The terrain in Afghanistan isn’t very friendly for U.S. troops. In the mountainous east near the Pakistan border, insurgents positioned at the peaks open fire on soldiers’ outposts in the valleys, with gravity adding to the distance Taliban bullets travel. So now Army snipers are getting new weapons to help even the odds.
Starting next year, the snipers will be outfitted with the XM2010 rifle, capable of hitting a target from a 3,937-foot distance — about three quarters of a mile. The current sniper rifle, the M-24, has a range of 2,625 feet, by contrast. “You want to give guys the capability to do those things they need to do at those ranges,” Colonel Douglas Tamilio, the Army’s weapons program manager, told USA Today.
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