Snipers are too inaccurate at long range

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I don’t know if this is just because I’m bad at understanding how guns work irl but I don’t understand why the Springfield M1903A4 or even the Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk1 seem to be inaccurate at long sniping distances.

For example, DDay map - want to snipe an MG off its nest or pick off camping Germans up on the hills from say 200 - 300m and, even with the reticle being directly on the mg nest or enemy, the shot deviates to the left or right just enough to make sniping feel a bit pointless.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind this issue however I’ve been shot and killed by the same MG that I’m trying to pick off as the MG somehow seems to be more accurate / capable of consistently hitting enough shots on point at that range to kill.

I’ve had this issue btw with a 5star M1903A4 which already has a -35% deviation bonus.

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Modest of you to mention this as a possibility, and I do believe this is the issue.

A bullet from a rifle, as soon as it leaves the muzzle, begins to decelerate. The muzzle velocity of 150gr M2 Ball .30-06 (used widely by US in WWII) from a 24" barrel like an M1903 or M1 Garand, has a MUZZLE velocity of 2800 ft/s. It doesn’t stay at this velocity the whole time, it begins to slow down at a steady pace as it flies through the air, and the bullet also begins to drop as soon as it leaves the barrel. Imagine this; you are standing next to a rifleman on a flat surface and they have the rifle pointed parallel with the ground, so basically pointed straight forward. You are standing next to that rifleman, holding a 150gr .308 150gr projectile, the exact same size/shape/weight bullet that his M1 Garand or M1903 fires. You are holding it at the exact same level as his barrel, and the exact instant this rifleman fires his rifle, you intentionally drop the bullet you’re holding. His bullet that he just fired, and your bullet that you just dropped, if the field is entirely flat, will both hit the ground at the exact same time. A fired bullet begins to drop as soon as it leaves the muzzle, but at the rate of gravity, while it careens through the air at several times the speed of sound.

So, with the retical of the M1903A4 or scoped M1903A1 or scoped M1 Garand zeroed at about 100m, when you shoot at 200m the bullet will strike JUST below the point of aim (POA) in the middle of the retical. At 300m, again if the zero is still set for 100m, then the bullet will drop even farther down from where you’re aiming. At 200m it really shouldn’t make much difference but at 300m, it will be a few inches low, meaning you have to aim roughly for the forehead/helmet of the target, or possibly even aim slightly above their heads. This is because you cannot adjust the sights of optics in the game, they’re permanently fixed to 100m, which makes long-range sniping a tad difficult.

So I don’t think it’s a left/right deviation, especially on a maxed-out bolt-action. On a scoped M1 Garand or G43? Maybe, I DO suspect the accuracy is generally lower in the game for those scoped rifles than for their bolt-action counterparts. No, I suspect your issue is that you’re not compensating for bullet drop, but you must be a LONG ways off for it to actually affect your ability to hit the enemy. So if all you’ve got to aim at is a head and shoulders, and you’re at a great distance, and you’re not landing hits by aiming DIRECTLY at that stone-still head in the distance, bring the retical up and aim a little bit over their head or the very top of their helmet. That should do the trick.

Happy sniping, keep them enemy MGs unoccupied, and if the MG won’t be useful in allied hands later, feel free to try shooting the MG42 itself to knock it out.

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If I recall correctly with upgrades on your bolt action there is one with less shot deviation.
Upgrade ur sniper and see how it feels. Long shots seams pretty accurate on my end ngl

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Thanks for the detailed reply!

I understand how bullet drop works and, if I thought it to be something to do with it dropping a bit below the area I’m aiming at, I’d compensate for it.

I specifically have found though that there’s basically no bullet drop in this game but there is a level of shot deviation that causes shots to land to the side of where you’ve aimed.

I’ll make sure to test this out again to make sure but it did feel like it was the case.

Thanks again :slight_smile:

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Mentioned at the end that I’m already using a maxed out M1903A4 with -35% shot deviation

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I’ve personally found bullet drop to be much more significant than shot deviation. Heres two videos I took a while ago to demonstrate bullet drop, but will also show shot deviation (which isn’t noticeable):
(3) Enlisted Bullet Drop Demonstration - YouTube
(3) Sniping at Over 200 Meters in Enlisted - YouTube

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Huh didn’t read it all. My bad mate. Strange tho. Even on a stock Kar my shots tend to land where I aim.

