Snooperscope/Sniperscope range

[troopie]

The US Marines had a late war IR scope called a snooperscope/sniperscope. Does anyone know its range. I have been unable to find this on the net, tho' I have found other things, including how to build one.

Baie Dankie

Troopie

[wicked]

Is it similiar to the vampir that the germans made in the late war?

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by troopie

The US Marines had a late war IR scope called a snooperscope/sniperscope. Does anyone know its range. I have been unable to find this on the net, tho' I have found other things, including how to build one.

Baie Dankie

Troopie

from the Wikipedia article on the M1 carbine:

The M3 carbine (a selective-fire M2 with the M1 infrared night sight or sniperscope) was first used in combat by Army units during the invasion of Okinawa. For the first time, U.S. soldiers had a weapon that allowed them to visually detect Japanese infiltrating into American lines at night, even during complete darkness. A team of two or three soldiers was used to operate the weapon and provide support.[22] At night, the scope would be used to detect Japanese patrols and assault units moving forward. At that point, the operator would fire a burst of automatic fire at the greenish images of enemy soldiers.[22] The M3 with the M1 sight had an effective range of about 70 yards (limited by the visual capabilities of the sight).[23] Fog and rain further reduced the weapon's effective range.[22][23] It is estimated that fully 30% of Japanese casualties inflicted by rifle and carbine fire during the Okinawan campaign were caused by the M3 carbine and its M1 sniperscope.[22]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_carbine

Their blurb on the M3 has some notes on improved Korean war one (125 yards) and there is a picture alongside

70 yards is not much at all in SP visibility terms (2 hexes), but a truly moonless night's visibility should be about 1.

So - you may want a scout team with vision 2 and M1 carbines as primary weapon in an Okinawa scenario with vision 1. other than that, it probably has not much utility.

[DRG]

The weapon has been brought up before. The issue in game terms is the limited range. The ONLY time it would be of any use is if the visibilty was set to 0 or 1 and there were a lot of regular infantry units in the same hex to protect it otherwise it's very, very vulnerable to a quick charge

Don

[Mobhack]

Originally Posted by DRG

The weapon has been brought up before. The issue in game terms is the limited range. The ONLY time it would be of any use is if the visibilty was set to 0 or 1 and there were a lot of regular infantry units in the same hex to protect it otherwise it's very, very vulnerable to a quick charge

Don

Yes - so absolutely no use as a regular unit in the OOB, since it would be a scout team with 1-2 vis which is charged for and next to no utility for the added cost.

However, its fine as a scenario-designer made unit (add vision, change weapon to carbine) in a specific scenario circumstance, and done with the editor (and add a few points to make more valuable perhaps). Though the scenario designer may want to "bend" the rules a bit and give it maybe a hex more than "book" to stop the other side simply charging the units as Don noted.

[Griefbringer]

Originally Posted by DRG

The weapon has been brought up before. The issue in game terms is the limited range. The ONLY time it would be of any use is if the visibilty was set to 0 or 1 and there were a lot of regular infantry units in the same hex to protect it otherwise it's very, very vulnerable to a quick charge

Alternative tactical usage in-game would be to deploy the scout teams with the scopes one hex behind a screen of regular infantry to shield them from the enemy. They could then use their carbines to provide supporting fire to this friendly infantry unit in front of them.

This would keep the IR carbine scout teams initially pretty safe (unless the cunning Japanese manage to sneak to their rear), though the tactical advantage that they would provide would be rather limited.

[DRG]

This is a situation where unless the numbers are fudged the game and reality don't mesh.

The weapon was good for 70 yards in reality. In the game that would be 2 hexes or 100 yards. If you put the scout unit behind their own infantry the ONLY way they could fire at anything is if the enemy was directly adjacent to their protective infantry and no matter what that protective infantry is going to have more firepower to bear than the scout unit with the IR scope and chances are, as this would only be of use in defensive situations, the enemy infantry would slam into the line infantry first and engage and the IR unit would only have use if the initial exchange of fire resulted in both sides still engaged AND, as I said, it would ONLY be of use if the visibility is set to zero or 1 which greatly restricts their practical use in a game where players very, very, very rarely play with visibility that low which makes them useful, as we have said, for a specialized scenarios only


Don