sorry....sniper is a word, defined as shooting at someone from a concealed place. You are explaining infantry tactics let alone just "what a sniper does"
and you don't understand truly what a LE sniper does, aside from think that he just lays on the ground and shoots people. You want to turn this into a .mil v police....feel free to, not why i'm here
you obviously also have a very loose idea of what the majority of LE sniper schools or classes involve. My first 40hr class was a 3 phased effort put on by Camp Lejeune, JPD, and the local community college (for accreditation purposes). We did MUCH more then lay around on the ground with boonie hats.


eta:
to explain what we do....at least the departments i have worked for....
Observation and reconnaissance are the majority of what is done. Expressing possible dangers, IDing subjects, updating information, giving a different and contrasting view point of the situation are just few things that are the main objectives.
When my entry team is going into a high risk situation, the sniper is who is generally looking out for them and updating them on situations they cannot see. We work in two man teams with an observer who is also trained on the rifle. Field craft, night shooting, adverse weather, stalking, shooting on and through obstacles, moving targets, just to name a few things that we include in training. This isn't about comparing military objectives to LE objectives, I do and train for what will get the job done safely and most efficiently. Also a bolt gun doesn't have the malfunction issues of a semi-auto, and a trained shooter doesn't have that big of a difficulty with bolt manipulation, so i don't see a huge disadvantage or advantage to either

I'm not a Ninja like Monk.



 

This is a good synopsis of the class in the article.
 

Really? Looks to me that the dumbass up on his toes is getting himself into the rifle. The bolt is to the rear. His hand is not in a shooting position.
Or could be he's an old broke down man and his legs don't flex that way.


Hell for all we know the photo was taken first thing in the morning when everyone was just setting up their mats and checking parallax on the targets.


GD never fails to amaze me.

Wow....we've got:

1) word/phrase parsing
2) dick-measuring
3) "you ain't worth a shit"-ing
4) cops/shooting dogs
5) incorrect assumptions and posts based nothing more than criticizing an author of a post simply because the author didn't want to write a book

What else could make this thread better?  I KNOW:  
21-Time World Heavyweight Champion, RIC FLAIR!

Too many guys criticizing the prone positions when they're not even ready to fire/checking gear/bolts to the rear...

I just need to get one thing straight -- you guys had to shoot a 2"x4" target at 100 yds 90% of the time?  So, an 8 sq. in. target only 9 times out of 10?  Was it moving?

If not, seems pretty simple to me.  I gather most of the arfcommers who visit the precision rifle forum could pass it with ease.  

Then again if it was moving at times, that would be hard as fuck.  I'd seen something on a range in Quantico I think where the targets would bob and traverse and the FBI HRT and USSS snipers would be expected to score hits reliably.  Looked difficult.

Same qual and same targets as the FBI course. Just cut from 80 hrs to 40 hrs.
Here are the targets.
Cold bore

Stress shots ( 4 min run/jog) onto same target.


Then another stress run.
9 shots in 7 min. Your rounds are 50 yds behind you, you run, pick up 1 round then run back to your rifle, take a shot @100 yds then do again for 9 rounds.
The circle is a 1" circle. Targets are printed on a 11x8.5 standard piece of typing paper.



No not a terribly complicated course but it's still an excellent course.
I mean nothing like what you get from your average basement video game but still training.

You're a smart guy, so I'll just throw out one example of an end-of-course Culmination Exercise, and let you fill in the building block components for it that would transpire throughout the course to develop proficiency for all the tasks involved.


I. Situation:

Officers are operating out of assigned vehicles ALONE (no "sniper" partner) within 5 minutes of the training area.  They are not on-site.  Culmination Ex is conducted during hours of limited visibility between 2145hrs and 0600hrs.

Simulated Dispatch call:  Officer down near national forest, multiple suspects at large, at least 3-5 Hispanic adult males with assault rifles, multiple shots fired, EMS is en route, no officers on scene other than the initiating officer, who is severely wounded from multiple GSW's and bleeding profusely from chest, legs, groin, and head.  Sounds like she's going unconscious from blood loss.

Weather:  What you have
Terrain:  Rural National Forest with rolling hills, dense vegetation
Identification:  Last audible description of suspects was 3-5 Hispanic males, 5ft 7" to 5'11" varying in build, driving a large blue Chevy truck with dual rear wheels, one wearing a light tan jacket, another wearing a blue sweater and cowboy boots.  
Location:  Suspects last seen at _________
Activity:  Suspects fleeing the scene in _________ direction
Probably Course of Action:  Suspects are attempting to flee the area by truck, will shoot to kill, are armed and extremely dangerous, with no reservations of shooting uniformed LEO's.

