Last year it was a team from 3rd Special Forces Group that took the top prize at the yearly International Sniper Competition held on Fort Bragg, but this year, it was a team from the 75th Ranger Regiment that won out.
3rd Group still did exceptionally well this year, taking second. A team from the Netherlands came in third. This year, 21 teams from American and allied Special Operations units participated in the event. The competition is five days long and includes 23 events that test the snipers on precision marksmanship and fieldcraft, including three shooting events during periods of darkness.
"Soldiers must optimize and maintain their performance across the tenure of their career," explained Command Sgt. Maj. Lionel Strong, the Special Operations Center of Excellence Command Sgt. Maj. “All of our schools, whether it is the (Army special operations force) generation pipeline or advanced skills, are designed to test our students physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive capacity, so that they can perform at the top of their potential on their worst day.”
U.S. military participants this year came from all seven Special Forces Groups, Marine Special Operations Command, the Coast Guard, the Ranger Regiment, Naval Special Warfare, and "Army Special Operations Command." Allied teams came to the competition from Switzerland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Canada.
Now in its 16th year, Command Sgt. Maj. Strong said that the competition "has evolved and modernized everything about long-range precision marksmanship from how we train, the weapons, ammunition, and optics we shoot, to the types of ranges and targets we shoot.
“This competition has evolved not just sniper weapons systems but combat marksmanship and lethality for the Army."