Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
As the film American Sniper, the story of Navy SEAL and marksman Chris Kyle, prepares to compete for the best-picture Oscar at this weekend’s Academy Awards, the role that technology plays in helping these soldiers find their targets is being put under the spotlight.
While Kyle, the man credited with the most confirmed enemy kills in American military history, is often portrayed as a bit of a rock-star, a Friday report from Discovery News pointed out that in many instances, snipers are actually “the geeks of the military” because of “their fascination with technology and their understanding of mathematics, physics and computational algorithms.”
There are an increasing amount of gadgets available that help snipers accomplish their missions, the website explained. For instance, they now have access to handheld devices that can be used to determine range and wind speed, the impact that gravity will have on a bullet’s trajectory, and other ballistic calculations. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
RAZAR sighting device
Engineers at Sandia National Lab have recently unveiled the Rapid Adaptive Zoom Riflescope (RAZAR), a new sighting device that makes it possible for a marksman to change a the focus of a scope from wide-angle to close-up without needing to take their eye away from the rifle stock.
RAZAR is reportedly capable of zooming in milliseconds and performing up to 10,000 focal point actuations using only a pair of AA batteries, Sandia engineer Brett Bagwell told Discovery News. He added that while the instrument was designed to improve situational awareness on the battlefield, it could also have non-military uses such as in binoculars or medical devices.
EXACTO bullet
The Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has also been working on several sniper aids recently, including the self-guided Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance (EXACTO) 50-caliber bullet. Using a real-time optical guidance system, EXACTO bullets can change their path mid-flight to avoid adverse weather and other conditions to zero in on its intended target.
[STORY: DARPA’s self-guiding bullet]
OneShot XG scope
DARPA also recently announced a new scope that can help snipers by determining ballistic trajectory, automatically factoring in wind speed, and other environmental conditions. The scope, which is known as the OneShot XG, could improve accuracy while removing some of the data calculations traditionally performed by the person pulling the trigger, the agency explained.
“The future will likely bring improvements in night-vision technology that will result in greater resolutions with more pixels, as well as better identification of targets at night,” the website said. “The US Marine Corps is also developing a special thermal suit that would block its snipers’ heat signature from detection by enemy spotters, according to a Marine spokeswoman.”
However, former Marine sniper Ryan Innis is not convinced that technology will ever replace the sniper’s need to know how to calculate complex equations on the fly. Innis said that this type of math is “something all snipers have to understand.”
“You have to have that intuitive experience and solid knowledge. An (electronic) rangefinder works awesome, but if the batteries are dead you still have to know your distance to the target.”
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