Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Dago on January 21, 2005, 02:00:21 PM
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Picked this up on a gun board:
Submitted by: 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing
Story Identification #: 200512134758
Story by Cpl. Paul W. Leicht
AR RAMADI, Iraq (Jan. 02, 2005) -- Seen through a twenty-power spot scope, terrorists scrambled to deliver another mortar round into the tube. Across the Euphrates River from a concealed rooftop, the Marine sniper breathed gently and then squeezed a few pounds of pressure to the delicate trigger of the M40A3 sniper rifle in his grasp. The rifle's crack froze the booming Fallujah battle like a photograph. As he moved the bolt back to load another round of 7.62mm ammunition, the sniper's spotter confirmed the terrorist went down from the shot mere seconds before the next crack of the rifle dropped another. It wasn't the sniper's first kill in Iraq, but it was one for the history books.
On Nov. 11, 2004, while coalition forces fought to wrest control of
Fallujah from a terrorist insurgency, Marine scout snipers with Company B,
1st Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit,
applied their basic infantry skills and took them to a higher level.
"From the information we have, our chief scout sniper has the longest
confirmed kill in Iraq so far," said Capt. Shayne McGinty, weapons platoon commander for "Bravo" Co. "In Fallujah there were some bad guys firing mortars at us and he took them out from more than 1,000 yards."
During the battle for the war-torn city, 1/23 Marine scout snipers
demonstrated with patience, fearless initiative and wits that well-trained
Marines could be some of the deadliest weapons in the world.
"You really don't have a threat here until it presents itself," said Sgt.
Herbert B. Hancock, chief scout sniper, 1/23, and a 35-year-old police
officer from Bryan, Texas, whose specialized training and skill helped
save the lives of his fellow Marines during the battle. "In Fallujah we
really didn't have that problem because it seemed like everybody was
shooting at us. If they fired at us we just dropped them."
Stepping off on day one of the offensive from the northern edge of the
Fallujah peninsula, the Marine reservists of 1/23, with their scout
snipers, moved to secure a little island, but intense enemy fire near the
bridgeheads limited their advance. Insurgents littered the city, filtering
in behind their positions with indirect mortar and sniper fire.
"The insurgents started figuring out what was going on and started hitting
us from behind, hitting our supply lines," said Hancock in his syrupy
Texas drawl. "Originally we set up near a bridge and the next day we got a call on our radio that our company command post was receiving sniper fire.
We worked our way back down the peninsula trying to find the sniper, but
on the way down we encountered machinegun fire and what sounded like
grenade launchers or mortars from across the river."
With a fire team of grunts pinned down nearby, Hancock and his spotter,
Cpl. Geoffrey L. Flowers, a May 2004 graduate of Scout Sniper School,
helped them out by locating the source of the enemy fire.
"After locating the gun position we called in indirect fire to immediate
suppress that position and reduced it enough so we could also punch
forward and get into a house," explained Hancock. "We got in the house and started to observe the area from which the insurgents were firing at us.
They hit us good for about twenty minutes and were really hammering us.
Our indirect fire (landed on) them and must have been effective because
they didn't shoot anymore after that."
Continuing south down the peninsula to link up with the Bravo Co. command post, Hancock and Flowers next set up on a big building, taking a couple shots across the river at some suspected enemy spotters in vehicles.
"The insurgents in the vehicles were spotting for the mortar rounds coming from across the river so we were trying to locate
their positions to reduce them as well as engage the vehicles," said
Hancock. "There were certain vehicles in areas where the mortars would
hit. They would show up and then stop and then the mortars would start
hitting us and then the vehicles would leave so we figured out that they
were spotters. We took out seven of those guys in one day."
Later, back at the company command post, enemy mortar rounds once again began to impact.
"There were several incoming rockets and mortars to our compound that day and there was no way the enemy could have seen it directly, so they
probably had some spotters out there," said 22-year-old Flowers who is a
college student from Pearland, Texas. " Our (company commander) told us to go find where the mortars were coming from and take them out so we went back out," remembered Hancock. "We moved south some more and linked up with the rear elements of our first platoon. Then we got up on a building and scanned across the river. We looked out of the spot scope and saw about three to five insurgents manning a 120mm mortar tube. We got the coordinates for their position and set up a fire mission. We decided that when the rounds came in that I would engage them
with the sniper rifle. We got the splash and there were two standing up
looking right at us. One had a black (outfit) on. I shot and he dropped.
Right in front of him another got up on his knees looking to try and find
out where we were so I dropped him too. After that our mortars just
hammered the position, so we moved around in on them."
