It’s the end of an era dating back to World War I. The United States Marine Corps isn’t training scout snipers anymore. On Dec. 15, the last eight graduated from the Marines’ scout sniper training school in North Carolina.
The decision to phase out scout snipers is part of the Corps’ Force Design 2030, a branch-wide plan to modernize and prepare for a conflict with what the Corps calls a “near-peer adversary.” That’s military speak for a fight with China.
China’s ambition to compete with, and possibly defeat, the U.S. economically and militarily means it spent the last couple of decades or so building up the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the Rocket Force. Now, the PLAN is the world’s largest navy in terms of hulls. China’s Rocket Force is also enough of a threat the whole of the U.S. plan to keep peace in the Pacific is changing to a distributed force posture.
The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. David Berger, said Force Design 2030 doesn’t mean Marines stop being lethal. In order to kill enemies armed with advanced sensors, though, Marines need to be able to scout ahead a little further than a sniper can shoot.
Instead of 18-man scout sniper platoons in an infantry battalion, the Corps will field 26-man scout platoons in reconnaissance battalions.
According to reporting by Marine Corps Times, Marine spokesman Capt. Ryan Bruce said, “the shift to a Scout Platoon will allow those Marines to focus their training and evaluations on the scouting, providing commanders the right tools to accomplish their mission.”
Giving commanders the right information is a core function of scouting and always has been.
The Marines first started using scout snipers in World War I. They are highly trained warfighters, and for decades were entrusted with being their commanders’ eyes and ears beyond the frontlines. If the Corps is the tip of the spear for the American military, scout snipers are the very end of the pointy part. Or were.
The move to phase out scout snipers isn’t without its critics. The CEO of the USMC Scout Sniper Association, retired Master Sgt. Tim Parkhurst, told Marine Corps Times scout snipers were widely recognized as “one of the most cost-effective, force-multiplying assets on the battlefield.”
Parkhurst said infantry battalions are losing capability and won’t be as combat effective without scout snipers.
The Marine Corps said it still needs snipers, though. They’ll be trained as recon snipers and distributed among reconnaissance battalions.
So, what is an infantry commander to do if they need a sniper? The Corps said some infantryman will be trained as precision marksman and can be called upon as needed.
Gen. Berger said the heightened focus on reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance doesn’t diminish the importance lethality in the Marines. However, Berger said, “You can’t use the lethality if you can’t find them. Or, said another way, If you’re so fat and immobile and vulnerable to their sensors, all the lethality in the world ain’t going to help you.”