Designated marksman rifle in the context of Selective fire

The Heckler & Koch MP5 (German: Maschinenpistole 5, lit. 'Submachine gun 5') is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s by German firearms manufacturer Heckler & Koch. It uses a similar modular design to the Heckler & Koch G3, and has over 100 variants and clones, including selective fire, semi-automatic, suppressed, compact, and even marksman variants. The MP5 is one of the most widely used submachine guns in the world, having been adopted by over forty nations and numerous militaries, police forces, intelligence agencies, security organizations, paramilitaries, and non-state actors.

Attempts at replacing the MP5 by Heckler & Koch began in the 1980s, but despite functional prototype weapons having promising performance, a formal successor did not enter commercial production until 1999, when Heckler & Koch developed the UMP. However, despite being more expensive, the MP5 remained the more successful of the two designs, because of its preexisting widespread use, design familiarity, and lower recoil due to its roller-delayed action as opposed to the UMP's straight blowback action.

A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision shooting. In modern military usage this typically refers to the use of projectile weapons such as an accurized scoped long gun such as designated marksman rifle (or a sniper rifle) to shoot at high-value targets at longer-than-usual ranges.

The proficiency in precision shooting is known as a shooter's marksmanship, which can be used to describe both gunnery and archery.

Small arms and light weapons (SALW), in arms control protocols, are two main classes of man-portable weapons.

Small arms, broadly speaking, are individual-service (i.e. for carry and operation by individual infantrymen) kinetic projectile firearms. These include: handguns (revolvers, pistols, derringers, and machine pistols), muskets, rifled muskets, shotguns, rifles (assault rifles, battle rifles, carbines, designated marksman rifles, short-barreled rifles, sniper rifles, etc.), submachine guns, personal defense weapons, squad automatic weapons, and light machine guns.

The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It became the standard-issue rifle for the U.S. military in 1957, replacing the M1 Garand rifle in service with the U.S. Army by 1958 and the U.S. Marine Corps by 1965; deliveries of service rifles to the U.S. Army began in 1959. The M14 was used by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps for Basic and Advanced Individual Training from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.

The M14 was the last American battle rifle issued in quantity to U.S. military personnel. In 1967, it was officially replaced by the M16 assault rifle, a lighter weapon with a smaller 5.56×45mm intermediate cartridge. The M14 rifle remains in limited service across all branches of the U.S. military, with variants used as sniper and designated marksman rifles, accurized competition weapons, and ceremonial weapons by honor guards, color guards, drill teams, and ceremonial guards. Civilian semi-automatic variants are used for hunting, target shooting, and shooting competitions.

The SVD (СВД; Russian: снайперская винтовка Драгунова, romanized: snayperskaya vintovka Dragunova, lit. 'Dragunov sniper rifle'), GRAU index 6V1, is a semi-automatic designated marksman rifle/sniper rifle chambered in the 7.62×54mmR cartridge, developed in the Soviet Union.

A reticle or reticule, also known as a graticule or crosshair, is a pattern of fine lines or markings built into the eyepiece of an optical device such as a telescopic sight, spotting scope, theodolite, optical microscope or the screen of an oscilloscope, to provide measurement references during visual inspections. Today, engraved lines or embedded fibers may be replaced by a digital image superimposed on a screen or eyepiece. Both terms may be used to describe any set of patterns used for aiding visual measurements and calibrations, but in modern use reticle is most commonly used for weapon sights, while graticule is more widely used for non-weapon measuring instruments such as oscilloscope display, astronomic telescopes, microscopes and slides, surveying instruments and other similar devices.

There are many variations of reticle pattern; this article concerns itself mainly with the most rudimentary reticle: the crosshair. Crosshairs are typically represented as a pair of perpendicularly intersecting lines in the shape of a cross, "+", though many variations of additional features exist including dots, posts, concentric circles/horseshoes, chevrons, graduated markings, or a combination of above. Most commonly associated with telescopic sights for aiming firearms, crosshairs are also common in optical instruments used for astronomy and surveying, and are also popular in graphical user interfaces as a precision pointer. The reticle is said to have been invented by Robert Hooke, and dates to the 17th century. Another candidate as inventor is the amateur astronomer William Gascoigne, who predated Hooke.