[pmulcahy11b]

I think some of the problem here may be with the way the term "sniper" has changed over the years. Once upon a time, what was called a sniper at the time was for the most part simply a highly-skilled marksman -- someone who could put a bullet through your eye consistently at 1000 meters or suchlike.

Nowdays, being a sniper is a profession -- it is a person with a specific skills set not only in marksmanship, but in camouflage, fieldcraft, reconnaissance and observation, discerning high-value targets, and most importantly, not being caught in the act. He's also a technician as much as a shooter, adept with a wide variety of weapons, optics, and observation and designation devices.

By the definition of older times (sometime during World War 2, it seems, is when the definition started to change), a modern sniper would be considered a special ops soldier. Now, a sniper is a more highly-skilled subset of an infantryman, unless he is actually assigned to a special ops unit and has that special training as per that unit. The kind of soldier that was once termed a sniper would be now termed as more a Designated Marksman or suchlike. By today's terms, Simo Häyhä is simply a highly-skilled marksman. By the terms of his day, he was a sniper.