Donno if this game have some ballistic action around every shot. But a rifle with less than 10 min of angle at 100 mts would be considered good on ww2 Era.

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No problem!

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t mounted to anything but was in a lying down position and holding breath?

Testing it on the practice range now

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oooh so there is bullet drop in Enlisted

Crazy, I couldn’t tell at all.

Would explain why I was running into that problem at long-range sniping.

Thanks for the vids!

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I dont feel shot deviation is any issue with firing a sniper, except with the semi auto ones when you fire a 2nd shot too fast after the first it sometimes does not exactly on the crosshair. To me the first shot is always bang on. Most significantly with the 2 guns you name. Lee Enfield is the best bolt action in the game for me and feels like a upgraded lazer. The springfields are great as well.

Only thing that you have to calculate in is bullet drop for a sniper. Which can be different for each weapon depending on several reasons.

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Yeah. There is. Might be the solution for the problem here,:thinking: after 100 mtrs aim a few pixeis above.

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Ive NEVER had a problem sniping with the absolutely stock sniper squad.

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What? 10 MOA is a 10" group at 100yd if I’m not mistaken, and the MOA increases with more and more distance which means at 200yd it would be 20 MOA which is 20", which is roughly torso-sized. By 400yd, it’d be 40", or 3’4, which is more than 1m. You’d basically need two guys standing shoulder-to-shoulder and aiming right between them around the elbows/forearms in order to get a nearly-guaranteed hit on one of their torsos or groins or heads. That’s ludicrous. I myself have done some shooting with a mid-war M91/30 that had a replica PU scope mounted on it. At 200m (220yd) I could get multiple hits on an 8" (20cm) gong which is roughly the size of someone’s head, and that’s 4 MOA, and I was using steel-cased and laquor-coated ammo that was over half a century old. I’ve also personally received no formal training for marksmanship, only for safe firearms handling. I could also land hits on a torso-sized target at 300m (330yd) with ease.

Also, the No.4 Mk.I Lee Enfield has a maximum MOA out of the factory of something like 2.5 I think, and that was further improved with the post-war No.4 Mk.2 which was 2 MOA out of the factory or less and that’s with irons. Now, the Mauser Kar98k wasn’t quite as inherently accurate if memory serves, and they may not have even selected particular examples when mounting optics. With the Russians… perhaps for obvious reasons given their less-than-stellar QC, they specifically picked out Mosins that demonstrated impressive accuracy and gave THOSE scopes. They didn’t select any old M91/30, but the Germans did. I don’t know about what the Americans did in regards to putting optics on their M1903 rifles, but anyhow, I find your assertion that “Less than 10 MOA would be considered good on WWII era” to be a bit ridiculous, no offense.

To put this into perspective, SMGs are generally regarded as being effective out to about 150-200m. I think I recall seeing footage on YouTube of someone taking an MP5 out to 250yd, possibly even 300 and/or 350yd, and they were managing some hits… but that’s a post-war and closed-bolt SMG. We’re talking about WWII open-bolt SMGs and open-bolt is inherently less accurate than closed-bolt because JUST before the round is fired, the bolt in the firearm needs to slam forward. With closed-bolt, the only movement before the round is fired is the pulling of the trigger (which yes that can very much affect accuracy if you’re not doing it right) and then either the dropping of the striker or the swinging of the hammer, which is a small piece of metal, not a huge chunk of metal.

Anyhow, if SMGs are only effective out to 150-200m, if it can’t consistently hit a torso-sized target beyond 200m, THAT is roughly 10 MOA since beyond 200yd (190m or so) you’re looking at groupings of over 20", which is wider than the human torso/arms.

