If there is a career that might be thought to be safe from automation, (military) sniper would seem to be a contender. Indeed, the armed forces will almost certainly have a role for snipers for a long time yet, but this story from The Wall Street Journal is yet another reminder of how the technology that is being developed to fight in Ukraine is changing (and will continue to change) warfare.
A Ukrainian special-forces sniper claimed a world record in late 2023 with a shot that hit a Russian officer almost 2½ miles away. These days Vyacheslav Kovalskiy has a new job: supporting drone pilots. He hasn’t been out to shoot in more than a year and a half…
Unmanned vehicles are particularly suited to the sniper’s two main tasks of reconnaissance and targeted killing. Their key advantages include their bigger visual range, maneuverability and expendability: If the mission fails, the loss is a craft worth thousands of dollars rather than a life.
Kovalskiy believes that the heyday of the sniper has passed:
“I used to be the sniper and everyone was dancing around me. Now the drone pilot, everyone dances around him, including me.”
But Ukraine still trains snipers, and there will be occasions when snipers have the flexibility of response that drones lack.
A Pentagon spokesman notes that snipers can have the edge over drones in cloudy or misty conditions.
Simo Häyhä smiles.