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Finland sharpshooters have triumphed against 44 other teams in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) European Best Sniper Team Competition.
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The three-man sniper team from NATO’s newest ally, since becoming NATO’s 31st ally in April last year, undertook seven days of testing involving physical stamina, camouflage skills, and their ability to think critically while on the move at Hohenfels Training Area in southern Germany.
A “1917” scenario simulated World War I with snipers tasked to crawl under barbed wire and fight through trenches clogged with military-grade tear gas.
Another “Mogadishu” scenario tasked snipers with long-distance shots from the deck of a Lakota scout helicopter before sprinting towards a simulated helicopter crash, where they would engage a series of targets at unknown distances.
Snipers also participated in a “friendly shooting” field day at the event.
“During the sniper competition, the Finns managed to preserve the legacy of their famous forebear. They started strong but fell back to fifth place after special operations snipers from Greece seized first place on day two,” a NATO statement said on 23 January.
“They spent most of the competition lurking just short of the podium, swapping positions with snipers from the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division, while the Greeks stayed on top.
“On the last day, though, the Finns scored top marks on an event that forced them to crowd onto a rubber raft and use the small boat as a transport and shooting platform. They racked up enough points to propel them to a deserved victory. It was a solid showing for NATO’s newest member, and a performance that more than honours the country’s tradition of effective sharpshooting.”
There is already an established legacy of Finnish sharpshooting with Simo Häyhä aka “White Death”, considered Finland’s most lethal marksman and having reportedly killed as many as 500 enemy soldiers while serving with the Finnish Army during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1940.
Earlier this week, American defence industry company Teledyne FLIR Defense, a subsidiary of Teledyne Technologies, announced the introduction of a new long-range cooled thermal sniper sight.
The ThermoSight HISS-HD lightweight, high-performance thermal weapon sight was unveiled at the Las Vegas annual trade show, SHOT Show, on 23 January.
The device is expected to allow precision shooters to detect, identify, and engage targets more than 2,200 metres away with accuracy and using a HISS-HD clip-on thermal weapon sight.
“The new ThermoSight HISS-HD is the unmatched choice for precision shooters looking for a versatile, lightweight thermal sight that increases their range and accuracy,” according to Rob Tarantino, Teledyne FLIR Defense surveillance strategy and development vice-president.
“With HISS-HD, we’ve leveraged our world-class thermal imagining technology to provide marksmen with a superior tool to identify and engage targets anywhere, in any environment.”
The HISS-HD has been announced as an ideal option for long-range snipers and missions involving reconnaissance, force protection, surveillance, and forward observation.
