ohnathan Taylor, former US Marine Corps scout sniper, rates sniping in 11 video games, such as "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III," for realism.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00I'm sorry, but you're not hitting ****.
00:06The fact you can just run around and pull your sniper rifle and shoot, it's ridiculous.
00:11Gamers out there, good luck.
00:12Just don't think you can be a sniper just because you play Counter-Strike, okay?
00:15My name is Jonathan J.T. Taylor.
00:17I was a Marine Scout sniper for over five deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:21I'm currently the CEO and President of the Marine Scout Sniper Association.
00:25Today we'll be looking at sniping in video games and judge how real they are.
00:39Everybody knows one of snipers' toolkit is their ghillie suit.
00:43They are very effective in certain situations, however, when this entire patrol of people
00:48start coming, the likelihood of them not seeing two guys laying there in the swamp as they
00:55walk right over them is very unlikely.
00:57Now, I have had times where people have, kids have came up and started actually picking
01:02flowers off the front of my screen in front of my ghillie suit where I've been sitting
01:06in position.
01:07So you can be very, very disguised and camouflaged, but laying down like this, two full bodies
01:15in a ditch with a whole squad of enemy walking over you, sorry, you're done.
01:29Not realistic.
01:30He's got a scope that's got thermal capability.
01:32It also has a range finder in the actual reticle.
01:38Most times you have a range finder that is attached to the top of your scope and you
01:44have to look at a different screen to see the range.
01:55Not accurate.
01:58Once you fire a shot and you've hit someone, everybody knows you're there.
02:01There's no like, guys aren't just going to keep walking around patrolling, oh, somebody
02:06died over there.
02:07Well, let me keep walking this way.
02:09No, it all broke loose and especially if you're in an LA position like that, it's going to
02:13echo.
02:15So they're going to know kind of direction and distance you're kind of shooting from
02:18and you're going to get everybody in that little area is going to turn their weapons
02:22and start lighting that f***ing hill up.
02:31Now that's accurate.
02:32So what he did there is he caught a mill hold, right?
02:34So you see his crosshairs weren't actually on the guy.
02:38You see a lot of times like when a target is far, they're shooting like two or three
02:44lines above the head and basically you're just accounting for the bullet drop at that
02:49distance.
02:50So that's very accurate.
02:57Actually I've got something here to show you.
02:59This is an actual replica of a 50 caliber sniper round, right?
03:04So this would be the type of caliber that you would need if you're trying to shoot down
03:10a helicopter or a vehicle, but with regular sniper rifles like a 7.62, 5.56, it's not
03:17going to affect the helicopter.
03:19This is a 7.62 or a .308 round projectile.
03:22So this is what we get for graduating sniper school.
03:25It's our most prized possession.
03:26It's called a hogstooth and you can see the difference between the .308 or 7.62 and the
03:32.50 cal.
03:33It's quite a significant difference.
03:35A lot more energy.
03:37Oh, here's the drones.
03:43I love it whenever you see drones being used.
03:45Now drones can be very effective for a sniper team.
03:48However, some of the benefits of using a drone in a combat situation or something like this
03:52is that it helps you get a clear view and vision of actually what's going on on the
03:56target.
03:58They're best used from a distance, a good safe distance, because they do make noise.
04:03Overall, there's a lot of aspects of this clip, especially in Call of Duty, that are
04:07pretty accurate.
04:08A lot of military consultants and people came in to help design these games to make sure
04:12it's as accurate as possible.
04:13So I would give it an 8 out of 10.
04:21I'm sorry, but you're not hitting ****.
04:24Gamers out there, good luck.
04:25Just don't think you can be a sniper just because you played Counter-Strike, okay?
04:28You're not using a sniper rifle in any kind of enclosed areas.
04:31A scoped rifle, you're not.
04:33You don't have time to get sight picture, sight alignment to hit anything running around.
04:38You've got to be in a position and have proper position, proper bone structure, proper support.
04:45It's probably the biggest thing I have against these video games is the fact you can just
04:48run around and pull your sniper rifle and shoot.
04:52It's ridiculous.
04:56So that was a smoke grenade that he just threw.
05:00A smoke grenade is mostly used for signaling purposes.
05:04Usually we use smokes, different color, different color code for different types of reasons,
05:08right?
05:09So we use like a green means like it's friendly, like pick me up.
05:13A red is like a casualty, you know, hey, drop the helo here is a casualty site.
