The army is working to strengthen its sniper training to achieve greater kill rates in the event of war and is planning to use machine guns to help it achieve this goal, defense sources said yesterday.
The army has begun teaching the use of domestically-made T-74 and T-75 light machine guns as sniper or anti-materiel weapons.
A US-made .50 caliber heavy machine gun is also being considered for the same purpose.
It is seen as having the potential to be very effective against targets such as radar and command and control facilities.
An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that, in the past, machine guns were used for killing large numbers of people and were not associated with precision strikes.
"The US military successfully used .50 caliber machine guns during last year's war against Iraq to neutralize enemy radar sites. The machine gun has been turned into a sniper weapon," the officer said.
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"Machine guns were originally not designed for precision strikes. But with the addition of a scope and some modifications, machine guns can also be used as sniper weapons, though they are still not as good as professional ones," Huang said.
"Professional sniper weapons are very expensive. The military can not afford to buy these weapons in large quantities. So far, only the top special operations units have sniper weapons," Huang said.
"It's not a bad idea to turn machine guns into precision weapons. These weapons have a greater range than rifles," Huang said.
The army's main rifle, the T65-K2, has an effective range of only 300m.
The T-74 and T-75 light machine guns can hit targets that T65-K2s can't hit. They have an effective range of between 600m and 1,200m. The .50 heavy machine gun has a range of 2,000m.
The change in policy keeps the .50 caliber machine gun alive, which had become a less important piece of the military's equipment in recent years.
Over the past few years the army has put into service a large number of 40mm grenade rounds, which can be fired uninterruptedly from a T65-K2 rifle, just like a machine gun, and are seen as superior for inflicting mass casualties.
The .50 caliber machine gun used to the infantry's main air defense weapon. But the army has bought a considerable number of US-made Stinger air defense missiles. The .50 caliber machine gun, which had begun to look like a weapon on the verge of being outdated, is likely to take on new life.
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