Can anyone calculate how far off taget he had to aim for that distance? It has to be MASSIVE !
Snipers will have range cards (or more likely now) little computers/PDA’s with the ballistics computations in them.
What they have to know is the range - very accurately. At that distance, the bullet is coming down on a very steep angle; if you didn’t range the target correctly (as in, you’re off even a few meters close or far), the bullet will drop into the ground in front of, or behind the target.
Once they have the range to the target, their scopes are calibrated in either mil-dot (milliradians of subtended arc) or “minutes of angle” to allow them to do a little math (or have the PDA do it for them) and they dial in the required number of clicks on the scope to account for the required increase in elevation.
Sounds easy, right? Well, now we have to dope the wind. And that’s not easy. Either it was dead calm (which I doubt), or they were very, very good about doping the wind and dialing in a wind correction.
These fellas had some awesome range-finding skill or equipment in addition to some impressive wind-doping ability.