[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Carlos Hathcock. Outside of focusing on the target, he would insult them. I read a book on sniper biography before and it isn't about character as people like to put it - it is about the ability to flow into the environment, like a musician. You could check out how he responds in the interview in Sniper : Inside the Crosshair - combined with the book it says alot about sniper myths and what kind of person he is.

Emphasis mine. Your mention of Hathcock only supports my premise. He challenged the enemy quietly by wearing a white feather in his boonie hat. Throughout this interview, he's also neither brash nor loudmouthed - just the facts, with a certain confidence and pride in his skills and legacy. And a sense of humor, which one can always appreciate.

I'll allow that he did admit that he did enjoy the hunt and his job, though note that he but not just for killing's sake.

Also, I'm curious to your sources, if only so I may read them. Mine's Marine Sniper, by Charles Henderson, and Sniper School, a Discovery Channel documentary.

I also note that you ignored the last stand of Shugart and Gordon, which was handled by both operators very quietly and calmly while facing certain death.

There are times where I wonder if you're actually serious in participating, given that you don't seem to want to respond to comments others make on your thoughts, but you'll chime in anyway on others. This road ain't one way.

Actually it depends on what kind of sniper weapon we give the person. I have seen a sniper-trained NCO shouting and talking so freely, while his demolition trained deputy is so....quiet.

To both SaintessHeart and Kha: As something which I have mentioned before and which seems to have not registered: there are always exceptions to the general rule. The mere existence of exceptions does not invalidate the general rule. While such exceptions exist, and you have apparently met one in real life, because of the nature of the work they do, there is a strong trend for snipers to be people who know how to shut the fuck up when on scope, and then relax afterwards and blow off steam.

Not shouting away hot bloodedly and in a manner befitting a blood knight, crying out for kills, and taking a delighted excitement in every shot, and thus not focusing on the task at hand. And if you put such a person behind the scope, well then you deserve whatever you're getting.

Also, all the loud yelling and crap would interfere with BRASS, which is key to shooting.

As for the weapon: it would depend on what is your engagement. Military snipers generally engage to further distances than police snipers. Police sniper rifles are usually zeroed for shorter ranges - 100 to 300 meters - and built for greater accuracy than military rifles - they also cost more, generally speaking, though Butei is apparently footing the bill so that's less of an issue.

What to use? Generally most favor the 7.62mm NATO or .308 Winchester Magnum, which are almost similar in terms of profile (IIRC, rifles chambered for the latter can fire the former, but not vice versa due to differences in chamber pressures). There's also the .300 Winchester Magnum, the somewhat more exotic .338 Lapua... 5.56mm is possible but is rarely used for sniping, instead employed in accurised assault rifles such as the designated marksman variant of the SIG SG 550.

.50BGM is rarely used by police snipers; the few cases where .50 BGM antimaterial rifles are known to be used, they are intended as a means of forcibly disabling vehicles.

If you're worried about logistics and supply, 7.62mm NATO is your best bet, since it's one of the most common rifle calibers in the world; .308 Winchester Magnum comes a close second. Regards rifle - depends on your charecter. Bolt action rifles are generally more accurate but unless they use box magazines or stripper clips, generally are a pain in the ass to reload quickly compared to semiauto rifles. On the other hand semiauto rifles can't achieve the level of accuraccy a bolt action can. On the other hand, depending on your engagement range, and your profile, that may not matter - there's a reason why snipers in urban combat in Iraq have been switching to semiauto rifles like M14 DMR/EBR/EMR or the SR-25.

Cut short? Most sniper rifles in the world for dedicated police snipers tend to be bolt action, and Remington makes a tidy sum selling it's 700P and VTR as police-oriented sniper rifles. If you're not sure, go with Remington - Big Green has a good reputation for a reason. Or H-S Precision, which makes the rifles for the FBI's HRT.

Originally Posted by Sheba

It's more a matter of common sense, ask yourself if your sniper is willing to give away her location to the target's homies because she felt like whistling Johnny Comes Marching Home. It's not that hard to think why sniper as a job is usually taken on by people able to keep it quiet during a mission, yes they can crack jokes, yes they can talk about the lastest Spiderman issue but when the time comes there is no room to go perky moé girl. This is why it is easier to compute Kirika Yumura and Mireille Bouquet as possibly taking on sniper job than Subaru Nakajima and Excel, godmamnit. I could nOT make Svetlana a genki moéball, because damn, she was an infant during the fucking Siege of Sarajevo, aka the closest thing to a sniper's wet dream in the last decades, she grew up in an area that had ethnic tension and was about to burst into a new conflict anytime. She had to toughen up a bit, and kept enough of girliness to not turns into a sociopath because that's the least I could do for her to avoid falling into the cold-blooded psychopathic sniper.

Quoted for truth.

The more I look at Hidan no Aria, the more I'm starting to think it's essentially Holmes redone in the modern day, meaning that while there's a general positive vibe and a sense of accomplishment, bad things can still happen in this world and reality still ensures. There's still good in the world, and things are not as bad as Tropa de Elite 1 & 2, but there's still clouds amidst the rainbows...

tl;dr: bad things happen to good people, but this verse has hope that things won't have downer endings.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

I think we are agreeing on the same thing : work ethic. They are quiet during operations and noisy outside of it. So what is wrong with a noisy and energetic sniper? It is the focus on the job at hand that matters, and maintaining radio and noise discipline - not the "character suitability". "Work capability" is certainly more important in this scenario because not many people can flow with the environment.

The problem with Gunblade23's charecter was that he was essentially a loud blood knight who enjoyed the killing perhaps too much and was not able to shut the hell up, and was noisy during operations. And the problem with Kha's idea is that she'd be excited with every shot, being genki while on the scope, and make exclamations with each pull of the trigger.

Persons who are generally loudmouthed, genki, outgoing and gregarious by nature are not people who will be able to turn all that off and focus at the task at hand silently. That was the character suitability that I was getting at, which you seem to have not understood. I speak from observations from my workplace.

Now as with most things if enough work is put into those outgoing and gregarious people, they can be trained to a result that we end up with a more or less happy medium: focus on the scope, and blowing off steam off scope, which is how it should be. Hathcock, afterall, had a sense of humor, and Mawhinney was by accounts a cheerful outgoing guy who was friendly and humorous and completely focused when on the job.

Originally Posted by Terminator98

I think that there's no point... it was just aimed at Kha's wish for snipers saying "NYA" everytime they pull the trigger... moving awkwardly and bumping into objects, tripping everytime while relocating and the such... unless it's a fail sniper. (Or he has something to redeem this.) For example, we could create an OC that equals Reki on the ricochet and aiming magic... but utterly fails at staying discrete or relocating (clumsy). So yeah, the only place you would employ that kind of sniper is in noisy environments where making noises isn't a big problem.

You've more or less summed up the point (or relative lack thereof). That said I would strongly disagree with such a character - both from a practical as well as a story standpoint. As a deployable asset, a character of the nature that you propose would be a hazard to him or herself; also, as said character is none too reliable, few Butei would want to work with such an unreliable asset.

That's why Noa Izumi is one of the best pilots in Patlabor. She may not have Ohta's gung ho or shooting skills, or Kanuka's piloting ability, but she's always reliable and that counts for so much more.