Meanwhile the AK-47/AKM is regarded as a firearm effective out to about 300-400m or so. It’s around 400-500m, if I’m not mistaken, when typical 7.62x39 falls from supersonic into subsonic which destabalizes the round and messes with accuracy. So, if a selected AK-47 or AKM in 7.62x39 can hit a torso-sized target at 400m but beyond that cannot consistently hit it, even under ideal conditions (I’m aware that some 7.62 AK rifles can, but I’m using this as an example) then that means that it’s probably around 4-5 MOA since beyond 400m the grouping is stretching beyond 16-20". Just how inaccurate do you think typical WWII bolt-actions are? Even in WWI, as I recall, Mk.III* Lee Enfields required a maximum MOA of about 3.5 I think, which if so, the worst possible Mk.III* out of the factory would be scoring groups of 17.5" at 500yd (450m) which is pretty much torso-sized or at least torso-and-arms. That’s the WORST possible example that still meets QC. Of course there would not be any minimum to MOA. What, is a Military going to tell an arms manufacturer, “Excuse me, this rifle is simply too accurate, we demand that you set a minimum to how wide the groupings can be.” That’s a rather funny thought.

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Pretty sure 3 moa a 100 meters was the maximum allowed for a K98 before it failed, any larger of a group and it was pulled from service. You have to remember most snipers only engaged at around 300 meters, they didnt have modern optics.

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From what I’m seeing the Kar 98 had around a 4.1 MOA, the Springfield a 2.9 MOA, and the M1 Garand a 4.8 MOA

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Sorry but according to a ww2 manual I own about the Mauser, to be accepted as a sniper conversion it had to do less than 10 min angle at 100 meters. Ofc most would be better but this was the maximum accepted.

I m just stating what was written and accepted at the time.

I might be translating this bad… Must study this more deeply.

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Looks like you’re correct, although those are for standard-issue rifles and not for scoped examples. Also, apparently the No.4 also had loose requirements that allowed for up to 4 MOA or so, so my assertion that it was within 1.5-2.5 MOA or so appears to be inaccurate. If so, my apologies.

That appears to not be the case. The worst possible Kar98k that was deemed acceptable was less than 1MOA better-off than what would be the worst possible M1 Garand that was deemed acceptable. Though I wager that if we were to compare the BEST examples of both, on average the Kar98k would probably come out to be a bit more accurate.

I also found this, which has to do with scoped WWII bolt-actions, and it is for the No.4 Mk.I(T).

“The accuracy requirement was ability to place 7 of 7 shots in a 5 inches (12.7 cm) circle at 200 yards (183 m) and 6 of 7 shots in a 10 inches (25.4 cm) circle at 400 yards (366 m).” It is also sourced. So 5" at 200yd is 2.5 MOA. 10" at 400yd is also 2.5 MOA (and allowing for one flyer). The Lee Enfields were allegedly ‘hand-picked’ for ones that demonstrated particularly good accuracy. So the 2.5 MOA figure that I had mentioned earlier seemed accurate… except it was for the SCOPED No.4 rifles and not for standard-issue rifles. My bad! If any old Kar98k was selected to be scoped, then that means that any old scoped Kar98k given to a designated marksman or sniper could be as poorly as 4.1 MOA. If anyone finds proof that Kar98ks were hand-selected based on accuracy when selecting ones to be scoped, bring the info forward. Interesting stuff!

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Yeah I’d look into that, because it appears as though Kar98k rifles were rejected if they could not maintain 4.1 MOA. A 9 MOA Kar98k would be pathetic, and could only manage to consistently hit a torso-sized target out to about 200yd, which would make it about as accurate as perhaps an MP40, which would make it less accurate than an AKM or even an M1 Carbine. A firearm that is JUST under 10 MOA… basically has no right to have any magnified optic on it at all unless it’s to aid someone who has poor vision be able to have a hope at hitting something out to a consistent maximum of perhaps 200yd, or a lucky maximum of perhaps 250yd, or to deliver area-affect fire at 300yd or more… which is seriously terrible for something in a full-sized rifle cartridge.

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Quoting wiki:
For snipers, Karabiner 98k rifles selected for being exceptionally accurate during factory tests were fitted with a telescopic sight as sniper rifles

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I truly belive this is a bad translation on my side.

I ill work more deeply into this ww2 German Manual.

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