05:18And you put that all in your signal plan before your mission.
05:21Using a white smoke just to like disguise yourself, it's not very accurate.
05:28This guy's just walking around with a 30 pound gun in the shoulder, peeking out, shooting
05:32people.
05:33It's ridiculous.
05:36As far as like the technique that they use in video games a lot, like peeking where you're
05:39peeking behind cover and popping out to see what's there.
05:41We call it turkey peeking in the Marine Corps.
05:44As a sniper and set up an actual sniper hide position, you would never do that because
05:49you're highlighting yourself.
05:51There's a couple different methods that we use so that you can see from behind your cover.
05:56One thing that we used to use in Iraq is called a periscope.
06:01You could lay there and use your periscope and you could just kind of see.
06:04You could scan around and see what's out there.
06:08That's one technique you can use.
06:09A lot of times we either try to bust a hole in the wall so that we could see out of it.
06:15You can also use a mirror.
06:18If you've got to look around corners and stuff, you can just stick a mirror out and things
06:21like that.
06:22But as far as popping your body out, nah, you're never going to do that.
06:27These guys have some insane verticals in this game too.
06:29That dude just jumped like 10 feet in the air, Jesus Christ.
06:38The technique of quick scoping or no scoping, not very effective at all.
06:44Quick scoping, so it's where you would pull your gun up really quick, try to get sight
06:47picture, sight alignment, fire a shot, and then go back down.
06:51Every time you have to get in your scope and pull your scope up, you're limiting your view
06:55so much that you have no clue what's going on around you in your peripheral.
07:00You're just a sitting duck at that time trying to get your sight picture.
07:03You're playing with it, you're fishing, trying to get your target, you're just not going
07:06to hit anything.
07:07No scoping would be just pulling your gun up and firing, like aiming it at who you're
07:10pointing at.
07:11It's not effective.
07:12You couldn't already do it with a scope weapon.
07:14That's not what they're designed for.
07:16That's why most snipers also have a sidearm.
07:19So when I was in Afghanistan and I was in Iraq, I always had an M4 and a pistol because
07:24it's just a lot more, it's a lot easier to get up and fire quickly and move.
07:28I would have to rate it probably a four.
07:31The way they're running around, pulling up, using the quick scope method, all these different
07:35things.
07:36Turkey peeking.
07:37You see a goner, man.
07:39And that's the fun part about these shooter games, you know, is that you can run around
07:43and jump and you get your adrenaline going and people are shooting at you and missing.
07:46But it's not like that in real life.
07:55Okay, for some reason his reticle is canned.
07:58The way your reticle is oriented doesn't really have a lot of effect on how you're going
08:02to shoot.
08:03I mean, as long as you're taking a well-aimed shot.
08:05When I first went to sniper school, a lot of the scopes that we got, the reticles were
08:10canned.
08:11It gave some people some issues on the range at sniper school, but we were able to work
08:14through it.
08:15So, even if your scope is canned a little bit, you can still hit your target.
08:28Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
08:29I mean, once again, they're just, they don't have any shooting position.
08:32Traditionally, and tactically, the high ground, having high ground is always the advantage.
08:38However, in a combat situation or an area that's highly kinetic, meaning there's a lot
08:44of operations going on, there's enemies, there's guys that are fighting, noticeable high ground
08:48is going to be a target.
08:49You always want to have that 360 coverage and never have your back exposed.
08:58No way you're shooting somebody like that.
09:00This guy just took a shot at 675, 675 meters, using the holds with the guy running.
09:12Not to mention, he's from an elevated position, shooting across multiple hills and valleys.
09:18The wind call alone would be ... because a lot of people don't realize this is when the
09:25wind really starts making a difference.
09:27Up to 500, 600 with a high-power rifle, the wind's not really affecting it that much.
09:32But out past like 650 and on, the wind does start affecting the round a lot more in its
09:38flight.
09:39Here with this shot here, what makes this area difficult is all this different terrain.
09:45You've got peaks, you've got valleys, you've got hills that go up.
09:48The wind is just bouncing off of all these.
09:51So to make a shot like that with a guy running, impossible.
09:58And when you're shooting a vehicle, unless you're shooting it with a 7.62 or higher,
10:05there's actually no prediction of what's going to happen to a round once it hits glass.
10:10You don't know where it's going to go.
10:13We've studied it, we've shot it all the time, but it's always different.
10:16I would probably give it a 4 out of 10.
