Dark room, snipers and targets: International Sniper Competition held at Fort Liberty

FORT LIBERTY — As white vans pulled up to multiple Fort Liberty shooting ranges Tuesday, snipers quickly got out and the sounds of ricocheting gunshots soon filled the air,

The snipers were participating in the U.S. Army Special Operation Command’s International Sniper Competition hosted by the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

The five-day competition started Sunday, said Lt. Col. Scott Elliott, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Special Warfare Training Group.

“Everything here is focused on a combat-related scenario,” Elliott said. “So it’s not, can you shoot the best, but can you actually do your job of finding the target, the right target and engaging the right target?”

In its 15th year, this year's competition had 18 teams participate, including teams under the U.S. Special Operations Command and six international partners, Elliott said.

The foreign teams were from European NATO-allied countries, he said.

“We don't do anything just as Americans,” Elliott said. "So, bringing our partners in also makes us crosstalk and collaborate. The guys here, they’ll actually hang out … They all know each other, and they’re all helping each other get better.”

The events

The three-person teams participated in about four daily events every 10 minutes and two nightly events.

Competitors couldn’t talk to anyone about the events or see them before arriving at each range. Teams compete using their own sniper rifle, carbine and pistol. Each event had time limits, along with a limited amount of ammunition.

Special Forces Sniper Course instructors designed each event based on real-life scenarios they’ve encountered during deployments, Elliott said.

“It’s not just who can hit the target,” he said. “It’s who can mentally figure out what it is.”

On some ranges, the teams had to shoot targets based on numerical or color sequences.

For example, if a sniper was supposed to shoot a red target first, but hit a blue target first, it could result in no points or losing points, Elliott said.

At one course Monday, he said, one shooter had to hit a target before their teammate could start shooting.

Events were intentionally designed to be challenging so that the snipers wouldn’t hit every target with 100% accuracy, Elliott said.

“It’s definitely an art and a skill to be a sniper,” he said. “They are very good at what they do.”

Teamwork and communication

Another course put shooters in a dark room, and they had to hit five targets in a certain order among 20-30 targets down range.

“They’re kind of testing their ability to communicate amongst each other,” Elliott said.

Sgt. 1st Class Lin, a 1st Special Forces Group soldier whose full name can’t be used because of the nature of his job, was one of the snipers competing this week.

Lin said that for snipers, shooting is “probably only about 10% of the job,” which requires a lot of preparation, discipline, patience, understanding surroundings and “also being able to understand yourself as a shooter, not pushing bad shots.”

“A lot of it’s physical fitness, a lot of rehearsals, and a lot of time training and honing our skills,” he said.

The USASOC International Sniper Competition is one of the ways to hone those skills because special operations snipers balance operating independently and supporting teams, Lin said.

“This is the premiere shooting event, probably in the world,” he said. “There’s nothing like it out there.”

Elliott said the purpose of the competition is to stress teamwork, whether it’s a spotter teammate effectively communicating with the sniper what target to shoot, or the long-term teamwork of working alongside different military branches and with international partners and sharing ways to make improvements.

“We all have our different strengths and our different capabilities, and we can learn from each other,” he said.

Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at rriley@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3528.

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: How International Sniper Competition looked on Fort Liberty