British Army sniper sets new distance record…

Oh yess, a nice piece of kit. I like the idea of being able to have the gun stowed and be away before the rounds land on target. On today’s battlefield the ability to shoot and scoot like that is the way to go.

Yes and I have seen how good the RA can be. I attended a fire power demonstration many moons ago and the impact point was about 500 yards away. the RA dropped all their rounds on the target from something like 17 miles. Certainly gave me confidence in their ability and with the kit they have now they will be even better.

Amazing!!! Its always been known that the RA are pretty crack shots at given range of their equipment. I guess you could say they’re some of the un-sung heroes along with the likes of medics on the battlefield.

I think Ze Germanz are a dab-hand at this sort of thing too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmn22F7xq4

That Panzerhaubitze 2000…Ufff!

While we’re on the subject of artillary, I know its off topic, but anyway: This is one of my favourite clips from TopGear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0sGDbjTQ8Q

Clarkson: ‘The thing I’m mooost interested in is the big gun, which is you can see, rifled for greater accuracy. Not like those smoothbore American ones that just hit something……….Over there.’

Haha! Classic Clarkson.

Thumbs up to Graig Harrison.

Not to make it sound glamorous but, that was one hell of a shot! Who knows, where he was firing from he might of thought that he couldn’t make the shot there for trying to get closer to his targets which would’ve taking time and maybe even giving the gunmen more chance to kill someone. Instead he just took the shot from where he was. With a .50 calibre rifle you’d probably expect it to hit its target but from a .338 round. Incredible. Confidence too!

Anyone see a pattern emerging here?…Longest sniper shot, Graig Harrison using the L115A3 sniper rifle in Afghanistan. Longest tank kill from a Challenger 1 tank in the first Gulf war. Longest range gunnery hit from HMS Warspite during the Battle of Calabria…

Our lads our quite good at long range hits aren’t they? 😀

Yes and I have seen how good the RA can be. I attended a fire power demonstration many moons ago and the impact point was about 500 yards away. the RA dropped all their rounds on the target from something like 17 miles. Certainly gave me confidence in their ability and with the kit they have now they will be even better.

Going on longest shots did the Mosquito during WW2 have a claim for the longest range shot using its 2lb gun shooting down a German aircraft, if not what was the longest claimed shot Air to Air using guns.
G.

Thumbs up to Graig Harrison.

Not to make it sound glamorous but, that was one hell of a shot! Who knows, where he was firing from he might of thought that he couldn’t make the shot there for trying to get closer to his targets which would’ve taking time and maybe even giving the gunmen more chance to kill someone. Instead he just took the shot from where he was. With a .50 calibre rifle you’d probably expect it to hit its target but from a .338 round. Incredible. Confidence too!

Anyone see a pattern emerging here?…Longest sniper shot, Graig Harrison using the L115A3 sniper rifle in Afghanistan. Longest tank kill from a Challenger 1 tank in the first Gulf war. Longest range gunnery hit from HMS Warspite during the Battle of Calabria…

Our lads our quite good at long range hits aren’t they? 😀

I was under the impression that the Taliban were originally a group of foreigners in Afghanistan not associated with the groups receiving U.S. aid during that period.

To the best my recollection the Taliban were and are mostly native Afghans, and Wikipedia – for however much it’s worth – seems to bear me out.

They overthrew the Northern Alliance, and I think that the latter comprised most of the US-supported groups.

Similarly, many revisionists call Harris, Churchill, Roosevelt or LeMay murderers.
That kind of open thought and discourse demonstrates the West’s tolerance, greatness and compassion…but those strenghts may well become its undoing in the face of barbaric enemies.
To defeat a savage foe, civilized man must sometime lower himself.

It’s the simple truth and it’s not attractive, but then war isn’t.[/QUOTE]

They’d be moaning if we were living under the tyrannical rule of Nazis as well, some people can’t be pleased can they? Churchill was ace, just the man we needed.

As for the story, wow that’s far!

Mod Edit: Unacceptable foul language removed. Please don’t use language like that again!

I never said the Taliban were the freedom fighters, although the US has labeled, or better said, were marketing them as such in the 80s… And then, after some time we live to see the heroes becoming the villains … how tricky it gets;)

I was under the impression that the Taliban were originally a group of foreigners in Afghanistan not associated with the groups receiving U.S. aid during that period.

And his answer would likely be “Just doing my job”

from one blue red blue to another, nice one!!!:diablo:

That’s my thinking too. At that range they were dead before they even knew the shot had been fired.

Setting aside any moral arguments about killing in a war,I have nothing but admiration for this soldier.
My paper this week carried a report of the inquest into the death of a soldier killed by an IED in Afghanistan,which his mother attended.
This young man,only twenty years old,had both his arms and legs blown off.
An army surgeon who’d tried to resuscitate him estimated that it had taken him from ten to fifteen minutes to die from catastrophic blood loss.
If I had a son who was a soldier I’d far rather he’d died instantly from a sniper’s bullet.

I never said the Taliban were the freedom fighters, although the US has labeled, or better said, were marketing them as such in the 80s… And then, after some time we live to see the heroes becoming the villains … how tricky it gets;)

Sorry, wasn’t implying that was your view – it was meant to reflect the sometimes naive views of the likes of the Times online commenter – they see us as oppressing invaders raping, butchering babies and torturing innocents which validate the actions of the local “freedom fighters”….

