KEY POINTS:
In the moments before he pulls the trigger, Dean has learned to switch off.
No longer does the 28-year-old sniper register the close-up face caught in his crosshairs.
"It's about getting into your bubble, focusing on the act until it becomes automatic, repetitive. You concentrate only on the shot," said the Coldstream Guards colour sergeant.
Like all Army snipers, Dean does not disclose his surname for fear of his family becoming a target for home-grown extremists. Within modern warfare and its array of laser-guided missiles and smart bombs, only men like Dean regularly see their victims at the point of death.
Snipers are playing an increasingly important role in Helmand province in Afghanistan where 8100 British soldiers are stationed. Scores of Taleban have been shot dead. One sniper alone is reported to have killed 39 of the enemy.
Dean, who spent six months in Helmand last year, would not talk about his "kill tally", but admitted that colleagues routinely accounted for "handfuls" of the enemy.
Snipers are becoming an increasingly valued weapon in the desert of Helmand. "We're starting to see a definite renaissance of sniping," said Frank, a captain and commanding officer of Britain's sniper division at the Land Warfare Centre in Wiltshire, southwest England.
Sniping's tactical comeback is facilitated by mounting concern over the number of civilian casualties in southern Afghanistan caused by air strikes. Fears over the risk of collateral damage from jets are bolstered by field reports indicating that snipers are the military's most cost-effective, discriminating fighting machine in Helmand.
A report by Civic - the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict - will this week corroborate concern over collateral damage by confirming a record death toll of Afghan civilians last year. However, Civic's Sarah Holewinski said the group had no evidence or reports of British snipers mistakenly targeting innocent Afghans and hoped that the "planning going into sniper use remains thorough and sound".
Last week the latest snipers bound for Helmand were reinforcing the techniques that place them among the world's most lethal marksmen. At the Wiltshire training base, more than 240 soldiers are vying to be selected for the 120 places a year.
In Helmand itself there are 25 snipers seeking to engage "high-value targets" such as Taleban commanders or individuals identified as linked to al Qaeda. The armed forces have 330 trained snipers at present, more than double the total during the 1990s, when sniping was wound down. To supplement the increased demand, snipers are being equipped with a new 25,000 ($68,500) sniper rifle capable of killing from 1500m in little more than a second.
Sniping is a form of psychological warfare. Shots from an invisible source can, according to the Ministry of Defence, induce terror in advancing forces; even tank commanders cower inside from an unseen but precise foe. Yet the real mental duel is contested within the sniper's mind. Its practitioners know that, when they squeeze the trigger, the object of their concentration will die.
Frank looks for recruits whose minds are sufficiently robust to concentrate on their mission rather than the human being within their sights.
"It is one thing to kill in the heat of the battle when the blood's up, but it's quite another when you have a lot of time to think. You need to get the right man for the job in case he hesitates or is going to suffer problems down the line."
A calm, composed disposition is a prerequisite. As is patience: snipers can spend hours motionless as they wait for the optimum time to strike.
Psychological profiling remains critical in selecting the right candidates; any hint of mental fragility and they are out, says Frank.
Sniping kills the enemy at a knock-down price. During the Vietnam War, the average number of rounds expended per kill with M-16 rifles was 50,000.
By contrast, snipers averaged 1.3 bullets per kill, and defence officials estimate that contemporary trends are likely to mirror the ratios recorded in Indochina.
In financial terms, the figures mean that each Vietcong fatality cost US$23,000 using standard-issue machine guns and 17 cents for the sniper.
Each of the 8.59mm bullets used by UK snipers in southern Afghanistan costs about 20, compared to a single projectile from the Javelin anti-tank missile, which costs 70,000. UK officials note the killing efficacy of the LII5A3 sniper rifle as the cost of Britain's military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq has soared by 50 per cent to more than 5.4 billion a year.
The Pentagon is developing a guided smart bullet for use in sniper rifles. In the future, men like Dean may crouch 6.5km away from their target before sending a smartslug to destroy a distant, faceless foe.
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