Here's an interesting but not especially cheerful article about the experiences of "Wali" a Canadian sniper who was in Ukraine for two months.
>>>But the hunting for enemy tanks was often hampered by the overwhelming Russian forces they faced and by inexperienced soldiers who too often gave up their position.
Which is what happened one fateful day in the woods of Donbas. Wali tried to warn two Ukrainians to put out their cigarettes and stick to the small, damp trench they’d dug, rather than move closer to nearby Russian tanks. Instinctively, he moved several metres away from the pair.
Moments later a huge explosion lit up the site, pieces of burning shrapnel shooting through the air “like lasers.” Then he saw the two Ukrainians. One lay on the ground, his legs and one arm gone, clearly dead. The other was still barely alive, his body ravaged by the blast.
Then, “ten seconds after I came he stopped breathing.”<<<
He was apparently hampered significantly because he didn't have a range finder or a spotter:
>>>When they had a falling out, Wali made his way to Kyiv and eventually scored a top-shelf sniper rifle, though without a range-finder. That’s a crucial piece of gear for shooting far-away targets. The precise distance, temperature and wind speed are entered into a table that tells the shooter how to adjust the rifle’s scope to ensure the bullet follows the intended path. Wali also lacked a spotter, the sniper’s usual partner. “If I had all the means I had in Afghanistan, it would be slaughter all day long … it would be easy.”<<<
Wali taught himself how to fire a Javelin anti-tank rocket launcher — watching videos on YouTube
nationalpost.com
