On September 20th of 2026, the President of the United States made a very interesting comment about the use of the proposed Triumphal Arch in Washington DC. He indicated that the arch could be made “into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage.” I think we can honestly say we at Sniper Central were not the only ones surprised by this proposed use of the 250′ tall arch intended to commemorate 250 years of declared independence for the United States. Sniper Central is not in the business of arguing politics, and we will not start now, but we do know sniping, so we did want to actually step back and explore the idea of posting snipers at the arch.
In order to examine this proposal, we first need to look at what the structure of the Triumphal Arch is currently designed to be. The Arch itself is symbolically slated to stand 250′ tall, measured to the tallest point of the outstretched hand on top. This obviously is representative of the 250 year anniversary of independence. Like most memorials, the arch is primarily intended to be symbolic and to instill grandeur, but it does also have an observation deck, likely around 200′ above ground level. The current version of the Arch is the most recent of several iterations of the design, so it has not been finalized and can still change, but we would assume the observation deck area is where the proposed sniper perch could be, or at least something similar to that on top.
Undoubtably the structure itself could easily be used for a sniper perch, it is plenty big and the elevation helps provide clear sight lines…but the problem we are seeing is with just exactly what those sightlines would cover and what advantage would this position provide to snipers tasked with protection? The location proposed for the arch is in what is called the memorial circle, located on the West end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, positioned right in between the Lincoln Memorial located at the end of the National Mall to the East, and Arlington National Cemetery to the West. Both of these locations are popular and receive a large amount of foot traffic, especially the National Mall, so there could be some sound reasoning to position snipers to watch over and provide protection of these areas. But there are some drastic limitations to the location of the Arch.
As can be seen in the image above, the Arch would face the back side of the Lincoln Memorial, which sees very limited foot traffic compared to the front of the Memorial where the vast majority of the visitors congregate and then turn around and head back down the Mall. So the back side of the memorial and the trees to either side would shield any fields of fire from where bad actors would likely be located. Additionally, the distance from the Arch location to the back of the Lincoln Memorial is right about 1000 yards, a difficult shot in ideal conditions if there were not any innocent bystanders all around. But it must be said that the Arlington Memorial Bridge between the Arch and the Lincoln Memorial could potentially be a target for terrorists or nation state actors, but it is purely vehicle traffic and likely would be a target for a higher kinetic strike package that a sniper would likely not be powerless against.
Looking the other direction toward Arlington National Cemetery, there is a straight shot toward the John F. Kennedy burial sight which does get some good foot traffic and could be a potential target, but compared to the countless other areas in DC that get drastically more traffic, it would seem to be a low value target, though potentially symbolic. But the real problem is that it is about 1150 yards away from the Arch with buildings, trees and hills in the way. Providing sniper overwatch for that area is impractical for snipers positioned on the Arch. Looking North and South reveals highways and roads with no real areas to protect.
Evaluating the proposal of housing snipers in the Arch, it really makes no practical sense and we would suspect the commanders on the ground would point out the major flaws in this plan. Beyond providing a “show of force”, there really is no reason to do this and likely is just political rhetoric. The idea of using it as a homebase for surveillance drones does make more sense, but we’ll let others argue for or against that plan and we’ll stick to what we know.
Sniper Central
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