10:20Every shot I've seen, he hasn't been from a steady position.
10:23It's just ridiculous.
10:27He's trying to shoot both of them at the same time, it seems like.
10:34Yes, it would be possible.
10:36It would have to be at a pretty short distance with a very high-power, high-caliber weapon.
10:42But once again, just like when I talk about the terminal ballistics of shooting through
10:47glass, we call it barriers, right?
10:51Barricades.
10:52Once you're shooting through something like that, whether it be glass, wood, a human,
10:57there's no way to accurately predict where that round is going to go.
11:08I like how the reticle moved up and down, you had to control your breathing to take
11:10the shot.
11:11Breathing is one of the fundamentals of taking a quality shot.
11:15When you're doing your breathing, you want to make sure that you fire on your natural
11:19pause.
11:21Naturally, as you breathe in, your crosshairs are going to rise, and as you exhale, they're
11:28going to drop.
11:30Once that breath has been exhaled, that's when you fire.
11:33Good shot.
11:36Right through the helmet.
11:37As a sniper, we never take a headshot, unless it's in a crisis situation, a hostage situation,
11:44something like that, and you're at a pretty close distance.
11:47The reason is, there's such a room for error, so you always want to aim center mass of the
11:53body.
11:55Even if you hit, they're probably going to go down and you can get a secondary shot.
12:06He shot a box of explosive stuff.
12:10One thing that people think about, you're always seeing these video games and movies
12:14that you're shooting stuff and it blows up.
12:16Is that possible?
12:17It's possible with the right type of round, definitely with a .50 caliber, especially
12:22the rounds that we shoot.
12:24This round that we issued, the Marine Corps, we call them ROFIS rounds.
12:31What makes them impactful is the fact that they have a tungsten steel penetrator inside,
12:38and then surrounding that is called zirconium particles.
12:41Zirconium particles are like incendiary, so it's like the same thing as an incendiary
12:45grenade.
12:46If you were to shoot an explosive with this, it would blow it up.
12:54We've got a guy that's shooting a rifle, it's not a sniper rifle, he's just firing it off
12:59into the distance across the mountains.
13:01The actual max distance of a rifle varies, it could go, who knows how far it could fly,
13:11but not accurately.
13:12Most rifles, the max effective distance of a 7.62, like an actual sniper rifle, is about
13:181,000 yards.
13:20Now the max effective of the .50 caliber is a lot further than that, it's about 2,000,
13:251,800 to 2,200, something like that.
13:27Even though the max effective is 1,800 to 2,200, you can still fire and kind of predict
13:33where that round is going to drop or hit, which is exactly what I did with my soon to
13:39be, hopefully it's the longest ever confirmed kill by a Marine Scout sniper in combat, which
13:44was 2,426 meters, and that was in Afghanistan, in Marjah, Afghanistan.
13:48I would give this probably a four out of ten, not realistic.
14:01This whole clip's bullsh**, he's not even in a position, he's like in some weird kneeling
14:06position using his arm, I don't know what he's like.
14:09Just killing everybody like freaking Rambo or something, I don't know, it's stupid.
14:16Well hands down, without a doubt, the most stable and accurate shooting position for
14:21a sniper would be prone.
14:24Prone is where you have the most support as far as the weapon goes, which is allowing
14:31your body to absorb the recoil.
14:33There's the kneeling position, of course.
14:35You can get a pretty accurate position, pretty stable position, but you're still not as accurate
14:39as the prone.
14:40But he's just sitting there, it's not even a real kneeling position.
14:45I like the reticle, see I like reticles like this that don't have a lot going on.
14:52I'm not a fan of the Christmas tree reticles that have all these crazy lines and stuff
14:56going on, takes away the view to me, it's too busy.
14:58I like these more simplified reticles, I prefer like a mill dot reticle because that's what
15:02I was trained on, that's what I was raised on.
15:05And as you start to zoom in, scopes have different power, zoom power, right?
15:08Like from 3 to 20, 3 to 12, 5 to 25, which is probably the most common that I really
15:15like is like a 5 to 25 power.
15:23So sniping in video games, they use what they call pre-aiming, which is similar to exactly
15:29what we use, what we call it leading or ambush point.
15:32So basically if somebody's walking, you can kind of gauge what mile per hour they're walking
15:37leading a target that's moving.
15:40Very difficult.
15:41It's doable, but it's something you have to really train and practice.
