# The Ultimate Sniper: An Advanced Training Manual for Military and Police Snipers

> Which way was someone really walking, and how long ago? This military sniper manual includes a chapter on mantracking, with clear methods for counting people from their footprints, ageing tracks and signs by comparing them with your own fresh print, and using a simple marked stick to find the next print. Many of its lessons will be familiar to wildlife trackers.

Summary by Kersey Lawrence, Original Wisdom. Updated 9 November 2026. Page: https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2006-plaster-ultimate-sniper-advanced-training/

## Citation and access

- **Authors:** John L. Plaster
- **Year published:** 2006
- **Journal or source:** Book (second edition), Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado
- **Full citation:** Plaster, J. L. 2006. The Ultimate Sniper: An Advanced Training Manual for Military and Police Snipers. Second edition (first edition 1993). Paladin Press, Boulder, Colorado. ISBN 978-1-58160-494-8. Chapter 16, Mantracking, pp. 415–424.
- **Access status:** Publisher link only
- **Where to find it:** https://openlibrary.org/isbn/9781581604948

## Tags

- **Tracking:** Blood; Gaits; Scat; Spoor age estimation; Track counts; Track measurements; Tracking; Tracks; Tracks and signs identification; Trailing; Urine
- **Data type:** Protocol or guidelines
- **Discipline:** Human tracking
- **Year published:** 2006

## Detailed keywords

- **Species:** Studied: humans, as the people being tracked (the “quarry”). Mentioned: hooved animals, which also flatten soil; a lone buck on a Minnesota deer hunt, whose tracks laid over semi-frozen ones misled the author’s hunting party; an owl whose behaviour warned a recon team of approaching soldiers; birds flushed or attracted by hidden people; a curious cow; tracker dogs and bloodhounds used by pursuers.
- **Location and habitat:** A general training manual, not tied to one place. Examples come from the United States (Minnesota; U.S. Border Patrol), Israel’s northern border with Lebanon (a swept dirt road used as a track detection barrier), Cambodia (a 1970 recon mission near Snuol, heading towards Kratie), Laos, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Habitats discussed include forest, jungle, swamp, rocky ground and cliffs, desert and snow.
- **Topics:** mantracking (tracking people) for military and police sniper teams; reading the quarry’s mind (who they are versus what they are doing); footprint anatomy (heel strike, toe drag showing true direction); telling men’s, women’s, running and load-carrying tracks apart; walking backwards as a failed deception; counting people in a group (stride or key print method, 36-inch method); sign (flattening, pressed pebbles, displacement, dew, crushed lichen and leaves, leaves dark side down, broken twigs and grass, interlaced vegetation, spider webs, slides, log scrapes, litter, urine stains, feces); using low sun or a flashlight for shadow; the tracking stick (pace stick) credited to U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jack Kearney; tracker and security roles; evasion techniques and how to counter them; losing and regaining the trail; ageing tracks and signs (comparing with your own fresh print, edge crispness, drying, wind-blown sand and leaves, water in tracks, freezing and thawing); blood trails (type and colour of blood, ageing from bright red to brown); jump tracking; parallel end runs to intercept; several teams cutting sign ahead of the quarry; estimating pace (2.2 miles per hour planning figure). Elsewhere in the book: human sign as a target indicator, animals as alarm signals, obscuring your own backtrail, “buttonhooking” to check for followers, travelling in snow to hide tracks. Note: in the glossary and marksmanship chapters “tracking” also has a shooting meaning (swinging the rifle with a moving target), unrelated to tracks.
- **Statistics or models:** None
- **Data type:** Protocol or guidelines: a training manual based on the author’s experience in Special Forces reconnaissance (SOG, the Studies and Observations Group, in the Vietnam War), sniper instruction and big game hunting, and on other trackers’ work. No new field data. This is the second edition (copyright 1993, 2006; preface dated January 2006); the old library listed it as 1993. The book has 23 chapters on sniping; only Chapter 16 (Mantracking, pp. 415–424) is about tracking, with short related passages in other chapters.

## Synopsis

### 1. What they did

This is a training manual for military and police snipers, written by a retired U.S. Army Reserve major and former Special Forces reconnaissance soldier who later instructed snipers. Most of the book covers rifles, scopes, ballistics, marksmanship, camouflage and tactics. The author says it was the first sniper training manual to include mantracking, the tracking of people.

Chapter 16, Mantracking, sets out what a sniper team should be able to do from tracks and signs alone: work out how many people are in a group, which way they are heading, when they passed, what they were doing, where they are likely going and when they will get there, and follow their trail for as long as needed. It draws on the author’s own experience and on U.S. Border Patrol Agent Jack Kearney’s methods.

### 2. What they found

Think like the quarry

- A person moves differently depending on whether they know they are being followed, the size of their group, the time of day, whether the ground is familiar, whether they use a map, and how fit and experienced they are. Each conclusion about who the quarry is helps predict what they will do, “like a crossword puzzle”.

- The most gifted trackers learn to see their surroundings through their quarry’s eyes and anticipate the next move.

Footprints

- The heel presses deepest and is the most likely part of the foot to leave a mark. The toe usually drags a little earth as it leaves the ground, which shows the true direction of travel, even when someone walks backwards.

