Canadian sniper makes kill shot at distance of 3.5 KILOMETRES A Canadian sniper has reportedly shot dead an Islamic State terrorist from the astonishing distance of 3,450 metres – more than two miles away. The astonishing feat of marksmanship took place within the last month "in Iraq", according to the Toronto Globe and Mail. A "military source" – almost certainly the Canadian armed …
"t's gonna be going very slowly at the end."
IIRC someone was killed in S Belfast by a stray from N Belfast which must be a comparable distance.
However I did for a while, have some sort of handgun round* on my desk with a nice fibre impression on it; it was said to have been stopped by an ordinary nylon jacket.
*Don't ask. I wasn't a ballistics expert. Someone just passed it to me do a fabric comparison.
"it was said to have been stopped by an ordinary nylon jacket."
Slow is a relative term. This particular projectile has a mass of almost 42 g., or about the same as a carpenter's claw hammer. An overhand throw would suffice to kill small animals. At "just subsonic" velocity, it would make a real mess of just about any living thing. And comparing to a handgun round, a .45 ACP fires a projectile with a mass of around 13 g. and muzzle velocity of around that same just subsonic speed, so the .50 BMG at 3.5 km has around 3x more impact energy than the .45 ACP has at point blank range.
Whatever speed it's going, once it leaves the end pf the barrel it's subjected to 10m/s^2 downwards acceleration in addition to whatever air friction is slowing it down by.
How far does a dropped object fall in 10 seconds? That's more-or-less the vertical amount you need to compensate when aiming (the height of the Shard is about right)
Even with modern measuring instruments capable of dynamically measuring air movements along the path that's a hellaciously impressive shot.
"Thanks to the incredibly long distance for the shot, the sniper's target would have heard the boom of the round being fired approximately a tenth of a second before it hit, with the sound wave reaching him 9.88 seconds after the shot was fired. Had the sniper been 250m closer, his target would not have heard it coming."
The bullet spent 9.7s in the air according to the last part of the article, and the sound took 9.88s to get to the target, so how would the target have heard the boom of the round being fired 0.1s *before* it hit?
Have some of the numbers been flipped around or am I missing something?
It just strikes me that these kind of descriptions and discussions always include descriptions which do not use SI units. So what does that say about the occurence of these events and the people describing them, I wonder?
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I read a book by a former US Navy Seal (The Killing School: Brandon Webb) recently. There's some very interesting information about what a sniper has to learn and consider. Anyone who takes a shot like this, whilst in a hostile environment and manages to get on target is impressive. Canadians feature in the book as being quite good at the job..
Was he using a Martini-Henry rifle?
Touché. Upvoted.
Wandering off-topic... here in Oregon, the "Don't Drink & Drive" roadside signs use a representation of a martini glass, of all things.
I find this highly amusing - the unavoidable mental image is of plaid-clad burly PNW lumberjacks daintily sipping their martinis in roadside taverns before getting in their logging trucks to weave unsteadily down the highway.
"I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.
==========
As no lumberjack said, ever."
Well, I can think of one lumberjack who may have said something like that....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaRd4d8hOY
Canucks...aim to do more with less.
I remember that by the time the CH-124 helicopters were replaced they all had extra gauges installed to measure the change in mass due to parts falling off. The pilots had to really be on the ball and use both the fuel gauge and the parts meter to try and ballpark how many parts had been lost. This would often become more difficult as the flight went on as the fuel gauge would often fall off.
It was generally not recommended to fly with less than 80% of the parts still attached. For longer missions crews were provided with large baskets full of binder twine, duct tape and chewing gum.
>Nope... a sniper is a sniper is a sniper.
Yep from Carlos Hathcock to that Finnish dude (edit: Simo Häyhä) whose face got wrecked. Nationality doesn't matter all that much. You rarely hear it mentioned but not only did the North Vietnamese have a few good ones but I seem to remember the same with Iraqi insurgents and it wouldn't surprise me if ISIS does as well. Some men are kind of made for hunting other men regardless of nationality.
