History of the Ghillie Suit

The term "Ghillie" comes from the Gaelic word "gille", which means servant. Landlords in Scotland would hire wardens to stop poachers on their estates. They came to be known as "ghillies". One of the techniques the ghillies used to catch poachers was to make a suit of clothes consisting of frayed, dangling rags - which they wore while hiding in the bushes patiently waiting for poachers to appear. These suits became known as "ghillie suits".

Modern ghillie suits are practically synonymous with snipers and sniping, so a little history of sniping should be included with any history of the suits. It appears that sniping evolved around the end of the 18th century (1780-1810) as a method of picking off valuable members of an opposing army. Before this time, weapons did not have the range and accuracy to reliably hit a man-sized target at ranges much more than 100 meters. Keep in mind that this was a very dishonorable way of dealing with your enemies -- no honor in picking off an enemy who is not even aware of being engaged in combat. Therefore, it was typically guerillas and rebels that began to employ sniping.

It is believed that the term sniping derives from hunting the bird. Snipes are so wary that the only way to hunt them was to shoot them from long range. One had to be a good shot to hit such a small target -- especially with the rifles of the time. Hence, the hunters became known as "snipers", and their hunting as "sniping".

It soon became evident that the survivability of the sniper was enhanced if he was hidden when he engaged the enemy, and the use of ghillie techniques for camouflage was a natural addition to the sniper's repertoire.

The advent of rifled barrels in the early to mid 1800's rapidly increased the effective range of sharpshooters. The term "sharpshooter", in fact, refers not to the "sharpness" of the shooting but to the Sharps Rifle -- which the best shots seemed to use and prefer. During the American civil war, sharpshooters on both sides regularly were used to pick of high-value officers and NCOs on the other side. They, coupled with the rapid fire of the breech-loading rifle and, later, the Gatling gun, forced the change in infantry tactics from ordered, Napoleonic rigid-order frontal attack to indirect, flanking attacks and attack by infiltration.

An interesting bit of Marine Sniper history is that from early times marines were stationed in the rigging of ships-of-the-line as they closed for battle. From this position, they would attempt to pick off the officers of the opposing ship with their long guns. The dark blue color and red piping of the U.S. Marine dress uniform is said to descend from the method the Marines used to hide in the rigging at night -- they would take their red jacket and turn it inside out so that the dark inner-lining showed. The red seams showed through.

During World War One, modern snipers and Ghillie Suits were used on both sides and at all fronts. Pictures of WWI snipers show Ghillies that are differ little from many made and used today. Mainly, what has changed in the intervening time is the optics involved in finding and sighting in on the quarry; the weapon size and range; and the materials used in making the Ghillies.