ThreeA x BBiCN ~ WWR : Punter Bot Sniper.

 

 "Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and like it, never really care for anything else thereafter." ~ Ernest Hemmingway.

One shot. One kill.

A (mis) interpretation :

Name : Richard "Ricky" Boateng.

Alias : The Ghost.

Age : 28 years old.

Affiliation : The White Dingo Team, 10th WF "Jungler" Infantry Division; III Corps; Second Army; Oceania Southern Expeditionary Army; Terra Coalition Armed Forces.

Rank : Chief Scout Sergeant.

Std. Armaments : "Exitus" 12.7 x 99mm sniper rifle x 1; "Exitus" .45 auto-revolver x 1; Ghillie suit x 1; Cybernetic implant telescopic sight x 2, cardio rate synchroniser x 1, enhanced hearing x 2.

A month after the One Week War, 1939. The Terra governments were caught off guard by the blitzkrieg tactics by the Ecclesiarchy of Mars army. Orbital defence satellites are shot down, which follows lightning quick descent upon Terra with supporting fire powers from thousands of Martian battle cruisers and heavy destroyers, bombarding the orbital defence networks, as well as taking out strategically important military and communication sites. Hardly recovering from the shock of the space colony drop upon the Kowloon district of Sino City Two, Eastasia and Perth district, Western Aus Republic of Oceania, majority of the Eastasia and Oceania Protectorate sub-sectors are occupied within the next three months by the Martians.

Besieged and surviving Terra Planetary Defence Force retreat within the thick and dense jungles of Indochina and surrounding Australasian Islands. But the Martians, utilising the bi-pedal Bertie and Dropcloth warbots infantry divisions, gain tactical  advantage over the Terrans, whom are still deploying out of commission BOB and existing Harold series, of which are unsuitable for jungle terrain, lacking mobility and speed to effectively confront the fast moving divisions of the Martian warbots. 

The Council of the High Lords did not rest on their laurels, and striking a deal with the Rothchild Corporation, as well as pooling their global military resources together to launch a total war against the Ecclesiarchy of Mars armies, the Terra Coalition Armed Forces, bolstered by the warbots supply by the same mega corporation which equally provide the same war machines to the Martians through its numerous subsidiaries, begin to initiate a series of continuous defence and counter-strategies to regain back lost sectors.

While majority of the human soldiers, although great in numbers, are considered expendables and worst, such as in the Northern Afrikan and Western Front, where they are nothing but "meat shields" for the warbots, elite groups comprising humans do exist.

One of these are the establishment and commissioning of  the warbot sniper groups. They comprise of specialist infantry soldiers trained and equipped with sniper rifles or other long-range, high-precision firearms. They often work alone or in small teams from concealed locations. As well as training in the use of sniper rifles, the most effective snipers are also trained and adept in camouflage and infiltration. The battlefield role of dedicated snipers is assassination of warbots as well as enemy commanders and other high-profile individuals. They have been proven to being an effective way to demoralise and frustrating enemy troops, not to mention damaging their command structure to a certain degree. Snipers, whether as a small group or even a lone sniper can hold back the advance of an entire enemy force many times their number, pinning them in cover. Snipers are cybernetically implanted within their eyes with powerful bio-mechanical telescopic sights that allows the wielder to fire at an enemy weak points and distant foes with extreme accuracy. The cybernetic sight also enable them to scan on a wide spectrum to pick out heat and energy sources over long distances. Their cybernetically enhanced sense of hearing enable them to monitor the enemy's communication channels, and comes equipped with concentrated food and water cartridges for extended operations. Snipers are also equipped with the ghillie suit known as Camo Cloaks, which enable them to imitate almost any terrain. A Camo-cloak are hooded cloaks composed of a mesh backing woven with thousands of ribbons of colour shifting and light-absorbing material, weaved for its durability and ability to help hide the wearer. The Camo Cloak is coated with an absorbent material called Cameoline which takes on the colouration of the surroundings giving the wearer a great deal of individual concealment and when used by elite stealth experts such as Chief Scout Sergeant Ricky "The Ghost" Boateng can give the wearer near perfect concealment. On the battlefield, snipers take up their positions hours, or even days before a battle commences. This gives them time to both find a spot with the best concealment, lanes of fire, and to survey the battlefield's surroundings. Concentrated sniper fire can throw enemy units into confusion, as they begin to take casualties without knowing where the fire is coming from. Relying on stealth rather than brute force, snipers slip behind enemy lines, gather intelligence, destroy strategic targets, and capture or assassinate key enemy commanders, then fade away before the enemy has had a chance to react.
They are armed with long-range and high-precision firearm of  known as sniper rifles, mainly used for assassination of warbot such as Dropcloth and Bertie. Sniper rifles are specially coated, rendering it invisible to most sensors and scanners. It is flashless and equips with noise suppressor, allowing the weapon to be used without giving away the sniper's position. The sniper rifle is also equip with its own telescopic sight, which serves to re-inforce the cybernetic sight of the sniper, allowing them un-precedented pin-point accuracy and greater distances when zooming in onto an enemy target.