The subsequent fire for effect landed right on the insurgent mortar position.
"We adjusted right about fifty yards where there were two other insurgents in a small house on the other side of the position,"
said Flowers. "There was some brush between them and the next nearest
building about 400 yards south of where they were at and we were about 1,000 yards from them so I guess they thought we could not spot them. Some grunts were nearby with binoculars but they could not see them, plus they are not trained in detailed observation the way we are. We know what to look for such as target indicators and things that are not easy to see."
Hancock and Flowers then scanned several areas that they expected fire
from, but the enemy mortars had silenced.
"After we had called in indirect fire and after all the adjustments from
our mortars, I got the final 8-digit grid coordinates for the enemy mortar
position, looked at our own position using GPS and figured out the
distance to the targets we dropped to be 1,050 yards," said Flowers with a
grin. "This time we were killing terrorism from more than 1,000 yards."
Sgt. Herbert B. Hancock, chief scout sniper, sniper platoon, 1st
Battalion, 23rd Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is
credited with the longest confirmed kill in Iraq, hitting enemy terrorists
from 1,050 yards in Fallujah Nov. 11, 2004. Hancock, a 35-year-old
activated reservist and police officer from Bryan, Texas, has been a
Marine Corps sniper since 1992.
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:p
Canadian sniper still holds the longest range kill :D
Good read though Dago, thanks.
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I dont think shooting a moose counts. :D
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Could have sworn I remember someone using a 50 cal in vietname to cap someone 1 1/2 miles out...have to look into it though...want to say it was on a ma deuce...
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:D
Canuck snipers supposedly had the highest number of confirmed kills in the Shah-i-Kot Valley fight. A source in Kandahar working with the Canadian sniper teams estimates “well over 20 confirmed kills at long ranges.” There is an unconfirmed, but widely circulated, report of a 2,400-meter kill (chest-shot) against the driver of an enemy resupply truck. If validated, it will be a new record for the longest shot made by a military sniper in combat (currently 2,500 yards or about 2,250 meters, held by GySgt Carlos Hathcock, USMC, near Duc Pho, South Vietnam, January 1967, with a Browning .50 HMG mounting an 8-power Unertl telescopic sight).
unconfirmed, yes but still almost 200 yards furthur.
source
http://www.stormpages.com/swellal/sof.html
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yep that was it pugg thanks that explains why it was not the record.
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The longest-ever confirmed sniper kill was made by Master Cpl. Arron Perry of the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan during combat in 2003. Using a .50-caliber (12.7 mm) MacMillan TAC-50 rifle, Perry shot and killed an Afghan soldier from a distance of 2,430 metres. (2,657 yards)
source (near bottom of page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper
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Wow, Herbert B. Hancock, chief scout sniper, 1/23, and a 35-year-old police officer from Bryan, Texas is here from home and the dang paper or TV hasnt said a dang thing.
Go Figure
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i shot a pigeon with a pellet gun from like....almost the distance down my whole garden once.
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Originally posted by Wolf14
Wow, Herbert B. Hancock, chief scout sniper, 1/23, and a 35-year-old police officer from Bryan, Texas is here from home and the dang paper or TV hasnt said a dang thing.
Go Figure
Oh they won't unless they get a picture of him with an Iraqi soldier that he is making cluck like a chicken or some other horrible torture we American did to those poor Iraqi pow's
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Originally posted by Raider179
Could have sworn I remember someone using a 50 cal in vietname to cap someone 1 1/2 miles out...have to look into it though...want to say it was on a ma deuce...
Carlos Hathcock, 2500 yards, documented in the book "Marine Sniper", can't remember the author.
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Originally posted by Ripper29
The longest-ever confirmed sniper kill was made by Master Cpl. Arron Perry of the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan during combat in 2003. Using a .50-caliber (12.7 mm) MacMillan TAC-50 rifle, Perry shot and killed an Afghan soldier from a distance of 2,430 metres. (2,657 yards)
source (near bottom of page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sniper
I hadn't heard about that one, which whups ol' Carlos' record. WTG Canada!
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Edited the title, the article referred to "In Iraq".
I noted at the time that Canadien snipers did some great work in Afghanistan.
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But Carlos Hathcock shot that with an M2 machine gun. Not a sniper rifle.
But at those ranges with those guns, whether you hit or not is a flip of a coin. Most often landing on a miss.
Soon, someone will get lucky with a 2800 yard shot.
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Originally posted by Dago
Edited the title, the article referred to "In Iraq".
I noted at the time that Canadien snipers did some great work in Afghanistan.
