"A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than a mile away.
Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle…The distance to Harrison’s two targets was measured by a GPS system at 8,120ft, or 1.54 miles. The previous record for a sniper kill is 7,972ft, set by a Canadian soldier who shot dead an Al-Qaeda gunman in March 2002."
I was watching a show that showed the previous record holder and the other three or so longest or most impressive sniper kills. They took the original snipers and had them recreate the situations. The Canadian said he was only able to take that long of a shot because an American sniper had given him American made ammunition.
This guy killed 5 Taliban in 28 seconds, although he fired 9 rounds (with 5 round mags) before the first hit (getting range and windage, I guess). Amazing that they didn’t notice the rounds buzzing round them. They must have been too focused on the patrol they wanted to ambush.
And if the target would have took a step to either side within that 3 seconds, the sniper would have missed. Or if there had been a particularly strong cross-wind half a mile out from the target.
We get it - there’s luck involved. Whenever I shoot someone from across a map on a computer game I know there was luck involved. That doesn’t stop it from being awesome.