The White Dingo Team, lead by Chief Scout Sergeant Ricky "The Ghost" Boateng is the ultra-specialists in both covert operations and jungle/forest warfare. They are noted for its stealth and reconnaissance abilities being almost uncanny in nature. The White Dingo Team have been known to wait in a position for as long as two weeks before taking a shot. Their intense training enables them to pick out a single target even amongst roving hordes of enemies on the battlefield.  They are masters of the art of patience and the perfection of marksmanship. These stoic snipers are conditioned and being trained to the point that they limit their vocabulary only to words that are useful for their profession, cutting off all emotional attachments to other humans so that they will never hesitate to eliminate any target. This makes other troops to view them with great fear, hesitancy and occasional hatred for they perceive the White Dingo as lacking humanistic values.

They utilise an advance form of sniper rifle known as the Exitus Rifle with a much longer barrel for increased range and accuracy. However the barrel makes an Exitus Rifle up to twice as long as a standard sniper rifle and thus difficult to use in close quarters. As such, each members of the White Dingo Team is also issued with an Exitus autorevolver. Each Exitus Rifle and corresponding Exitus autorevolver is customised to the specifications of each members of the team and is capable of firing over tremendous distances with incredible accuracy thanks to an advanced cybernetically implant telescopic sight and cardio rate synchroniser. Utilising specialised explosive tipped ammunition constructed from heavy-gravity alloys, the Exitus Rifle is capable of penetrating nearly all forms of known warbots and vehicles armour. These high-powered customized sniper rifles are feared by the Martians for its ability to take down even the most heavily armoured infantry with a single shot as well as taking the head off an enemy warbot with one well-placed shot. With its long barrel, integral recoil compensator, and under-barrel bipod, the Exitus is an incredibly accurate and well-balanced weapon. It is also comparatively light, considering its extra long length and size. The Exitus Riffle is made from an alloy known as plasteel.

The barrel requires replacement every 20-50 shots depending on the power setting and cool-down time. For this reason, the Exitus is outfitted with a "slide-lock" barrel, which is easily locked and unlocked from the weapon's housing.

The White Dingo Team is the most famous (infamous to the enemy) Terran sniper group and is primarily feared in the jungles warfare of the Pacific Rim battle theatres sub-sectors. Their leader, Richard "Ricky" Boateng aka "The Ghost", currently holds the longest recorded sniper kills at 3,500m and confirmed kills of 205 warbots and 30 Martian deacons.  

The success of the White Dingo Team eventually comes to the attention of Cardinal Lord Hannibal Rex, who oversees the Martian military operation on the entire Pan-Pacific Sector. A massive bounty is placed upon the entire White Dingo Team, as well as dispatching a team of the Ecclesiarchy own elite, group of assassins, the Death Cultists from the Officio Assassinorum. The Death Cultists are known for their sadistic taste in torturing their targets before despatching them.

After numerous attempts, the Death Cultists finally tracks down the White Dingo at the Solomon Islands sub-sector where only Boateng survives after delivering a shot directly through the leader of the Death Cultists assassin still remains, known only as the Apache, own rifle scope, hitting him in the eye, killing him.

In the end, it is technological progression, the increasing usage of machines over humans and methods of counter-sniper that slowly reduces the number of sniper groups. Some are totally de-commissioned.  Eventually Boateng is honourably discharged. With a new identity, his current whereabouts is known only to his superiors who fears that an individual with such formidable sniping skills, he may be recruited by rogue factions. Worse, some whispers that Boateng is already dead, intentionally executed for the same reason mentioned.