Praxis: The History Of The Designated Marksman’s Rifle. Accuracy versus volume of fire at squad level. "I admire him, but it is necessary that he should die."

Tim Murphy, at Daniel Morgan's order ("I admire him, but it is necessary that he should die.") during the Battle of Bemis Heights (Second Battle of Saratoga), 7 October 1777, shinnies up a tree and makes the single most important rifle shot in world history -- mortally wounding British Brigadier General Simon Fraser. As a result of the victory at Saratoga, the French came into the War of Independence on our side.

Courtesy of Bob Owens.

"Same principles. . . 4X scope. . . detachable. Iron sight backup. . . But the principles are what we're here to talk about . . . you would imbed this in a squad or a certain number of men. It would give them precision that they wouldn't have with their regular rifles. Especially 7.62x39, you're augmenting them with a 7.62x54R rifle. . . And they used these like the Germans ended up using the G43 on the Eastern Front in '44 and '45, where instead of a machine gun nest it would be a DMR and he would support the assault or defend a retreat by placing very precision fire on that enemy. Same exact concept. They took it, improved it, made it a better rifle, same idea."

"The idea is the guy with this rifle, he can be running, and moving, and transitioning with the rest of the unit, but he's capable of making more precise shots. It would kind of be like imbedding a guy with a bazooka or a guy with a BAR into a squad, to give them a little bit of extra capacity in a particular tactical role."

"A force multiplier for a specific purpose."

EXACTLY.

Thanks to the Constitutionally indefensible National Firearms Act of 1934, the armed citizenry is at present denied widespread access to full-auto base of fire weapons. Okay, so if lemons are what we are left, let's make the sweetest lemonade we can. The same goes for supporting ordnance. If we are denied mortars and RPGs, then we can (at present) still employ other rifles to practice the use of rifle grenades as support weapons. We may be restricted to inert practice projectiles at the moment, but if and when (hypothetically speaking) Leviathan -- by its insatiable appetites -- starts the next civil war, changing out a PVC dummy filled with PlayDoh for something more, uh, improvised and exciting, is a matter of a little time, skill and the motivation having nothing else to lose. The skills needed to accurately launch pound-and-a-half projectiles, whether inert or potent, are the same, whether you're aiming at an empty 55 gallon drum at 200 meters in an RG competition or a regime Humvee at 50 meters in real time on the two-way shooting range. This is something that regime minions should consider before going there.

The same goes with the DMR. Accuracy can substitute for volume of fire. If accuracy is what is available to us, then, by all means, let us have accuracy. It is especially useful when the 4GW target is sitting in his security cocoon believing himself, or herself, to be invulnerable. Hypothetically speaking, of course. ;-)

Appleseed, anyone?