I saw that Dago and was not trying to get into a 'pissin" match, just listed the info about the record. Which also by the way was in support of an American Scout platoon that was pinned down under heavy machine gun and morter fire. The US wanted to give the Canadians the Bronze Star for thier involvement but our liberal panty waisted government did not want to acknowlege the fact that Canadian Soldiers were in a combat zone killing some folks that needed killing....
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
But at those ranges with those guns, whether you hit or not is a flip of a coin. Most often landing on a miss.
Soon, someone will get lucky with a 2800 yard shot.
:rolleyes: :rofl
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
But Carlos Hathcock shot that with an M2 machine gun. Not a sniper rifle.
But at those ranges with those guns, whether you hit or not is a flip of a coin. Most often landing on a miss.
Soon, someone will get lucky with a 2800 yard shot.
Thought the record was for longest shot by a sniper, not longest shot with a dedicated sniper rifle
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HEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY MAAAAAAAAAAAAN NIIIIIIIIIICEEEEEEEEEEEEE SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!
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Well, I'm just giving more credit to Carlos.
He had the M2 tightened up with a 20x scope. The M2 fires at such a slow rate that you can easily squeeze off a single round.
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Originally posted by Gunslinger
HEEEEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYY MAAAAAAAAAAAAN NIIIIIIIIIICEEEEEEEEEEEEE SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!
Filter. Love that tune. :)
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
The M2 fires at such a slow rate that you can easily squeeze off a single round.
Alternatively, you could select it via the..the...the...twisty thingie in the back under the butterfly trigger and over the buffer housing that holds the bolt release thingie down. I'm drawing a blank and can't for the life of me remember what the nomenclature of that thingie is right now. :p
Anyway, there is a single-shot mode (not to be confused with semi-auto) available on most M2 guns provided they have the proper parts on the backplate assembly.
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No one else noticed that the Marines' name was Herbie Hancock? :lol
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Well I am not sure its the longest "kill".
A 10 years ago, while shooting from the hip during excercise and target shooting. one shoot of the FN MAG went up in the air over the bullet cover. 4 km away (4000 meters) a car comes driving in about 70 km/h. The car has the side window open about 3 inches.
AS the Bullet now nearly reached its d-max it would never even been able to pass thru the glas.
The bullet hits the softpart of the drivers head and kills him amidiatly. Luck or Bad Luck?
Shooting someone above 2000 yard are just pure fluke, sorry
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No, it's not pure luck.
Most awesome sniper rifles have a MOA of .1-.2 . This means that at 100 yards, you can draw a circle with .25 diameter and all the bullets would land within this circle (assuming they are small enough to fit in).
However, it also means that at 200 yards, that circle gets big enough to fit all the bullets in .4 diameter circle. At 500 yards, this gets to be 1 inch diameter circle.
Now this is a perfect gun with perfect ammo. It doesn't exist in the real world without plopping down thousands of dollars.
.25 MOA is very good to obtain in the real world. So that means at 2800 yards, the Bullet would land within a 700 inch circle. Now, this might seem easy itself, it is not. You have to worry about windage, heat differences and all this stuff. If you can hit this 700 inch circle at 2800 yards, you are really really good.
However, hitting a 24 inch wide person at that distance is all luck.
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Originally posted by lasersailor184
No, it's not pure luck.
Most awesome sniper rifles have a MOA of .1-.2 . This means that at 100 yards, you can draw a circle with .25 diameter and all the bullets would land within this circle (assuming they are small enough to fit in).
However, it also means that at 200 yards, that circle gets big enough to fit all the bullets in .4 diameter circle. At 500 yards, this gets to be 1 inch diameter circle.
Now this is a perfect gun with perfect ammo. It doesn't exist in the real world without plopping down thousands of dollars.
.25 MOA is very good to obtain in the real world. So that means at 2800 yards, the Bullet would land within a 700 inch circle. Now, this might seem easy itself, it is not. You have to worry about windage, heat differences and all this stuff. If you can hit this 700 inch circle at 2800 yards, you are really really good.
However, hitting a 24 inch wide person at that distance is all luck.
Something is wrong with your math. I believe the formula for calculation MOA is 1.047 inches per 100 yrds 1.047 x 28 = 29.316 inches
Read up on Hathcock and you will see he was not some luck sniper. He was possibly the best there ever was. Everything I have seen also say his kill was confirmed at 2500 yrds.
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I think I remenber reading Tim McVeigh scored at about 1000yards in the 1st Iraq war.
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BTW, this thread, though I didnt specify it in the header, was "longest confirmed kill in Iraq".
dago
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Yeah, thought I screwed something up in those numbers. 700 seemed way off.