II. Mission:

Contain area. Secure downed officer.  Provide First Aid until higher medical care is available.  

Apprehend or stop suspects in force, do not attempt alone.  Protect innocents in area.  Fix, Disarm and Secure suspects, dead or alive.  

III. Execution:

Concept of the response

First unit on scene establishes blocking position at __________to secure exit of the area.
Second unit on scene secures the officer down's location, provides first aid.
Training considerations:
Officer begins taking fire while providing first aid.  Propane gun simulator
Notional blocking position established (for training, students who have already gone through the entire exercise can now function at the blocking position and rotate through)
Once two units have assembled, begin route clearance of the area.

Suspect vehicle located in ditch.  Clear vehicle as 2-man element.  Tracks found.  Situation and reaction decision-making point.  Notional or real K-9 employed at this time?  Or rush to downed officer?  Track down suspects first?  Decide quickly, gurgles/moans heard on radio of downed officer.

Secure downed officer for EMS?  Is EMS going to get ambushed?  Stay with downed officer until relieved?  Provide emergency first aid for sucking chest wound, heavy venous bleeding neck wound, severe groin wound, leg wound without sacrificing security.  Consider Life Flight and CASEVAC procedures.

Move tactically with K-9 on scent.  Expect ambush.  Quick terrain analysis and route selection.

Movement to cabin area.  No tracks leaving the cabins.  S&R stakes:  Decision point & discuss quickly.  

* Hostage scenario.  

* Cabin Scenario.

* Hijacked cabin-dweller vehicle scenario in progress (shoot-through windshield opportunity)

* Escape attempt run & gun from remaining suspects

* Secure suspects




IV. Service & Support:

Uniform and Equipment Common to all:  Regular duty uniform, to include Patrol, K-9, part-time SRT, UC officers, etc..  Establish importance of clear ID markings, especially in hours of limited visibility.

Weapons and ammunition:  Standard organizational duty kit plus vehicle load-out.  Marksmen rifles, carbines, scatterguns, pistols

First aid:  Vehicle and on person

Batteries for electronics

Emergency marking equipment for roads

Inclement weather attire available

MEDEVAC procedures & equipment
Primary:
Alternate:
Contingency:
Emergency:

Suspect prisoner control:  Method of handling prisoners if taken

Training S&S
Suitable training area with terrain and conditions that reflect the jurisdictional area
Training Director
Training staff
Wound simulations effects (Moulage kit)
EMS personnel to evaluate First Aid (Senior SRT/SWAT Medics, ER Docs/volunteer LEO's)
Role-players: Dispatch and downed female casualty
RSO's
TGT detail
3D targets with clothing
RC wheeled moving target
RC Propane guns


V. Command & Signal

A. Command
1. Location of the on-site commander
2. Role of higher command (training consideration: lots of radio demand, "What's your status?" , multiple agencies and network saturation, confusion, sensory overload)
3. Location of key personnel
4. Succession of command

B. Signal
1. SOI Index: Department or training site radios on secure training freqs with appropriate coordination with local and within-range first responder units.
Freqs and call signs for all
2. Commo method priorities
3. Signals
4. Codewords
5. Life Flight Markings for night

Give me 40 hours of dedicated training time, and I would expect a realistic Culmination Exercise.  This turned out to be more of a multi-agency scenario, but we can still run it like this for students as they arrive on-scene and are paired up based on when they arrive, just like reality.  If you back-track through this, there are way more skills being evaluated than shooting, although there is important demand for several scenarios where a well-trained shooter with a capable system is necessary.

Summary
The jist of this is based off narco-traffickers who gun down a female officer in or near National Forest.  We had it happen here in the Salt Lake Valley within the past few years.  A female officer was shot through the neck by narcos when she conducted a traffic stop at night.

One of the things this addresses is the reality that you often won't have the luxury of being with a "sniper buddy" glassing the target for you, when a critical precision shot has to be made to save life (hostage situation in the car).  It also forces the practical discussion/application of rifle/carbine fire into a vehicle at night through a windshield under time constraints and possibly at an angle, forcing decisions about where to position if possible, minimum caliber/bullet construction/accuracy requirements/etc. and organizational discussions for training posture first.

