Morretti SR4

Overview

The Morretti SR4 Sniper Rifle is a fictitious weapon in the 2006 video game Battlefield 2142. It is the standard weapon for European Union Recon soldiers. It is a high-power semi automatic long-range sniper weapon that can be equipped with two unlockable upgrades.

Characteristics

The Morretti is semi-automatic, but requires roughly one second to chamber a round after the weapon is discharged. The Morretti can be compared to the real-world Steyr IWS 2000, a heavy anti-material rifle. Both have hydro-pneumatic recoil dampening systems that require a short pause between each shot.

The Morretti can be outfitted with a 4X scope and a scope stabilizer. The 4X scope is a siginificant upgrade from the standard scope which has a very low magnification. Perhaps through a glitch in the game, sway from the soldier's breathing is reduced propotionally to the zoom setting, as in the sway is greater at lower zoom settings. For this reason, the 4X zoom upgrade is almost essential for a sniper, giving him/her a very large advantage over a player who does not have it. The other upgrade, the scope stabilizer, completely eliminates sway from a sniper's breathing for a short period of time. This makes long-range shots (200m+) easier. Because some Battlefield maps have a draw distance of less than 100m, people who play these maps rarely utilize this upgrade, as it simply is not ideal for shorter range shots.

It has a 5-round clip, and the player is given seven clips. Each round can do massive amounts of damage. A shot to the torso can do up to 80% damage, whereas a shot to the head guarantees an instant kill. Headshots are not only more efficient in terms of shots/kill, but 10 points is awarded to a player who has 5 headshots in any given round. This award, called the Infiltrator Pin, is cumulative, as in a player can receive more than one per round per every 5 headshots.

An unfortunate charactaristic of the Morretti is that when a soldier reloads it, he brings the gun nearly vertical. As the Morretti is a very long weapon, this can give a hiding sniper's position away.

Comparable Battlefield 2142 Weapons

The direct Pan Asian equivalent to the European Morretti is the Park 52 Sniper Rifle. They are identical in terms of clip size, damage and range, but the Morretti's scope has a very wide field of vision, where the Park 52's scope has a traditional round field of vision. This gives the Morretti user an advantage in that he/she can see more area through the Morretti's scope than a player using a Park 52 can (see graphic).

The unlockable sniper weapon is the Zeller-H Advanced Sniper Rifle. The Zeller-H boasts a higher-power round, one capable of doing 90% damage on a torso shot, and also capable of detonating mines and demolition charges. However, the Zeller-H has a smaller clip capacity (3) and less rounds in total (30 vs. 35). Due to the smaller clip, a player using this weapon will spend more time reloading, and thus missing opportunities to shoot enemies. Also, the Zeller-H's scope has a smaller field of vision than the stock sniper weapons (see graphic). Despite this, many players use the Zeller-H, claiming it has greater accuracy and power. However, there is no evidence to support the accuracy claim, and a headshot from any sniper weapon is an instant kill. Also, the Zeller-H is a less stealthy weapon, as it has a much louder report and its round leaves behind a faint tracer line that, if seen, gives the sniper's position away. The debate as to which sniper weapon is the "best" is one of the most heated in Battlefield 2142, although it can be said that different sniper rifles are suited to different playing styles and map environments.

Another unfortunate characteristic of the Zeller-H is that on lower graphics settings (texture quality to be precise) its scope has a red tint. On desert maps this can significantly degrade image quality and make seeing enemies at long distances very difficult. The Morretti SR4 and the Park 52 do not exhibit this effect on low texture settings. It should be noted that the Morretti SR4 has a clear, un-tinted scope at any graphics setting.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu