sniper ghillie suits?

So i was just wondering how many on this site use a ghillie suit, and where they got it, is it full body or just the top half and how big a difference it makes?

I have a jacket that is what turkey hunter use here is a link to the site that has one just like it

http://store.mossyoak.com/detail.aspx?ID=60

Sometimes we use a duck hunting ghillie blanket but most of the time I just use the jacket

Been a ghillied sniper for the last 6 years or so. In that time I have used two ghillies. My current ghillie, is a three piece affair, pants, jacket and mask, made myself. I use a full ghillie as I tend to work at extreme close ranges and the ability to 'disappear' is important. However it is still as light as possible to allow plenty of movement and not be too hot to wear. The disadvantage of such a suit is that it is not quickly removable.

Another member of my team uses a two piece affair, webtex cape and hood, this has been cut to about waist height. This allows hm freedom of movement that is not quite so easy in a full ghillie. The disadvantage he has is that at close ranges, or from certain angles, his legs are visiable, and he needs to be aware of this. This ghillie was made by myself

Another member of my team uses the same as above, but the full cape length to his ankles, affording him that little extra bit of cover when required. A cape also offers the advantage that you can easily remove it for certain games, and luch breaks. Another ghillie I have made.

Two other members bought their ghillies from airsoft suppliers, I believe both are bushrag, these make an excellent starting point, but do need some work. They are full ghillies, too full for my liking, but it easy to remove some material, than it is to add material. Also good for those that do not have the time nor feel that they have the confidence to attempt to make one.

Ultimately there is no right or wrong ghillie, the syle, size and type, should suit your style of play, and your local enviroment. I would recommend a light weight ghillie, with just enough material to do the job, and then add the most important material, natural veg, to suit.

There is a wealth of resources on the internet on ghillie styles

I ramble.......so I stop here.

Ghillie suit don't match our enviorment , or , well , at least , not most of the ones that I have seen on the internet so far .

well there is a few i found that match my environment but i don't know if i should get one or not

We have Pines , Cedars , Birch , and Oak all Together so it is pretty hard t find something to match .

Yea i guess that is really hard to match

Mossy Oak , Realtree , Redhead , and Rocky seem to be the only things so far I can match them with .

Alabama_Sniper/ USMC-HENDLER - any pictures of the enviroment you use?

Remember a ghillie is NOT an invisabilty suit, it is only a part of the art of field craft. What it does do is breaks up the human shape, and so long as the colours are correct, i.e. not bright red [think English Red Coats ] the average untrained human eye will pass over it, being 'keyed' to the human shape and face by instinct.

There is always an answer, I'm sure that a US Marine Sniper would fine a solution. They like all snipers have to learn how to best use their enviroment to their advantage, they cannot always choose the field of conflict.

My ghillie is best suited [no pun intended] to a grassland terraine, but the grounds on which I play cover grassland, decideous woods, to pine forest, and then there is the changing seasons. I had to learn how to get the best out of my ghillie, still don't always get it right, but when i do, there is that great sense of achievement

Think pines , lots and lots of pines . But again Mossy Oak works best for what I play in .

Alabama_Sniper - Then I guess the floor cover is sparse and mainly dropped pine needles, brown color, and dark shade? I suppose on how dense a forest we are talking about, nearly all pine forest in the UK is commercial, hence very dense.

Ours are all natural and they are about a foot two or three feet apart not very dense but the pine we have are huge .

Yea, your going to need a pine needle suit. Especially if you play on a pine farm...

Where I live, forest are a little more dense with low to grown vegetation and higher deciduous trees. So ghille cover is very easy to come by...

The forest are really dense with briers , thorns , bushes , pines , and other trees .

ok. then um, Im not really sure what your going to need then. That sums up probably enough for Draven to tell you.

Lone Wolf - Thanks for your vote of confidence, however there is no magic wand, I cannot say, you need a 3/4 ghillie, brulap 60%, raffia 40%, natural brown dye 45% etc.......

Now if I could walk around the site, see it for real it might help, and I could perhaps give you some ideas. All I can do is say how I approached the problem I had making a ghillie for woodland near me.

I always do a site walk, that is have a jolly old plod all over the place, looking for sniper holes, places I'm likely to use. I note the type of vegetation, it's density, and how it will change over the seasons. I always take along my DSLR camera and record the colours and cover available.

Armed with this knowledge, I then put my mind to what type of ghillie to make, or rather what material to garnish it with, raffia from grassland effect, burlap strips for broadleaf, and hessian strands for pretty well everything else. Of course I'm not limited to these material, I will use anything that does the trick. I choose my dyes to suit the colours I photographed, you can make a large range of shades from just a few dyes. I also take into account the type of vegetation when considering how much material to add to the ghillie, i.e. do I want my ghillie to have texture or not, texture is created by adding clumps of material rather than an even covering.

I then make the thing, and if I'm lucky it works

If your playing area is 'dead ground' then there is little any style of ghillie will do to help.



This was the ghillie I was asked to make, photo taken during the Fall [Autumn] soe the colours were chosen to suit, burlap strips were used to match the local vegetation to a degree atleast, veg loops all over to add natural to further increase the illusion.



The same ghillie under construction, WebTex base, showing just how simple there actually are, yet highly effective once in the field. Note just how little material is actually added, light weight, and cool. You do not need to make a wookie suit for it to be effective.

So Alabama_Sniper I cannot give you an answer 'You Need This', that part is for you to discover, while I can advise in ghillie styles, materials, construction, and field craft, the rest has to be upto you.

Mind you, should I be in the area, I'll pop over and have a look around

i find it easier to make you own ghille suit to fit the type of field your playing in
e.g
woodland, snow, desert etc.
so just make them... saves ya haven to buy it and its fast and easy