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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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Posted on 10/05/2003 7:28:55 AM PDT by knighthawk
The United States military has deployed five teams of 10 airborne snipers to defend Iraq's northern oil pipelines from acts of sabotage by forces loyal to ousted president Saddam Hussein.
Sergeant Brian Stinson said final modifications were being made to Blackhawk UH-60 helicopters, before snipers from the elite Tiger Force could begin patrols along the crucial oil supply lines.
"There is so much area to cover that it requires precision fire, we're on call for 24-hours a day and can be airborne within 30 minutes," he said.
Protection of Iraq's northern pipelines, which stretch 500 kilometres to Turkey and almost to Syria, are a major headache for the American troops, who have devised a series of initiatives to combat sabotage.
This includes the creation of local protection units made-up of the fledgling Iraqi police forces.
Local tribes have also been hired to protect supplies with mixed success.
Armed with 50-calibre M107s, 308 bolt actions and 308 semi-automatics, the Tiger Force deployment also marks the return of airborne snipers in the regular US Army for the first time since the Indochinese wars of the 1960s and 70s.
The 308 bolt is for "personal targets" that limit collateral damage among civilians, with a medium range of almost one kilometre.
Sergeant Stinson said the 50-calibre is for longer range work, capable of killing a person from 2.5 kilometres, and the concussion alone from a round that passes within a close enough distance can kill.
The Tiger Force first won fame in the Vietnam War where it was established by Colonel David Hackworth, the highest decorated US soldier in that conflict.
"It's the same system we used in Vietnam and we've brought it out of retirement," Sergeant Stinson said.
Helicopter pilots from the 101st Airborne Division have trained specifically for ferrying snipers along the pipelines.
Pilots fly at night without light and must keep the Blackhawk in the air and position the helicopter behind, between valleys and hills, which muffles the sound of the rotors while remaining mostly out of view.
However, at the same time, the sniper's sights remain on the target allowing for "precision fire".
"We can hit a target before it knows we're there," Sergeant Stinson, a sniper with the 101st Airborne, said.
Iraq's main pipeline runs from oil-rich Kirkuk north to the Dohuk province and then on westward to the Turkish Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan.
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FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
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It is in the breaking news sidebar! |
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That true?
Stupid reporters making stupid statements bump.
Hey, TC, fiveshooter has a video he made yesterday of a Barret semi. He said the videos will be on the net in a couple of days. I'll try to let you know when they're there.
White feather in the field.
Seems reactive. The Bad Guys will be gone by then. Yeah, it is a BIG area but why can't small teams been randomly inserted in areas, stay a few day, pick off a few, and be picked up?
What about drones carrying mini guns? Puree the buggers on site or keep them pinned down until our troops get there?
Really, though- who is to say this is want we are actually doing? I can't believe we (that is an editorial, military "we") would give the other team our game plans by revealing them to someone in their PR department (i.e., the global press). Then again, some people want everyone - journalists included - to love 'em... I hope this is not one of those instances.
The .50 BMG concussion blurb sounds sort of like the older kid next door telling you that the local wayfreight can suck you in if you are too close to the tracks, knowing full well that all the track is 10 MPH.
/sarcasm. Reporters don't know rifles from shotguns, and print the nuttiest stuff.
Right. I thought TC was kidding when he said I was safer behind him than I was holding the target when he was shooting his .50!!
I have personally used all four of these tools in EOD work..........had I the task of guarding a pipeline with regards to mirage, wind and shamal like conditions there again. Soft skin targets operating at night for the most part. I'd take the AW or the Long Bow in 338 Lapua Mag.
Stay Safe !
Squantos, you are one cool cookie!!!
Grizzly .50
Well, more like *Carlos Hathcock, One of the very best.* He wasn't much either for bragging, nor for overstatment.
Simo Häyhä: The best of the XX Century: [515 in less than 4 months,during conditions when there were only about 4 hours of sunlight daily]
Simo Häyhä: back when he was about his task, circa 1940, equipped with his preferred tool, a Model 28-30 Finnish reworked Mosin-Nagant rifle, as used in Olymoic rifle competition of the period- in which he had previously been a competitor.
Simo Häyhä in 1978, a little older, but still the same guy- and still with his same old rifle. Beware the man with one rifle, who probably knows how to use it well...even a paper-target punching rifle with no telescopic sights!
Come on guys.....have you forgotten?
HEART ATTACK!
I can assure you, that if one of these babies whiz past your ear - you WILL mess your pants or die of fright.
