most of those sniper teams will do nothing, and come home having accomplished nothing.
My favorite Scout Sniper in Iraq, switching to M16 so he can help assault:
Navy SEAL Sniper Team who do their own thing, and do not help assault:
Wait until we fight an equal Army, like China or Russia, who actually takes ground from us; wait until you see what Infantry do to captured snipers. When your Army retreats, those sniper teams are stranded. If those enemy have any suspicion about whether that sniper has had success on the battlefield, those Infantry will make him squeal before they say goodbye.
