FEATURED AUTHOR
MAJOR JOHN L. PLASTER, USAR (Ret.)

Major John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.), served three 1-year tours in Southeast Asia with the top-secret Special Forces covert operations unit, MACV-SOG. Qualified as a paratrooper and a Green Beret weapons and communications NCO, he led intelligence-gathering recon teams deep behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. While running 22 such missions, Plaster was wounded once and decorated for heroism four times. In addition to his extensive ground combat, Plaster was selected in 1970 to fly with USAF Forward Air Controllers and accumulated more than 350 aerial combat missions. Leaving Vietnam as a staff sergeant, due to his extensive combat experience he received a direct commission as a reserve officer. Under the GI Bill, he attended the University of Minnesota and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism.

Combining his SOG experiences at stealth, camouflage, and stalking with his postwar experiences as a competitive shooter and state marksmanship coordinator, in 1983 Plaster cofounded a Reserve Component sniper training program, which quickly became a major national school, instructing hundreds of students from all military services and many law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Customs Service, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Spanish Foreign Legion. After retirement he continued to instruct for police agencies–­from Alaska to Florida and California to Connecticut–including a four-year stint as a precision rifle instructor at the prestigious Gunsite Training Center. He twice served as the chief of competition for the U.S. and European Military and Police Sniping Championships, personally designing the targets and running the matches.

In addition to guest lecturing at various special operations schools and the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College, he has authored four books and designed a sniper rifle stock and several pieces of shooting gear. In 1997 he received the Bernal Diaz Award for writing that year’s best nonfiction military book and a year later was named “Man of the Year” by the Special Forces Association for his prominent role in refuting Cable News Network (CNN) allegations that Special Forces had used nerve gas and committed war crimes in Laos.

Plaster’s foreign service includes two deployments to Norway, where he trained with that country’s armed forces; a 1986 stint in Central America, which included service as an official observer to El Salvador’s parliamentary elections and meetings in Honduras with Contra guerrilla leaders; and his 1979 two-week civilian-clothes visit to Pyongyang, North Korea, where he was shadowed day and night by hostile counterintelligence officers.

In 2004 the USAF Air Commando Association inducted him into its Hall of Fame, the first Army member ever so honored, partially in recognition of the 350+ combat missions he flew with the USAF.

In recent years, Plaster has been a media source for sniping information. During the 2002 Washington, D.C., sniper case, for example, he appeared live on Fox News and (correctly) said that there most likely were two perpetrators and neither one was actually a sniper. Major Plaster has appeared in a dozen documentaries for the History Channel, Discovery Channel, and British television, and continues to work on books and firearms-related research. He is a life member of the Special Forces Association, the Special Operations Association, and the Air Commando Association, and an honorary life member of the Ft. Worth Airpower Council.

Q&A

Paladin: The new edition of The Ultimate Sniper covers a broad range of advancements in sniping since the original book was published in 1993. What do you consider to be the most significant developments?
JP: It’s amazing how far we’ve come in just a little over a decade. When I wrote Ultimate Sniper, the Leica Geovid laser rangefinder cost $7,800 and was so exotic that I did not even address it–today any sniper can afford a decent laser. I’ve already owned or used five different lasers, and the new edition explains in detail how to get the most out of a laser. Ten years ago, work was just beginning on the newest 7.62 sniping round, the M118 Long Range, which has matured into an excellent cartridge that extends accuracy by about 200 meters. Thanks to help from Picatinny Arsenal, the new edition covers this round in considerable detail, including ballistic tables. And talking about ballistic tables, the book also contains full data on the .300 Winchester Magnum 190-grain “Navy” load, along with the .50-caliber “Raufoss” and .338 Lapua Magnum. Tactically, we’ve grown a great deal due to combat experience from Iraq and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. The new edition contains an entire new chapter on countersniping in Iraq, which also incorporates enemy perspectives I’ve gleaned from insurgent and al Qaeda sources. There’s been growth in every area of technology and gear, and I’m sure some shooters will be surprised to see today’s state of the art.