15:45When I took my longest shot in Afghanistan, I used the ambush method to engage those guys.
16:00In this clip where he shot a speaker off the wall and it fell on a guy, or you shot
16:04a statue and you knew it was going to fall on a guy, that's not accurate.
16:08Our goal is one shot, one kill, no wasted rounds.
16:11So you would never shoot at something that you don't intend to kill, that's one of the
16:15rules.
16:16Once again, I'm sorry to these video game guys, you know, this game I have to give a
16:203 out of 10.
16:22He's not even in a proper position, he's shooting everybody in this village.
16:26I see it's a hit man, so he's not worried about rules of engagement.
16:36See there how he's actually in a supportive position, he's in the prone, he's got his
16:41gun up, supported.
16:43So a sniper camouflages themselves based on their environment.
16:48So in a wintry environment, a snow environment, we do have what we call over whites, and basically
16:55it's just a white snow camouflaged suit that you can put on.
17:02And it does make you very concealable in the snow or any kind of wintry type conditions.
17:15I would move behind those rocks and not in front of them.
17:17You always want to take the longest route to your objective because you want to come
17:24in from a way that people would not expect you.
17:30This guy is gillied up on a ridge line, I've done it multiple times.
17:36There's a misconception about being able to accurately take shots, sniper shots, at distance
17:42with thermals and night vision.
17:45It's not easy.
17:47It's very hard because you've got to factor in how the moonlight is, if there's ambient
17:50light or no ambient light.
17:53Because your night vision may not even be operable if there's no ambient light.
17:57The thing that you see about snipers on the night, we do on the night, but we're usually
18:01not engaging people at night.
18:03Because first off, the enemy doesn't move much at night because they don't have the
18:06same capabilities we have.
18:08So 90% of all of our engagements are during daylight.
18:13It's a nice gun.
18:17The TAC-50 is a very high power, high velocity round.
18:21Just like in video games, how you can customize and manipulate your weapons and the components
18:27and the different pieces, that's also accurate in real life.
18:30So if you're in the Marines, you're not going to be able to alter that weapon too much.
18:35We use basically our standard issued loadout weapon.
18:38However, the only thing that I would change on this gun would be to have the mounted laser
18:45range finder on your scope.
18:48So it's a one-stop shop.
18:50You can go ahead and laser target, get the data, and it tells you exactly what your data
18:55is right on the screen.
18:57Nowadays, if I was actually operating again, that would be a must-have.
19:01Ghost Recon does a really good job using military consultants and trying to make sure it's accurate.
19:07I would give this an 8 out of 10.
19:09This is one of my favorite games.
19:10If I do play a game, I like Ghost Recon.
19:19I like the reticle, though.
19:22And this is pretty accurate, too.
19:23He's basically just holding crosshairs on all these guys and hitting, which would be
19:28common at distances this short.
19:30He's probably not even over 200, 200-something.
19:35I'm moving out.
19:43The recoil in video games isn't very accurate, because most of the time when you're taking
19:48that shot, you're going to lose your sight picture and your sight alignment, and then
19:52you've got to re-sight back in.
19:53A lot of these games that you see, your sight picture just barely leaves the target when
19:59you fire, if any, and you're able to get that immediate follow-on shot.
20:04When it comes to doing your reload, if you're in a good, steady position, you can manipulate
20:11your weapon and get a good reload and get right back in the fight fairly quickly, but
20:15the way that, as fast as they do it in these games, is not really accurate.
20:21Now the guys are moving, finally.
20:27When you're in a sniper hide, and you're taking shots, you're engaging, you can only get a
20:34couple shots off from one spot.
20:36In the video games, it's just one person.
20:38One person has a very low likelihood of surviving.
20:42You don't have the ass behind you.
20:43You don't have enough ammunition.
20:44You don't have enough firepower.
20:46If people start chasing you down, you're done.
20:48That's why we operate in teams, small teams.
20:51That way you have enough firepower to get yourself out of high-risk situations or crappy
20:58situations.
20:59So for this clip, I would give it a three out of 10.
21:02That's pretty accurate with this clip because of the short distances that they're firing.
21:07However, once again, like other clips, they still don't have a solid shooting position.
21:12Okay.
21:13Jesus.
21:14I've never touched Fortnite, never played Fortnite, don't even like the word Fortnite.
21:24I guess it's just a fun video game to play.
21:26There's zero accuracy when it comes to sniping.