- Men’s prints tend to be larger and point straight ahead or to the side; women’s are usually narrower, somewhat pigeon-toed, with a shorter stride. Running lengthens the stride and pushes the toes deeper; a heavy load gives deeper prints and longer toe drags.

Counting people

- Stride (key print) method: pick one clear print, mark a box from its heel to the next print of the same foot, and count the whole prints inside. The illustrated example gives three people.

- 36-inch method: when no key print can be found, mark a one-yard length of trail, count all prints and part prints, and divide by two. The example gives six people. This method is less exact.

Sign

- Whole footprints are rarely found. Most tracking relies on “sign”: faint clues such as flattened soil, pebbles pressed into the ground, displaced stones and sticks, disturbed dew, crushed lichen and leaves, leaves turned dark side down, broken twigs and grass, interlaced vegetation pulled apart, torn spider webs, slides on banks, litter, urine stains and feces.

- Apart from hooved animals, people are the only creatures that flatten soil in distinct ways; where no hooved animals are around, “flat means man”.

- To see faint scrapes and dents, keep the sign between you and the sun. Early to mid-morning and mid- to late afternoon are best. In dark forest, a flashlight held low makes shadows.

Following the trail

- Kearney’s tracking stick is a thin, yard-long pole marked with the quarry’s foot length and the distance from one print’s toe to the next print’s heel. Pivoting it from a known print shows where the next one should be.

- Only one person tracks at a time while the teammate watches for danger; they swap roles regularly to stay fresh.

- Common evasions (dragging brush, walking backwards, walking in streams, rock hopping, changing direction) are usually not very effective, and the chapter explains how to counter each one.

- If the trail is lost: take a break, think about the natural line of drift, study the map, ask your teammate, and step back to scan with naked eyes and binoculars.

Ageing tracks and signs

- Rain, sun and wind age sign differently from place to place and season to season, so trackers need to learn how fast it changes where they are.

- A key technique is to make your own fresh print beside the sign and compare depth, crispness and drying. Prints in soft soil can look fresher than they are.

- Other clues include sand or leaves blown into a track, a print over a recent vehicle track, and whether the water in a track is muddy or clear. Freezing and thawing can mislead: on a Minnesota deer hunt, one buck wandering over a clearcut for a few days left so many “fresh” prints that the author’s party thought it had found a large gathering.

Blood trails

- The chapter describes how the amount, colour and texture of blood can indicate the type of wound, and how fresh blood turns from bright red to brown within about 30 minutes to an hour above freezing. Two people can leapfrog from drop to drop.

Closing the gap

- Moving slowly enough to read sign means you will never catch a fast-moving group. A 1970 example: the author’s recon team found a five-yard-wide trail of more than a thousand people in Cambodia but could not catch up.

- Faster options include “jump tracking” (moving from one bit of sign straight to the most distant visible sign), leaving the trail to take a faster parallel route and get ahead, and having several teams search ahead for fresh sign across the quarry’s line of travel, coordinated by radio.

Related points elsewhere in the book

- In target detection, animals, especially birds, may be flushed or attracted by hidden people. An owl repeatedly looking back the way it had come warned one soldier of an approaching enemy patrol.

- Snipers should obscure their own backtrail, double back regularly to check for followers (“buttonhooking”), and in snow use woodlines, drifts, snowfall and wind to hide their tracks.

### 3. What they concluded

- The chapter does not cover everything about mantracking, but the author holds that proficiency in these techniques prepares a sniper for most situations.

- The central lesson is to try to see the environment as the quarry sees it.

- Textbook solutions can look fine but be unrealistic: a team that moves slowly enough to read every track will not catch a quick-moving group, so trackers need ways to get ahead rather than only follow.

### 4. How tracking was or was not used

The book teaches tracking rather than testing it. Chapter 16 covers tracks and signs identification (footprints, many kinds of sign, urine, feces and blood), counting people from tracks, ageing tracks and signs, and trailing, including jump tracking and team methods for intercepting the quarry.

### 6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

- Kearney’s tracking stick (pace stick), marked with rubber bands or notches.

- A flashlight held low to create shadows on the forest floor.

- Israel’s track detection barrier: a dirt road along the border fence, swept smooth each morning by a truck towing a brush drag, so anyone crossing leaves fresh tracks, and tracker teams are flown in when tracks are found.

- Binoculars and spotting scopes to scan for sign at a distance.

### 8. Implications for tracking (Original Wisdom's observations)

_These are Original Wisdom's observations, not the authors'._

- Many of the methods here are the same ones wildlife trackers use: reading the direction of travel from where the earth is pushed, comparing sign with a fresh print of your own to estimate age, using low light to see faint dents, and predicting where the quarry is going rather than following print by print.

- The Minnesota buck story is a useful reminder for anyone ageing tracks: freezing and thawing can make old tracks look fresh, and one animal moving about for days can look like many.

## Cite this summary

Lawrence, K. 2026. Summary of: The Ultimate Sniper: An Advanced Training Manual for Military and Police Snipers (Plaster, 2006). Original Wisdom, Tracking Literature. https://www.originalwisdom.com/tracking-literature/2006-plaster-ultimate-sniper-advanced-training/