You never hear the shot....until after the round (moving faster than sound) "cracks" past your position..
Semper Fi
The concussion of a tank's main gun muzzle blast can indeed shatter helmet liners and the old solid one-piece tankers CVC helmet; I've done that myself when outside the vehicle and too close to the muzzle [the idea for the guy on ground security with a .45 *Greasegun* was to stay where the driver could see him, and thereby not get run over] with an M48A3's 90mm gun and around M60A1s on gunnery ranges; the blast from the short tubed M551 Sheridan was even worse. And you most certainly do not want to be in the vicinity of forward of the muzzle of a tank's main gun when discarding sabot or canister rounds let go.
As to the possibility of a close one from a .50, I'm aware of a crew that let fly with the .50 in the commander's cupe at a fella at around 75 meters and missed him, [no boresight on the commander's optics suspected] though he was unconscious when the crew dismounted to collect his weapons and documents for S2 as well as any souveniers available. To their surprised he was untouched and alive but unhit. Whether that was from concussion from the .50 rounds or shock and panic as .50 tracers went flying by his face this deponent knoweth and sayeth not. But I would not care to try being on the receiving end to find out.
-archy-/-
Fired directly down the tank's cannon barrel, though an open breech block, and killing the crew by multiple ricochet or into the onboard ammo racks..
</ sarcasm>
Semper Fi
Yep. He was one shooter who really did pull off that *down the other guy's telescopic sight* shot. And he very much knew what he was doing. As did Soviet sniper Liudmila Pavlichenko, then 26 when she racked up in excess of 300 hits with her scoped AVT Tokarev semiauto rifle, most notably at the fighting around Sevastopol.
Seen here inspecting a British Home Guardsman's Pattern 14 Enfield while on a good-will tour visiting allies. She was the first citizen of the Soviet Union to be invited to enter the White House, and was presented with a M1911A1 .45 Colt autopistol by the union representatives who worked at the Colt Hartford factory.
Thanks to all snipers. May God bless your eyes, your hands, and your hearts.
Stay Safe !
That's one way of doing it. There's another.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with a mix of technology and methodologies....
Stay Safe !
Beats the heck out of the Motorola Talkabout and Cobra FRS radios used by US troops in Bosnia and Iraq for lack of a workable PRR like the Brits have.
I've been using the Sierra 168 gr Match Kings, but I bought a box of those 'environmentally friendly' copper solids from barnes. Same bullet weight and design, so I'm expecting good results from it. I'm trying to find a range that has something longer than 500 yards but there aren't many of those in Illinois.
I'm going to try to hit the range in the next week or so. I'll let you know how the preliminary loads work.
The only problem with the Barnes bullet is their cost. The Match King is like 20 bucks a hundred but the Barnes are 60 bucks.
Oh well, if they hit as hard as they claim they'll be worth it when deer season opens next month.
I picked up one of those Ishapore SMLE rifles in 308 and have 'sporterized' it just a bit The whole thing from soup to nuts set me back less than 300 bucks. I'm going to see if I can bag a whitetail with it. I don't even think they were ever fired. They're available on the net for about 120 bucks or so.
Now, I'm saving for a .50 cal. DPMS makes a pretty nice looking one, but any advice is appreciated. my budget for the rifle is 5 grand and under a g for the scope.
Regards,
L
How much you know about the 1940 fight at Kolla in Karelia known as* Killer Hill*, the Finnish version of the Alamo? Except that the Finns won their fight.
IMHO a few LP/OP 's strung out with thermal could call in blackhawks and use their GAU2B's on the pipeline sappers. The surgical precision of a "trained" sniper is a waste of assets IMHO when used in such a manner as this. Where the lines pass thru urban or built up areas.....yes. Across the desert........no. Just my opinion of course.
Stay Safe Archy !!............Gurka babes ??? they sure are Purdy !
Remember that the screw-type ejector of the British Service Model Lee Enfield upon which the Ishapore 2A and 2A1 .308 Bolt rifles were based [they're not a *pure* #1 Mk III S.M.L.E., though Ishapore previously made some fine ones] was meant to be used with the rimmed .303 cartridge, and may give much less satisfactory results with rimless .308/ 7,62 NATO cartridges, depending on which of the very many versions of .308/7,62 brass is used- The cartridge is loaded in a bewildering variety of variations in many different countries and at many different periods in the last six decades, and rim dimensions may differ. And when the British were searching for a similar conversion for their #4 Mark 1 [T] rifles converted to 7,62mm as L42A1 sniper's rifles, they went to a very different arrangement, with a seperate ejector permanently welded to the body of the magazine instead.