21:30First off, a sniper would never be aggressively pursuing a target.
21:37When you get set up in a sniper hide, it's a defensive position.
21:41So no, you would never be out running and trying to shoot people with your sniper rifle.
21:49Man, this girl.
21:51If you're crossing any open area, you're running.
21:55You're not crouching because you don't want to be out in open at all.
21:59If you're moving around during the day as a sniper, it's A, it's a worst-case scenario,
22:04or B, you're supporting some type of operation and using bounding overwatch.
22:09Now, when you talk about the crouching movements as a sniper, that's something that we do when
22:14we're doing a thing called stalking.
22:17Stalking is basically where you camouflage up, get your ghillie suit, and you're trying
22:21to get as close as you can to a target, get set up in a shooting position, and engage
22:25that target.
22:26So you want to make slow, methodical movements and keep a low silhouette.
22:32In this context, she's just crouching, running around, jumping and shooting stuff.
22:39One out of ten.
22:42Next video.
22:49I love how quickly they can just pull their sniper rifles up in these games.
22:54They can go from having knives in their hand to just sniper rifle up.
22:59People don't realize, you don't realize that these guns weigh 20 to 30 pounds.
23:03It's not easy to move with it, first off.
23:05Secondly, it's not easy just to sling it up and upside down and put it in your shoulder
23:10and start shooting.
23:17So the hitscan on these video games means basically as soon as you fire, it instantly
23:21hits the target.
23:22So there's no time of flight calculated in.
23:25It's just boom, boom.
23:26Depending on what caliber and what type of actual round you're shooting will determine
23:32what the time of flight of that bullet will be.
23:35The average is over 2,000 feet per second.
23:37When I talked earlier about my longest ever sniper kill in combat, at over 2,400 meters,
23:44the time of flight is over six seconds.
23:46But in an urban situation, it's immediate.
23:49It's immediate impact.
23:50As soon as you pull the trigger, it hits.
23:52This is right on the level of Fortnite, of being unrealistic.
23:55I'll give it a one just because I'm nice.
24:05These are like made-up futuristic guns.
24:08There's all kinds of crazy stuff going on.
24:10Looks fun.
24:11It's like a fun game, but it ain't accurate as far as my line of work.
24:17I think it all starts with the term sniper, right?
24:20So a sniper is not a gun.
24:22A sniper is not a weapon.
24:23A sniper is a profession.
24:25You've got long-range precision rifles, but a sniper rifle is a rifle that a sniper is
24:33using.
24:35I think that's one thing that's a misconception that people don't understand.
24:38And actually, shooting is the smallest portion of what it takes to become a sniper's job.
24:45It's really the smallest part.
24:46But when it comes time to take that shot, it's the most important part.
24:56So in operations now, it's very common to use suppressed weapons.
25:03A couple reasons why.
25:05Reason one is that it reduces the muzzle flash for detection, so you can't be seen as much.
25:10Secondly, it reduces the sound.
25:12And just because you have a suppressor does not mean it's a silencer.
25:16Suppressor still makes noise.
25:18As far as a silenced weapon, the only silenced weapons will be pistols because of the low
25:26caliber and the low pressure.
25:28And the pistol is not completely silent.
25:31But that's as close to silenced as you can get.
25:33Once again, one out of ten for rating this.
25:37Sorry.
25:43The weapons are cool and pretty accurate, but once again, a common theme in these video
25:48games is that you can just run around shooting.
25:50Your average sniper, you're carrying 65 to 100 pounds of gear on you.
25:53You can't just be running up and down mountains shooting people.
25:57You're just not going to survive long.
25:59One thing that goes into play when you're operating in cold environment or snow is trying
26:07to make sure that you're keeping your gear and your weapon dry and your optics not fogging
26:13up a lot.
26:14Because, especially with snow, you get condensation in there.
26:17You make sure you're keeping dry rags with you in Ziploc bags or something so you can
26:23pull those out and dry your stuff off.
26:25I'll give it a three out of ten just because it seems like the optics, the weapons, everything
26:30looks pretty good.
26:33These guys just aren't utilizing proper sniper techniques.
26:38When I do play a video game, my favorite to play is probably anything in the Ghost Recon
26:42series.
26:43Just because I like the realism of the weapons.
26:47I like how you can customize yourself.
26:50You can customize your gear.
26:51You can customize your weapons.
26:53I like how the tactics, like the small team tactics they let you utilize, are pretty accurate.