Three of the top five long range sniping records are held by Canadians. The British sniper mentioned in the story who was the previous record holder had taken the record (by 45 metres) from another Canadian sniper. The record holder before that one was yet another Canadian.
Canada takes sniping very, very, seriously, and puts a lot of effort into it.
Iirc the unit of one of the Canadian snipers in question, came under friendly fire by an USAF F16 a few weeks month later and 4 of them were killed.
This, 2002, was an early indicator of US trigger happiness as the pilot was reportedly dosed, as per policy, on stimulants and had no real reason to engage unidentified infantry outside of his designated area.
No disrespect intended to US airmen, but early US high command policy in Afghanistan was focused way too much on body counts and did not consider the drawbacks of civilian casualties in a COIN setting. This - and the willful neglect* of nation building of the Bush administration - probably did quite a bit to get Afghanistan to where it is today, despite the sacrifices of so many brave soldiers.
* read Douglas Feith's War and Decision (2007) and he pretty much brags about they weren't dumb enough to nation-build (along with bragging how great a job they did in Afghanistan).
> but early US high command policy in Afghanistan was focused way too much on body counts
Tommy Franks is the single biggest asshat US general since Westmoreland (edit: forgot about Michael Flynn who was a lieutenant general, that guy is just a simple and plain traitor). Even his memoirs are supposedly a total dumpster fire where he tried to take credit for both Iraq and Afghanistan (hahaha dumbass). That and he said we were one terrorist attack from abandoning the constitution and putting him in charge. Funny how he also let Bin Laden escape to Pakistan as well.
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If it was the first aimed shot, that's 'a record'.
Luckily for the shooter, the invigilators from the Guinness Book of Records weren't around to check exactly whose bullet ended up in the shootee. If I were a betting man, I'd guess that it was one from much nearer that arrived at the right time.
Talking of records, I'm personally all for the permanent rubbing out of IS, the Taleban, AQ, Boko Haram, and all the other religious tossers with a medieval mind set. I don't even mind if we have to bring back James Puckle's square barrel device to do it. But to go round trumpeting as a new record who's popped off a shootee at extreme distance would seem to me to be a very good way of inflaming the opinions of those who wish to be inflamed. And that group is primarily the dimwits radicalising themselves in Canada, the UK, US or Europe.
Read the article.
"There is a second location with eyes on with all the right equipment to capture exactly what the shot was."
And while I agree that using two cans full of ammo would (slightly) diminish the astonishing nature of the hit, even walking 10-15 shots in with the help of forward observers and spotters at this range requires a preposterous amount of skill, in addition to some luck. This was also then a team effort, where only the person pulling the trigger is likely in the limelight, even though the target may not have been more than a speck on the shooters scope at two miles out.
Keep in mind that at a certain point in long range marksmanship it becomes impossible to make a consistent and deliberate hits, just possible deliberate hits that found their targets. Due to the bullet flight times the fact the target didn't bend down and tie their shoes is out of the shooters hands. All they can do is try to put the bullet where the target is most likely to be when it gets there. That's when skill alone can't cut it. You would need both great skill and a degree of luck, accurate ballistics tables, a skilled spotter, and apparently Forward Observers who called the shots in.
> the fact the target didn't bend down and tie their shoes is out of the shooters hands
That's the sort of thing that would really piss you off, when you see the bullet kick up dust right behind where the gentleman was supposed to be.
I guess I would just drive over and strangle him with my own hands if I came across someone so discourteous.
Bootnote
Your correspondent knows a thing or two about long-range target shooting out to 1,000yds with a .308" Win Target Rifle, as defined by the NRA of the UK. Extreme long-range shooting with larger cartridges isn't something I've done much of, so if you think I'm wrong above, weigh into the comments section and show your working.
1,000 yards? Mere middling range. The Lee Metford rifle of 1888 was equipped with volley sights out to 3500 yards and they hit people at that range. (admittedly by telling an entire regiment "10 rounds volley fire at the target 3,500 yards in front of you, FIRE!")
Not quite single shot sniping, but shooting at this range isn't really, is it? ;)
By the way, nice shooting if you can actually hit anything at a thousand yards. That's a long shot.
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