Sniper hits record not once, but twice

Rurick sent me a link to this Times Online article about a British sniper who made an astounding 8,120 foot shot – twice – taking out a Taliban machine gun team;

“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.

“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”

The shooting — which took place while Harrison’s colleagues came under attack — was at such extreme range that the 8.59mm bullets took almost three seconds to reach their target after leaving the barrel of the rifle at almost three times the speed of sound.

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.

According to the article it was 3000 feet beyond the maximum effect range of his weapon. Those were probably the longest 3 seconds in his life. Other sources say it was the Brits’ new L115A3 sniper rifle that did the job. But, ya know, if it had been just one shot, I’d concede that it was the weapon, but two shots, two kills – it was the sniper.

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry also cheated the Taliban out of killing him twice in the ensuing weeks, when his helmet deflected a round and later he was injured in an IED explosion.

Category: Terror War