Author: Vincent Diepeveen
Date: 12:05:23 08/03/03
Go up one level in this thread
On August 03, 2003 at 00:33:22, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On August 01, 2003 at 22:53:17, Dave Gomboc wrote: > >>On August 01, 2003 at 22:51:00, Robert Hyatt wrote: >> >>>On August 01, 2003 at 19:07:21, Dave Gomboc wrote: >>> >>>>On July 29, 2003 at 00:31:17, Robert Hyatt wrote: >>>> >>>>>>Distances they shot at in world war 1 and 2 with sniper rifles must have been a >>>>>>few hundreds of meters. >>>>> >>>>>In WW1 my grandfather was a sniper. He shot at ranges up to 1000 yards. >>>>> >>>>>In WW2 my father was a sniper. He shot at ranges up to 1000 yards. >>>>> >>>>>Today, a neighbor down the street is a sniper. He shoots at ranges up to 1000 >>>>>yards. >>>>> >>>>>_nobody_ shoots a sniper rifle at ranges of "kilometers" today. "kilometer" >>>>>perhaps. With an occasional attempt at up to 2km with a big 50 cal "rifle". >>>> >>>>I have to disagree here. I read in the news back at the time that in the war in >>>>Afghanistan a Canadian military sniper got the world record for a sniper >>>>distance kill. He picked off some al-Qaeda guy from over 2.5 kilometers (over >>>>2700 yards) away. >>>> >>>>Dave >>> >>> >>>What are you disagreeing with. I said "with an occasional attempt at up to 2km >>>with a 50 cal." >>> >>>You just said that. :) It _is_ rare. And no sniper would say "I can produce >>>a 50% kill rate at 2KM+." >> >> >>I guess I'm disagreeing with "up to 2km". :-) But then, I don't know what a 50 >>cal. is, and it's not a big deal to me. >> >>Dave > >It's a gun that fires the 50-cal BMG (Browning Machine Gun) round, something >not much smaller than a coke bottle. Next best long-distance round is the >.338 Lapua round, but it is a _long_ way from the BMG round. i'm not sure when you did your tour of duty. But here 10 kilometers from here where the tanks and air mobile regiment is training they used to train with sniper rifles up to a few kilometers. in cold war, assuming sovjet invasion, assumed killing ranges of 2 kilometers here from snipers. Note that in world war II, they fought bigtime around here. the bullets didn't even get that far back then from snipers. This with exception of course from the heavy machine guns which already in WW1 could spread bullets to a kilometer or 2 when put on a hill. For WWII and actual fightings taking place here see for example 'operation market garden' which happened not too far from here and the movies belonging to it like: "a bridge too far". Majority of victims fell here however when the germans conquered netherlands. I'm 5 kilometers away from 'Grebbeberg'. The only hill in Netherlands close to the Rhine river... My uncle who just died a few months ago, fought heavy at the Grebbeberg and his troops killed germans back there from distances up to a few inches. They used rifles made in 1895 for that with fixed bajonets, because accurate fire with rifles from those days wasn't very well possible. The german SS, but also the regular german army forces, who drove dutch civilians and prisoners in front of them when trying to conquer the Grebbeberg, only managed to conquer a few of the many kilometer deep positions because the defending forces had to shoot their own people first, before being able to shoot at the germans, which in that way they could get closer to the positions. I don't need to mention that every so many meters there was machine guns in the 'grebbeberg' The distances at which was fought in those first days of the second world war are in big contrast with nowadays. Not that the germans never conquered it. Only by threatening to bomb the cities they forced a surrender of Netherlands. When they would develop bullets for sniper rifles which can penetrate tank armour, then a few snipers would in 2003 be able to keep that Grebbeberg out of hands of the enemy. In 1940 it took thousands of deaths, despite having machine guns and hundreds of fixed bunker positions which no airplane bomb could take out in 1940. Most tend to forget simply the advances in hardware not to mention computing power and software nowadays. Back in the old days it wasn't the same as it is today. The accurate range of the german hand held machine gun in world war II was for example 150 meters. After that it was firing too inaccurate. Note that the majority of the german soldiers just like the dutch soldiers, came by foot there and carried their own rifle which could fire 1 bullet at a time. Not 5 in a row or something. It is the end of world war II where things were changed really a lot. But that was of course after several tens of millions of deaths. Hardware guys learn quickly then.
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