Jesus christ, I thought I was going to come in to find some cool pictures of sniper training and instead I find the Sergeant Major Eating Sugar Cookies.

BS
According to this thread they're all experts.

Some of the comments are just .  

This thread had nothing to do with any incident and they still can't help themselves. Yea, no one hates cops on arfcom....just the bad ones.  Yea riiiiiiiight.

IIRC the longest LE "sniper" shot ever taken (in the US) was 77 yards...

If I'm wrong then we will find out shortly.

I think 70 yrds is the average LE shot.
I do know the closest FBI shot was 18yds and I can't remember the longest.

I want to be clear that my comments aren't meant as a critique of LE precision marksmen, and the photo in OP doesn't stick out to me in a bad way.  What I wanted to do was provoke a discussion geared towards reality-based training, which has caused a massive stir in the military sniping community, for the better.

In the 1990's-early 2000's....
We used to go to the KD range, get in a nice prone position with our M24's, and shoot all day, recording everything in a little log book made with MRE cardboard covers, wrapped in 100mph tape.  Then we had target detection and range estimation exercises, stalking exercises, report formats, etc.  I was in 2 out of 3 Scout Platoons that had "good" Sniper Sustainment programs for the doctrine at the time, but when we deployed, a lot of that stuff wasn't really relevant, starting with organization of a sniper team, the use of a bolt-action rifle, spotting scopes, individual soldier load, etc.

A lot of this feedback eventually forced its way into the school houses, although TRADOC won't allow Fort Benning to do much of anything that makes sense.  SF's and the SEAL's courses totally changed.  That doesn't mean LEO's need to adopt SF and SEAL Sniper Training Programs Of Instruction.  Maybe good LE organizations have been conducting appropriate training all along?

The point is to step back and say, "Is what we're teaching valid?  Can we be better?  If so, how and where should be adapt?"

Examples
In the SOF community, many people already knew this, but 2-man Sniper Teams are hard to deploy and support, and they just don't work tactically, and especially don't work from a logistics perspective.
As far as shooting goes, why rely on a spotter for your fire control if there's a good possibility that you and your spotter will either both be shooting, or will be separated?  That has changed the whole approach to shooting in some circles.  The squeals have always focused on an individual shooter, while Army and Marines have run the 7.62 systems as a crew-served weapon.  The importance of spotting for yourself and making the correction has become more common, and shooters are much better for it.

Weapons
We ditched the M24 because it isn't worth its weight in combat, and it sucks unless you're sitting on a nice range in the prone shooting steel or E-Types at distance.  SF/Squeals had already been using SR25's since the early 90's in a marginal capacity, but the M24 was still the primary system in school even at Range 37 for SF.  Squeals did a lot with M14's, then McMillan's in their course before it was overhauled.

The 24" SR25's became 20" Mk.11 Mod 0, then 20" M110's for big green Army.  SF is now going to 16" M110C's with 175gr OTM and telescoping stocks, and that's for a gun that is still reaching out, but recognizing practical limits of weapon size.  Hit probability has totally changed with ballistics software, to where guys are getting 1st-round hits easily at 800m during record fire, to where the school had to reduce target sizes at distance to make it challenging.  Back in M24 days, making a hit on an 800m sil was extremely difficult for record fire within 2 rounds cold turkey.

Division of Labor
I think most people have realized by now that in a static position, you can go shooter/shooter, versus shooter/spotter.  A lot of that has been because of optics coming along so far, and people saying, "Why am I carrying this spotting scope, when I have a capable high magnification rifle optic with Mil hash reticle matching my buddy's?"

DM vs. Sniper
For the LE world, I think the best thing that could happen would be to increase the amount of trained DM's, but run marksmanship and scenario-based training that puts more skilled shooters in the field, without messing around with bolt guns and Ghillie suits, SRT support, etc.  It doesn't take 80 hours to add significant capabilities to a force, and a Designated Marksmen program for the patrol officer adds critical skills that can be plugged in during many incidents, like the one I detailed above, the LA crap we saw earlier this year, or mass shooting incidents.

OP:  Nice stress drills on the face target.  One thing I like to do that is a variation of the face drill with NPOA is use the mannequin Styrofoam heads to illustrate why shot placement is important, and I place them on 3D targets for the Culmination Exercises with scenario-based training.  It also allows positioning of the heads from multiple aspects since you won't always have a perfect frontal shot, and now where will your shot be for an oblique aspect?  Makes it more fun I think, but is costly compared to card stock for the face prints.