For additional info, check out Njaneer's Ishapore collector's info or one of the several Enfield owner/user/collector's sites. Or freepmail me.
But I far, FAR prefer the Enfields in their original chambering, not only for reliabilities sake.
-archy-/-
All my M1A's are fed mexican match from Lake City or Federal Match 168gr commercial. I reload for hunting and IDPA competition but stick to commercial or issue for working guns.
My goal righ now is to find an brookfeild M1A scope mount. Ebay had one a few months ago but at 300$ I had to go to work and lost the bid. Every see one laying around scream at me ! Alledgedly Smith Inc has the mount closest in make to the Brookfield version but I haven't tried it yet.
The early SA scopes (1987-88 timeframe) were actually made by Burris and used their RAC technology. Who makes these for SA these days ??
Stay Safe and reload safer !
Now to get back to fighting weight ........Stay Safe Eaker !
LOL!
Those little radios are actually quite amazing ... built with surface mount components, they will run several days on 3 AA's ... with a 'special buy' in quantity they can be operating in another band quite easily, incorporate such features as 'power saver' for extended receive life, utilize UHF which is an ideal frequency urban areas (inside metal framed glass-enclosed vehicles like cars, HUMVEES) ... some are even water proof ... none of the old 'Jobcoms' or Wilsons were any of that ...
The Gurkhas are still very much operational, though moreso in the Indian and Pakistani military formations than in the scaled-back british, and there's a rumble going about that a Gurkha seconded to the SAS picked up a nomination for the VC in an incident involving the use of a kukri inside a cave in Afghanistan. They're scaled back among the Brits indeed, but seem to be happily absorbed as detatchments among the Irish Rifles and signals/transport regiment, among others. But yes, think British Gurkha companies and battalions now, rather than regiments.
I've got several khukuris, including the one I first got from them when involved with one of their *little projects* back in 1967. Interesting fellas: they treat sports like a war, and war like a sport. The last time I was out and about with them, the First Sergeant with us had his Randall 17 Astronaut/survival knife along, and the Gurkhas were very impressed with it, reckoning Randall-kami to be a pretty good blacksmith, and inquiring as to which village his forge was located in.
IMHO a few LP/OP 's strung out with thermal could call in blackhawks and use their GAU2B's on the pipeline sappers. The surgical precision of a "trained" sniper is a waste of assets IMHO when used in such a manner as this.
Strikes me as a great training exercise for those just out of the trade schools, though, with maybe one or two of the more experienced trigger techs around should something real interesting turn up, and to supervise.
Where the lines pass thru urban or built up areas.....yes. Across the desert........no. Just my opinion of course.
All generalities are untrue, and combat ops are sufficiently fluid as to change the equation anyway. The one thing that's reasonably certain is that if you don't change and develop your tactics as time goes on, your enemy will happily change his to defeat yours.
Stay Safe Archy !!............
That's not always entirely possible, of course, but it's a nice thought.
Gurka babes ??? they sure are Purdy !
Oh yes. But don't get them, their daddies or their brothers upset at you.
-archy-/-
And drop nicely into a fatigue shirt or field jacket pocket, or can be speedtaped to the back of a K-pot. I don't expect it'd be too much of a stretch for one to be built into a plastic/synthetic sniper's rifle stock, either.
And if you need a second for backup should the first lose battery power at an inopportune time, or use the second to monitor your local unit push while in touch with Higher on another, a second radio in another pocket is no big deal, and provides a spare for another squaddie should theirs go down.
They're handy, but far from perfect. But sufficiently useful that their operational use in Bosnia was prohibited for use by the snuffies. After all, the brass had all the encrypted SINGCARS radios they needed in their vehicles, so who cares about the grunts going house-to-house.
The *Unwired Tech* Bill Dance model comes in OD green, is built with multiple waterproof gaskets, a waterproof plastic rather than paper speaker cone, and is reasonably weather-resistant if probably not exactly submersible, though marketed as a *fisherman's model* in which such an event might be reasonably expected to happen occasionally. I'm not sure if a GMRS frequency version is also available, but again, a second radio can go in another pocket [or modified first aid/compass pouch on the LBE] for covering those freqs.
The Garmin GMRS *Rino 120* waterproof model is similar, and includes GPS mapping features.
-archy-/-
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