What is the US army's sniper designation?

Answer 1

The Army's Special Additional Skill Identifier for snipers is B4. They must complete the Sniper Course at Fort Benning, and must hold MOS 11B. A sniper who is a staff sergeant assigned to the 82nd Airborne (where all soldiers must be airborne qualified) is 11B3P B4.

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There was no "special" designation for US Army snipers during the Vietnam War. They simply have had to fire expert during their BICT/AIT (Basic Infantryman Combat Trng (Boot Camp) & Advanced Individual Trng); which was all M14 service rifle back then (the US Army considered the M16 to be a "jungle rifle" during the first 3/4th's of the war and ONLY familiarized men with that rifle if they had orders to go to South Vietnam). If US Soldiers were not headed for South Vietnam; they never saw an M16 rifle (they were issued M14 service rifles).

Men with an infantry MOS (back then) had an 11B designation. They went thru Basic (Boot Camp) with an M14 rifle. After graduation from Boot Camp they went to infantry AIT, then they trained with the "jungle rifle." When passing columns of 250 trainees (250 man companies) going in opposite directions, you could always tell who was headed for Vietnam; they had camo over their steel pots and an M16 rifle. Boot trainees had bare metal steel pots (steel helmets with NO camoflage covers) and carried M14 rifles, plus a white "maggot tag" sewn over their pockets. That white cloth tag indicted the man was a "boot" (trainee). AIT trainees won the right to rip their's off upon graduation from boot camp.

Once in country, "Divisions" normally conducted sniper trng, normally 3 weeks; done in country; but brigades could conduct trng also. Orders were cut at Div or Bde level. Men were normally assigned to infantry battalions, HHC. They seldom spoke with anyone, other than with their own kind. They took their orders directly from the 2 or 3 (intel or ops). When their time was up, they simply turned in their XM-21 with their Redfield scope/case & night scope and went home. No one said a thing; and he didn't talk about it. Officially he never existed.

The USMC started the first OFFICIAL US school in 1969. The US Army followed suit years later. Now, there might be an MOS indicator. Recruiting personnel may not want to disclose the sniper MOS code, but then again they might. One of the BIGGEST problems faced by all these special super dooper units is that they ATTRACT "wanna-bes", and the Vietnam era snipers manuals SPECIFICALLY states (it's in writing) to be aware of men that want to become snipers for all the wrong reasons (and then the Army Manual lists some of those reasons). Consequently, recruiters might be hesitant upon discussing that type of work.

The manual also states: All snipers are marksman. But not all marksman are snipers.