Samaritan alphabet

The Samaritan alphabet is used by the Samaritans for religious writings, including the Samaritan Pentateuch, writings in Samaritan Hebrew, and for commentaries and translations in Samaritan Aramaic and occasionally Arabic.

Samaritan is a direct descendant of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, which was a variety of the Phoenician alphabet in which large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned. All these scripts are believed to be descendants of the Proto-Sinaitic script. That script was used by the ancient Israelites, both Jews and Samaritans. The better-known "square script" Hebrew alphabet traditionally used by Jews is a stylized version of the Aramaic alphabet which they adopted from the Persian Empire (which in turn adopted it from the Arameans). After the fall of the Persian Empire, Judaism used both scripts before settling on the Aramaic form. For a limited time thereafter, the use of paleo-Hebrew (proto-Samaritan) among Jews was retained only to write the Tetragrammaton, but soon that custom was also abandoned.

United States Marine Corps Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle

The Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle (SAM-R) was a semi-automatic rifle developed by and in service with the United States Marine Corps. It gave Marines the capability to provide precision fire in support of the rifle squad, providing precision fire in support of an assault, and aid in observation and adjusting of supporting arms. After the introduction of the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle, it became used as the designated marksman rifle, as it is issued in each fireteam and has a free-floating barrel and precision trigger.

Background

The Squad Advanced Marksman and his weapon, the Squad Advanced Marksman Rifle, was the product of extensive experimentation by the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) of the addition of a designated marksman to a Marine squad. The concept of a designated marksman was already in use by the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (Anti-Terrorism) and Marine Corps Security Force Regiment. In exercises, a Marine with a scoped rifle and additional training provided immense benefit to small units. An optic provides information-gathering abilities as well as aiding aiming of support weapons such as machine guns and mortars.