"Evolution of the Sniper Rifle" Topic

"Today, snipers are recognized as an incredibly important part of any modern infantry force, but this was not always the case. It took a long time for the efficiency and combat effectiveness of snipers to be realized.

And while every infantry soldier has a deep personal relationship with their weapon, this is especially the case when it comes to snipers and their rifles. The techniques of sniping have developed alongside technological advances in sniper rifles, so the sniper rifle is actually best regarded as an extension of the sniper's body.

A well trained and experienced sniper is an amazingly efficient fighter, in comparison to the average infantry soldier. In World War II, the average number of rounds fired to kill a single enemy soldier was 25,000, and this number has been increasing ever since. In the Korean war, it had doubled to 50,000. Vietnam saw the introduction of the select-fire M14 and M16, but this seemed to merely produce more misses, with an average of 200,000 rounds fired to get one enemy. Today, the number has increased again, so that almost a quarter of a million rounds are needed to kill an enemy in Afghanistan. In comparison, the average sniper needs just 1.3 bullets to kill an enemy…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

When I read this: "The dominant sniper rifle of the Vietnam period was actually the M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun, used as a single shot weapon and with a scope mounted", I had to find a picture, which I did:

link

The gunfreezone.net article says that the configuration was experimental, rather than "dominant" as the smallwarsjournal article describes it.