Paladin: The Army’s Squad Designated Marksman (DM) program is training selected individuals to make precision shots out to 600 meters with a specially tuned M16 rifle with a high-quality scope mounted on it. Do you think this development will alter the role of the conventional sniper team?
JP: The Army’s newest Designated Marksman concept is a smart way of extending the range of a squad’s observation and fire, giving the squad the means to handle many situations that in the past would have required a properly trained and equipped sniper–of which there is always a shortage. It’s much more responsive to have a DM right there with the squad, preserving the longer-range and more difficult shots to school-trained snipers with M24s. I think too much attention has been paid to the squad DM’s maximum shooting range while, as recent experience in Iraq demonstrates, his optical capabilities to detect targets and threats at shorter distances are of more immediate value. By this I mean the DM’s riflescope enables him to pick out concealed or obscured hostiles at 150, 200, or 300 meters that ordinary infantrymen would never see. And not only is he ready to engage targets, but he’s constantly scanning rooflines, windows, and building edges to detect all sorts of threats to his fellow infantrymen. That’s a mighty handy capability, a significant tactical edge when the great majority of hostiles have no optics. The conventional sniper team has so well proven its value in Iraq that it will always be with us–but many lower-level, closer-range situations can now be addressed by the squad DM.

Paladin: In the book you document a 1,050 yard, one-shot kill with a .308 sniper rifle (by USMC Sgt. Herbie Hancock). Soldier of Fortune magazine reports a 1,200 yard .308 kill (S.Sgt. Jim Gilliland). Do you think these incidents are anomalies, or do they reflect enhanced capabilities of today’s snipers?
JP: Thanks to the efficiency and consistency of the excellent M118 Long Range .308 round, which incorporates a 175-grain match bullet, we’re going to see many hits at 1,000–1,200 yards. The older M118’s 173-grain slug used to go subsonic around 900 yards, with a notable decrease in accuracy; the M852 168-grain match suffered from the same problem. The newer round has stretched that max range, so we’re back to dealing with the age-old challenge–wind. To the extent that our snipers can accurately “dope” the wind or otherwise minimize the effect of wind, they can now make 1,000+ yard shots with some consistency, although I don’t think it will grow commonplace. Why? It’s pretty tough–especially in an insurgent situation with hostiles among civilians–to obtain positive target ID at 1,000+ yards.

Paladin: You laud the incredible .408 CheyTac in the chapter on heavy-rifle sniping. Have you had a chance to evaluate even newer large-caliber sniping rounds, such as the .416 Barrett, .460 Steyr, or the French .50 DTC?
JP: I’m really impressed by the potential these new rounds offer. I’ve recently handled the new .416 Barrett and may evaluate it at some length later this year. This family of rounds–offering high ballistic coefficient, low drag, and high velocity–is the future for heavy-rifle sniping. After all, the .50-caliber round was never intended for long-range, precision shooting. Actually, it was a rushed World War I improvisation by John Browning, who simply upscaled the .30-06 cartridge to fit his upscaled .30-caliber machine gun, which became the .50-caliber “Ma Deuce.” (If you doubt me, put a .30-06 cartridge side by side with a .50-caliber and you’ll see that they’re perfectly proportioned.) As I explain in the book, when combined with an advanced ballistic program to help calculate 1,500+ yard shots, these cutting-edge rifles offer never-before-seen accuracy.

Paladin: You endorse the Adopt-a-Sniper program at www.americansnipers.org in the book’s preface. You must think highly of the program to give it such a high-profile plug in the book.
JP: I’ve met and talked with Adopt-a-Sniper cofounder Brian Sain, a police sniper from Texas, and a number of his volunteers. These guys are the kind I wish we’d had 40 years ago, while fighting in Southeast Asia. Think of all the little, hard-to-get things you need to do your job–black electrical tape, lens paper, even laser rangefinders–and that’s what they’ve been finding and shipping to our U.S. Army and Marine snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they don’t make a dime or charge a thing. Their enthusiasm and pure patriotism are an inspiration. I urge everyone interested in helping our troops to go to their site and, in any way you can afford, help our snipers.

Paladin: Now that you have completed the updated and expanded Ultimate Sniper, what other projects are you working on?
JP: After 10 years of trial and error, I recently perfected a rifle shooting support, called “The Rifle Stabilizer.” It works like a bipod, but it’s simply an extendable monopod that clips on your belt. It swings up, under the forearm, and so improves steadiness that it’s guaranteed to cut your groups in half. When not in use, it just hangs at your side. Another project that runs more than 10 years is a new, cutting-edge rifle scope that I hope will revolutionize scoped rifle shooting. (That’s all I can say for now.) My favorite project is the detailed history I’m writing on sniping and sharpshooting, from the French and Indian War to today. While researching it, I’ve visited museums in the United States and Europe, walked Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields (with a laser!), and pried from lost history the names of many fine riflemen and snipers whose achievements will be recognized. Not only does this book tell history, but it tracks the evolution of optics, rifles, ammo, and tactics. I think anyone interested in military history and firearms will really love it.

ULTIMATE SNIPER
An Advanced Training Manual for Military and Police Snipers
Updated and Expanded Edition