12 NAVY NEWS, NOVEMBER 2007
● Four for good... A quartet of Royal Marine snipers on patrol during exercises
around Kirkcudbright
Pictures: PO(Phot) Tam MacDonald and LA(Phot) Nick Tryon, FRPU Clyde
LLook who’ook who’ss stalking stalking
A posting up to the Scottish “That speedboat is trying to engines off a simulated
I
N THE long wild grass
of the Kirkcudbright
territories of the Clyde is not get away, so it’s all down to him speedboat – some rather
a prospect that fi lls the RM then.” battered surfboards with barrels
training range, snipers with glee, but rather than The four-week course runs nailed to the back at the long
the foliage shifts
a cold career contemplating the from the Clyde to Yeovilton as end of a tow-rope to a distant
imperceptibly as six
exterior of nuclear submarines the Marines get to grips with boat.
men edge through the
in the Faslane base, snipers the maritime sniper’s weapon Maritime snipers can
with FPGRM’s Fleet Standby of choice, the AW50 – a re- currently be found working
undergrowth. Rifl e Troop can get engineered version with 815 Naval Air Squadron
Clad in ghillie suits – the themselves into the of the L96 or aboard tanker RFA Wave Ruler
traditional dress of the Scottish Maritime Sniper standard sniper disrupting the drug-traffi ckers
gamekeepers – the Royal Marine Team. rifl e in the British in the Caribbean.
snipers are on a ‘stalk’ in the And once four military. It seems that the prospect is
isolation of the Kirkcudbright weeks of training is It’s the next proving appealing to the snipers
range. complete, they could three weeks with the on the Scottish guard duty – Sgt
A ‘stalk’ is, in the words of well fi nd themselves Fleet Air Arm down in Bentham laughs: “We’ve got
maritime sniper Sgt Benny basking in the Caribbean Yeovilton that hones volunteers knocking the door
Bentham of Fleet Protection sunshine, hanging out the the art of positioning down.
Group RM, “sneaking up on door of a racing helicopter and targeting from the “As snipers up here they don’t
someone and shooting them”. and sighting down the barrel at weaving platform of a Naval get to do their job, so that’s why
So that clears that up then. the engine of a drug-traffi cking helicopter. we try to do the training course
Snipers are specialists, a motorboat dashing through the The work with the Lynxes up at Kirkcudbright range.
breed apart from their Marine blue waters below. of 815 NAS is brought to “That was conventional
brethren, and while the snipers “Once the pilot loses sight, completion with a fi nal exercise sniper training – normal
number three score, there are it’s the lad hanging out the over the waters off Lulworth shooting, long-range shooting,
only eight qualifi ed maritime door that matters – he’s the one Cove near Weymouth. a bullet penetration demo with
snipers within the whole trying to get the shot,” said Sgt The newly-fl edged maritime different calibre rifl es. And they
brigade. Bentham. snipers cheerfully blow the did a stalk.”
● Strike it wookie... (below and left) the commandos ‘stalk’ through the undergrowth and woods of the Kirkcudbright range
0012_NN_Nov.indd 112_NN_Nov.indd 1 117/10/07 09:14:307/10/07 09:14:30
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