South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-10-20
SHIPPERS BULLET
PLAYS A BIC PART
Always on the Job Ready to
Take a Shot at Enemy
Whenever Possible.

BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. oct.
20.-It would be interesting. II such
q calculation were possible, TO classi-
Is the agencies 70 which the total
daily casualties are due. Whatever
the statistics might prove. the most
formidable agency is still the snipers
bullet
IL is possible, perhaps even prob
able, that the majority OF British
casualties would be found TO be at
tributed TO shell fire. 1t might be
found that along a particular line or
trench the bulk of the men are knock
ed out by hand grenades. But the
sharpshOOter's bullet has special
fOrmidableness of it's own such as Is
enjoyed By no other weapon.
The shell. the rife grenade, the
trench mortar, at least give some
warning to the ear; the bomb and the
2erial torpedo are visible as they come
through the air in day time, and may
frequently be lodged The listeners"
are generally able 70 give some warn
ing as 10 the operations and progress
Of hostile miners. The bullet alone -
absolutely unobtrusive, instantaneous,
and unceasing.
May Take Liberties.
one may take a certain amount Of
liberties, as il were. with shell fire. A
single man. or even two men, provided
that they are not obviously people of
Importance. may risk a walk along a
stretch OF ground in view of the en-
emys guns. simply because it is not
worth a gunner'S while to shoot at
every individual enemy he sees.
40 such familiarity is safe with a
Sniper. He is always on the lookout
for unconsidered trifes. and all the
more ready 10 fire that his ammuni-
ton Is so cheap and plentiful
This static trench warfare has large
IL curtailed the activities of the old
type of sniper-Of the sniper, that is
to say. who concealed himself IN some
neat piece OF cover and thence, with
the aid Of telescope sights. picked Off
individuals at long range. And this,
for TWO reasons.
In the first place. as soon as the two
armies realized that trench warfare
was likely to last for months. they set
10 work very naturally to elaborate
their defences, and have largely de-
feated the sniper proper by the very
elaboration and multiplication of their
communication trenches. And, second
ly, the immobility OF the front has
meant that very many Of the sniper's
haunts have gradually become found
out and are so carefully watched as to
be almost untenable.
The old sniper has thus been forced
more and more into the background,
and finds it increasingly difficult TO
get anything like good days bag.
The other afternoon / was out with
TWO snipeTs when they at last spotted
a German summing himself in a field.
The distance was made out TO be just
over 1000 yards. Each of my COM
paniOns was a well known big game
shot. and they each fired couple of
rounds at the enemy.
At Impossible Ranger.
The bullets must have gone Uncom-
fOrtably near the mark, for after each
shot the man stared about him with
a puzzled movement but he stalked
of unhit. This was, Of course, an eX-
treme range. but the marksmen were
exceptionally good, and their failure
To find anything but SO unprOmising
a target shows clearly enough that the
only possible marks are frequently set
at virtually impossible ranges.
But. with the temporary extinction of
the sniper proper, there has grown up
g. host of trench snipers. men who are
constantly firing at from 20 to 300
Yards or whatever may be the ridicu-
lously small distance separating the
opposing lines One of the bewilder-
ing features of the war is the daily
publication OF long lists at a time
when there is nothing sufficiently i'm
munique. Behind the rows of sand
bags which face one another with