And I’ll refer you back to the first paragraph in my previous reply to you to give you a small sense of my stance on the subject. The difference is I don’t insult those at the sharp end, just the donkeys sitting in their plush offices in Whitehall…

J Boyle and Bob,

the point I was making (and the original poster himself) was the necessity (perhaps validity would be a more suitable word) of this war. He obviously doesn’t find it necessary nor valid, and that is the starting point of his thinking. There lies the whole difference between him and you. If he has such an attitude (and that would obviously be a negative one) towards the foreign policy of his country he will find almost every step the Government takes as wrong and unjustified.

Using the ‘language’ of the anti-war zealots and describing the soldier in question as he did, I found galling – he could easily have made his point without insulting the soldier, who is out there experiencing things that the ‘commenter’, safe at home in his armchair on the internets, couldn’t even imagine…

And there he went a bit off with his comments about Cpl. Harrison.

I guess laying roadside bombs or using sniping methods if you wear a black turban doesn’t make you a murderer or coward, just a freedom fighter…

I never said the Taliban were the freedom fighters, although the US has labeled, or better said, were marketing them as such in the 80s… And then, after some time we live to see the heroes becoming the villains … how tricky it gets;)

IMHO, they are a regressive force that shouldn’t exist at all… but despite my wishes for some reason(s) they are still there, with their, for us awkward, picture how the world should look alike (and with a probable aim of “removing” or converting all of us, infidels:D ).

As a guy who used an AIAW (.308) and some other high tech sniper rifles, and a guy who uses wide range of firearms on a weekly basis (for practicing), I can only take my hat off to the Cpl. Harrison for his skill. But I find his media adventure as completely unnecessary and naive. And I think that was the focal point of J Boyle’s “poster”. Killing a men is not a sport and something that should be talked about around. It’s something that you shouldn’t talk to the mainstream media, but if you feel a need for that you should talk to your superiors or team members. And that is where all the talk should end.

Well I will pause for a minute in respect of those who have laid down their lives in the service of their country before I ponder where my X will end up on the ballot paper.

Certainly not a freedom that the Taliban have set down in their manifesto…

My view is that it is irrelevant whether we agree or not with any war to which the Parliament of the day has committed us.

We should at all times give our total support and succour to the troops involved. They have volunteered to do a job in the full knowledge that they will be required to fight a war. That is what being a soldier, sailor or airman implies.

Very well said.

My view is that it is irrelevant whether we agree or not with any war to which the Parliament of the day has committed us.

We should at all times give our total support and succour to the troops involved. They have volunteered to do a job in the full knowledge that they will be required to fight a war. That is what being a soldier, sailor or airman implies.

It saddens me that with the loss of a “common” enemy during the Cold War the populace no longer perceives the defence of our country in the widest context as important or significant, whereas it is in fact one of any government’s prime responsibilities to its citizens. None of the political parties appears to defer greatly from this position. And our committed and loyal servicemen will suffer as a result.

You seem to miss the point. He didn’t want to point out (but rather used it for larger picture) exact act of killing the two Taliban, but mostly the hype that was created after this event has occurred. There’s nothing to be proud in killing somebody. And it isn’t noble to talk of it in front of the whole world. I know the story has been pushed to the front pages for the sake of altering moral of the troops employed over there. But it has been done in such a “Machiavelistic” way which may only bring benefits to those who are moving the pawns on the big chess board.

And that guy’s not an idiot. He just has very much different thinking of most of the things in this world than yourself. Is that a crime? Or you think that kind of behavior should be punished? Or limit such person in a society, ie. from voting or participating in any decision making processes?

You have to accept that we are all very different and try to live with that, and not change somebody to think the way you would like him/her to.

Whether this incident was latched on by the MOD press office/Liebour press office as a tiny ray of moral boosting “good news”, as opposed to the daily announcements via the news channels headline straps, I don’t know.
I am of the opinion that we shouldn’t be in that sandpit and our servicemen and women have been badly let down by this useless shower in power. History has shown that Afghanistan is a hard place to win battles.

…most rational people see what you are – a murderer. ….It still defines you as an example of regressive DNA….As if there was anything lower than a self professed ‘professional’ murderer, truly, a sniper is it. A murderer and a coward.

He exposed himself as an idiot, in my humble opinion, when he stated the above…

I guess laying roadside bombs or using sniping methods if you wear a black turban doesn’t make you a murderer or coward, just a freedom fighter…

“Yay, give me a “T”, give me an “A”, give me an “L”, give me….”

(Hunt for Taliban sniper who has shot dead seven British troops in 5-month killing spree…)

Using the ‘language’ of the anti-war zealots and describing the soldier in question as he did, I found galling – he could easily have made his point without insulting the soldier, who is out there experiencing things that the ‘commenter’, safe at home in his armchair on the internets, couldn’t even imagine…

Snipers do more than just ‘slot’ “innocent” machine gunners… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_west/8457313.stm

And those who aren’t able to vote today… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8579889.stm

What makes it even more amazing is that is was a standard sniping round.
The Canadian (Previous record holder) was using a sniping 50 cal. with specially adapted US Army bullets. And of course, he took out two baddies and the weapon….not just one. So it was 3 accurate shots over a distance that most people would drive!

Not only that but his second hit was on a moving target, I’d be hard pushed to hit a stationary target at 500 metres, let alone a moving one at 2400.

And for some (J Boyle) a “necessary evil”.
@J Boyle,

I don’t believe I used that term.

I think you misunderstood me.
Don’t get me wrong, the troops fighting abroad are going good work, I support them wholeheartedly.

If I gave you the idea that the was is a “necessary evil”, I’d say the same about WWII. There are some wars that need to be fought.

The “evil” part is simply in a perfect world, there would be no war (or crime, disease, or anything else bad)…but sadly the world isn’t perfect, and I have it on good authority it never will be.