Sniper by Adrian Gilbert

Sniper, by Adrian Gilbert

One Shot, One Book

I got more than my share of weird looks from this book. Not from reading it, but from talking about it. After the chapter on bullet wounds, I would actually wave my hands around excitedly and talk about the effects of cavitation or the requirements for immediate incapicitation until my friends would grimace at me and go, "Jesus, Jeff. I'm orried about you." I'm sure you don't have to have a weird sniper fixation like I do to enjoy this book. But if you do, I think you're going to enjoy this book an awful, awful lot.

One of the great things about Sniper is that it's pretty much a great all-in-one book about military sniping. It covers the history of sniping, mentions a lot of the greats (Hatchcock, Zaitsev, H. Hesketh-Prichard, Ernst Junger), details the changes in riflery and ammunition and how that affected the sniper's job, as well as that awesome chapter on wound ballistics and a great introduction to marksmanship. About the only flaw to Gilbert's book is being almost too complete--the penultimate chapter detailing the various sniper rifles of the world really should have been an appendix and kept me from finishing the book two or three months sooner than I did. Gilbert's also either a Brit or his passions lie with the British army but a fair chunk of the book seems to cover the Empire's every thought and advancement on the field (a similar suspicion arises after reading the wealth of detail Gilbert plays to WWI). But these passions only help the book at certain points; particularly evocative were the complex roles snipers played in trench warfare. Frequently, patches of trench would become complacent, with both sides "agreeing to disagree" and firing their guns up in their air or only at certain times to keep up the appearance of hostilities. Into this situation would enter the sniper, most of whom were free to roam at will, who would destroy the truce by picking off targets and then moving on, leaving the entrenched behind to deal with retributive counter-fire and the dissolution of good will. Not surprising then that snipers were not only killed by the enemy when they were caught, they were often made pariahs by their own troops. Another advantage of Gilbert's interest is the chapter "British Sniping After 1945," which has both a brief but compelling section of sniper warfare in Northern Ireland (including reports of a .5 caliber heavy sniping rifle and the theory that the IRA might have used a renegade operative from the US Special Forces) and a quick but mind-boggling recounting of sniper battles in Crater during the Aden Emergency. Despite this interest, it never feels like a bias, and by moving for a large overview, Gilbert never gives the prose the chance to get gushy and melodramatic (like Henderson's Marine Sniper).

The book uses a wealth of resources, all of which it cites extensively in its bibliography, allowing the reader to further research the areas that catch your interest (I'm pretty locked into Vietnam-era sniping of which a lot of the books I've already bough I notice are cited, but you can bet I'll be returning to the WWI section when I get a chance). Although I'm sure second-hat for the military or sniper afficionado, Sniper is the perfect book for the perhaps-too-enthusiastic beginner.

Buy This Book From Amazon

Back To Bio

Back To Home