Great post.

It looks like the shooting worlds "first day at bootcamp".

You remember that day.  Before the haircuts.

Excellent post.
3D targets are awesome and really give a reality touch to head shots.
Costly too.

I've found that the Styrofoam heads last a long time for me.  I paint them flesh color, with hair, detailed eyes, and texture to be as real as possible.

Hundreds of yards. I'm aware of one at more than 600.

I've always heard the longest was 500 and was on the mall at Washington or something like that.  Guy with a grenade if I remember.  Found it here actually, good read.  

http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/article_archive/results/details?id=3879

Very good article, confirming the direction I wanted to push the thread:



Average Police Sniper Distances and Details of Shootings   (same article from above post)

So understanding that the majority of real-world shoots happen from alternate positions, what should that do to a training program of instruction?

What percentage of the shots in the class should be taken from the prone?
How much kneeling, seated, squatting, seated, and improvised variations of those foundational positions should be conducted in a course?
A huge factor in shooting well from positions is physical fitness and flexibility.  Being able to quickly get into an awkward position, settle it in, and make good shots is a critical real-world skill.

What do these findings do to my weapon/equipment posture and preferences?  That guy with the short and stubby bolt gun isn't looking to awkward anymore when he's able to make better hits than the guy with the 24" or 26" heavy barreled boat anchor that wobbles like Michael J. Fox in Congressional Testimony after ditching his Parkinson meds for 5 days.

While many of us can run a bolt gun very quickly from the bipod-supported prone, that changes in the kneeling, seated, squatting, and other hasty positions.  With a lightweight 16" carbine chambered in a capable cartridge, I have much better results from positions from start to finish, especially with follow-up shots, and maintaining a steady sight picture longer.

^
That certainly goes against what I thought. Learn something new every day.





Guess I need to hit the range.





Moto, you comin?

 

Well, when you make your target the whole range, I guess you're bound to hit something at some point, even if only through statistical anomaly

I think I'm going to give this a try next time I'm at the range, just to see how badly I end up!  Sounds like it would be quite an eye opener!

Hobby Lobby has them for $4

I will beat you with a bag of milk.



 

 

Sure thing I'll bring my short stubby bolt gun with me.
I checked out the styrofoam heads @ Hobby Lobby today.

Think it's worth it?



 

Pretty fun, after 9 rounds and running 900yrds I was pretty proud of my shots. Especially for a fat old man. ( some asshole in the class dubbed me Geriatric)

Yep, pretty close.



FBI "Observer/Sniper Qualification Course





Phase One - a cold bore shot fired from 100 yards at the
full-face target. This shot is pass/fail and must strike the two by
four-inch band on the face of the target. Time limit: 1 minute.





Phase Two - Two shots fired at a face target reduced in size to
equate a (sic) 200 yard shot. The rounds must strike within a 2 1/4 by
7/8 inch rectangle on the face. Time limit: 2 minutes





Phase Three - Three shots fired at the original face target (with
two by four inch rectangle) after completing a 4 minute run. Again,
these rounds must strike within the rectangle. Time limit: 1 min. and 10
sec. 200 yard





Phase Four - 4 shots at the two inch circle. Time limit: 2 minutes 200 yard



copied from here





 

 

Well I'm gonna try'em and see. I was going to buy some today but the lines were to long and I got impatient.
Plus they didn't have any child size heads, but they did have some that would pass for the prego.

I'm going to try them out next weekend.

 

I know of one that was 600 yards or so, but was a miss.

USBP

+1 to the part highlighted in red

That shot should be made 100% of the time. Not much of a standard for a "sniper".

Guess you missed the rest of the quals?
But don't let me rain on your little parade.

If I were an LEO with the skills I have, I would want a shoulder-fired weapon that I could rapidly deploy with from the driver or passenger seat of whatever vehicle I was in.  I would want something that could perform well as an entry carbine, as well as a DM system, and I would want excellent barrier penetration, with rapid expansion/energy transfer on targets to limit collateral.

I would want as low of an optic as possible for minimal offset for critical shots.  It would have to be a very lightweight system with a great barrel that placed cold shots predictably within .75 MOA of last range session.

Hell, getting them to hit what they aim at at 20 feet would be an improvement!

So, an AR-10?