Posted on 01/02/2010 7:54:24 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The army's best shot watched in delight down the sights of his L96A1 rifle as the launcher bobbed along for 20 yards behind the wall... and paused.
The point of the rocket dipped and aimed towards him. The enemy's face bobbed up into the crosshair. And Steve squeezed the trigger.
He saw the face wobble with the impact. Half of it blew away. The grenade launcher fell back over the wall and disappeared... but only briefly.
Seconds later it was back up, bobbing along the wall. Steve watched it until it stopped, and fired again as a second Taliban face appeared. "Looked like someone bounced a football off his head, the way it snapped backwards," says the L Cpl. Throughout that day Steve shot dead another five insurgents from the snipers' nest he shared with fellow crackshot Frank "The Yank" Ward.
Steve, 29, says it's their "job to kill people and there's no other way of saying it".
And award-winning writer Sam Kiley, who followed their exploits, believes the pair epitomise the desire of the British Army to get the job done. "Afghanistan is in many ways a sniper's war," he says. "Most insurgent attacks are conducted by up to a dozen men who can tie up a whole company.
"If a sniper can kill or injure two or three, he drives down the ability of the Taliban to suck energy out of the British."
In their snipers' nest on the roof of forward operating base Gibraltar, Steve and Frank used a bizarre decoy to draw the Taliban from cover... a blow-sex doll in uniform.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsoftheworld.co.uk ...
You gotta love it!
In that part of the world its goats.
Gotta love them snipers. Thank God for them—The British and The Americans.
For a story on US snipers in So. Vietnam, see “Vietnam Magazine, December, 1989, “Snipers Deadly Toll” (cover title).
“At 13 cents per round, Army and Marine snipers were among the most cost-effective weapons systems of the war” by David A. Johnson.
There were other articles about specific US sniper teams, the name Hancock comes to mind, in other issues of “Vietnam” magazine. Google it and see where it comes up.
Madmax, Vietnam journalist, non-combat.
Son, Joshua, M249, OIF. A sharpshooter with confirmed enemy kills (actually a bridgebuilder/truck driver and boat-driver with the 299th Army Engineers, Ft. Belvoir, Va, USAR activated). He was a squad 249er.
His weapon’s trainer once gave him two or three extra clip-boxes of ammo for practice, saying, “The boy likes to shoot”.
And that he did.
Nothing like a job were you get instant feedback on the quality of your work. (plus there is the instant gratification... ~}:-)>
Carlos Hathcock?
hehehe
There are lasers which do not use visible wavelengths (infrared laser diodes--1.06 micron wavenlength light). Can't be seen without special optical equipment similar to night vision light amplifiers.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/n655124412x9616u/
In regards to some earlier posts about the smaller caliber, could have been the .204 Ruger. I may be biased because the animals I have taken down for game are quite large, fast and deadly I am a firm believer in velocity, mass and specific designed bullet types.
My most reliable big game stopper thats not a shoulder killer is the .338 Winchester, the intermediate long range thats out to 400 yards is the .308 Winchester with 150gr. Barnes Triple Shocks. Thats the round I keep available for my Springfield M1A, it feeds well, shoots well and is a good medium sporting and self defense rifle cartridge.
While I have several rifles chambered for the 5.56/.223 that cartridge to me is relegated as the “pray and spray” use, or when you have the odds against you, returning covering fire or a bullet you can haul around all day in a certain mass amount.
Almost any caliber or bullet can be a sniper round, its the shooter thats a sniper.
It is Hathcock. Carlos Hathcock.
Nice to know the Brits are enjoying their work!
Sniper’s Credo: One shot, one kill.
Machine Gunner’s Credo: One shot, one kill - again, and again, and again, and again...
The distance is held by a Canadian Sniper in Astan he hit a Taliban at 2430 meters who was carrying an RPG walking along a Mountain Ridge it was amazing what he and his buddy had to do he get him on his third shot. I never realized that they had to factor in the rotation of the bullet when it leaves the Barrel among other things.
The CheyTac fires two primary rounds, a 419-grain bullet with a BC of 0.94 moving at 2900 fps (feet per second) and a 305-grain round with a BC of 1.12 moving at 3300 fps, both of which are lathed turned bullets made out of a copper nickel alloy, which allows one to easily reach out to 2500 yards and beyond.
Yes, that’s it. He may have been the same sniper that went with his buddy thinking they might catch a NVA squad crossing the river. They figured out where they might cross and picked it correctly. I think he waited until the nearest enemy was within 50 yards. Then one by one he started shooting. I think it was 16 enemy that he killed - with less than 2 seconds between his shots!
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