Customer Reviews

Illustrated Manual of Sniper Skills

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was truly dissapointed with this book, the title is Illustrated Manual of Sniper Skills. It isn't illustrated, just some pictures of snipers strewn about the book. Manual? A total vague overview of the obvious and there is really no information on sniping, juat a few pages, he pretty much just says to shoot for the base of the skull, duh. Unless you are totally clueless about what snipers do and how they operate then go ahead and buy it. But for the somewhat intellengent shooters out there that want to find usefull information on moa, mil-dot, range estimating, wind compesating, or just to learn anything I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. Unless you just want to boringly pass time in Iraq (no offense)!

I will not waist much time reviewing this book. There is almost nothing of value in the book's contents. In the entire book I found only one usefull fact to enhance my knowledge of the subject. This book is basiclly a parade of illustrations and writings as one finds in a cartoon strip. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

There is some pretty ok information in this- lots of references to foriegn rifles, pictures of diverse special forces training together, and lots of vague and general targeting information. What I really wanted more of was nitty gritty technique. There is very little tactical info that a soldier with basic common sense wouldn't already know. There is some simplified distance calculations but that's about it.
If you want some old photos of the author training with a bunch of other international forces then you could get this.

Now, I wasn't completely dissappointed with this book, the author seems really experienced and knowledgable, and it has plenty of good information concerning stalking, camouflage, hides, stealth techniques etc., but what good is that to a civilian? I'm not going on any covert sniper missions that I know of. I was expecting ALOT more on the shooting aspect, especially since my search was "long range shooting books", but I was fooled. All I'm saying is if you want to learn to shoot long range this book is the wrong one to buy, if you want to learn how to stalk and camouflage yourself from an enemy this is the book for you.

I bought this book with several others on the topic. I have read all of the others but after flipping thru this one many times and trying to read it I've never had the desire to continue. I was really hoping for more from this book. Most of the info and photos are of non U.S. forces which doesn't interest me near as much. I was hoping for more information about marksmanship, observation and stalking techniques as a learning tool but what I got was a lot of pictures about the vulnerable point on a tank that can be disabled by precision fire and very basic info on hundreds of topics in regards to sniping. The info is very shallow and basic and there is a lot of it. Perhaps the day will come where I'll be motivated to read it but flipping thru it seems to be as far as it motivates me to go.

I will start by saying I am horrible at typing, and for that matter, spelling in general; there will probably be mistakes even in this review. But I still expect a professional publication to proof read their prints before they are put on book stands, and I definitely expect that references definitions will be crosschecked. This book is constantly marred with improper grammar, wrong tense, and worst of all, completely wrong labeling and definition of terminology mentioned and images shown within the book. For all the useful points in this book there seems to be something that is wrong to go with it, which to me destroys the credibility of this publication, and it is a shame. Often a person's review of a book is completely subjective and others might have a completely different opinion on the same piece of literature, but the above mentioned issues are entirely objective and factual, which is critical blow to this book.

As for things that I like about this book: Great print quality, although softback it has a laminated cover to improve durability, TONS of nice, color photos on nearly every page, up-to-date tactics (makes it much more topical to modern warefare, especially urban warfare), and a casual, dark-humor style of writing more often found in magazine publications than books that I have read.

Overall, I feel this book could have been a must-buy for anyone interested in the area/profession of sniping, especially with such a low price, but with as many errors as I have found I would take reading this lightly.

I have read many books on the subject, but this one addresses all necessary and practical aspects of the subject and unlike most other books doesn't waste much time givin details about the history of snipping.
A must read for all practical snipping related information, doesn't cover much on supression of sound etc.

Was recommended to me by a friend. Great current info on modern sniping as well as time tested knowledge. A must for any opperator, sniper or scout.
Great Read!

I received it in the time promised and a must read for marksmen. Great product and seller.

Another excellent book by Mark Spicer. Easy to read and understand with fantastic illustrations of what he is speaking about. A definate must have for the Military or Police Sniper.