.50 cal sniper rifles and shoulder launched weapons like Carl Gustaf, the M72 LAW or the AT4 can.
Firing a rifle may or may not cause shock waves that are strong enough. If you have been firing a whole day you definitely feel funny in the head.
Firing a rifle may or may not cause shock waves that are strong enough. If you have been firing a whole day you definitely feel funny in the head.
The US military, and militaries in general, do not use weapons like the M82/M107 as sniper rifles very often. The M82/M107 in particular has a recoiling barrel (the entire 2.5' barrel slides back when shooting) and isn't a very precise weapon.
They're used for blowing up ordinance or disabling light vehicles. They are sometimes used for hostage situations because they're more likely to immediately disable someone.
The US military has pretty rarely used shoulder fired weapons, since they very rarely have to worry about tanks or aircraft. SEALs in particular wouldn't be doing that.
Do you know that, or are you thinking "these are AT weapons so they wouldn't be used"?
I haven't worked with US forces on a tactical level, but I have served in Afghanistan with my own country's SOFs. We used M72s extensively, even though we never engaged any armor.
I wasn't around for this picture, but it illustrates the point:
This should really be a big, fat, red flag that something is not quite right..
The CG is LOUD. Wicked backblast on that, too.
Generally, you're limited to firing 6 rounds or less per day during training due to blast & shockwave effects. The guys we trained with didn't have that much ammo on hand, anyway, but interesting to know.
https://www.forsvarsmakten.se/ImageVault/publishedmedia/fumm...
You're much more likely to see SF guys with short-barreled rifles, pistol-caliber carbines, suppressors on everything, etc. For all the (justified) complaints about military overspending, there just aren't the resources or training available to give every rifleman a suppressor.
Math avoids this kind of uncertainty.
lead is also easy to detect in blood, or via things like hair samples. no doubt SF types are getting more residue than most, but again fairly easy to notice