Currently, the only way most of us know how it feels to be a professional sniper is to play a video game. So, needless to say, there is a company turning sniping into something just like, uh, playing a video game.
The TrackingPoint technology, called Intelligent Digital Tracking Scopes, will sound familiar to gamers. First, you look down a scope and “tag” your target with where you want the bullet to hit. Then, the scope does the complex math necessary to land the shot.
This is more impressive than you might think. Snipers have to calculate for gravity, parallax, wind speed, and other factors, and they have to do it precisely to land the shot. Currently it involves a lot of math while in the field, something the military is understandably eager to reduce.
Once you’ve got the dot and the math figured out, the display lights up the crosshairs when you can actually hit your target. Until it’s lit up, though, you can’t pull the trigger. So it helps you save ammo as well!
No word on when this might be available to the military, but it’s a friendly reminder not to mess with people who have large military budgets.
TrackingPoint [Official Site]