Via Acidman, I discovered this story of an American sniper in Iraq, who scored what just may be a world record for the longest confirmed kill with a sniper rifle. Army Staff Sargeant Jim Gilliland of Alabama shot and killed an Iraqi insurgent from about three-quarters of a mile away — about 25% beyond his scope’s rated effectiveness.
Buried in the story, however, is a very casual mention of a grotesque violation of the Geneva Conventions governing warfare. An admission that, by rights, ought to have protesters howling in the streets about the atrocity, denouncing the offenders and calling on grave sanctions for those who violate the rules of warfare. This should be front-page news around the world.
But for some reason, that hasn’t happened yet.
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Jay, may not be a record for distance. A Canadian sniper in Afghanistan got a kill at 2430 meters. This may be a record with the type of ammo used.
This may be a record with the type of ammo used.
And that’s the way it’s portrayed in the linked story, as a record with 7.62 ammo.
For the rifle and ammo used; the shot the Canadian made was with a .50 caliber rifle; at the range he was shooting, the only thing that would work.
Guy, you actually think the people calling for us to lose would say a WORD about the BPM’s using a hospital for a fighting position?
Bet you any money that IF the left mentions the incident, they find a way to sympathize with the sniper having to break the Convention because of how mean the naughty US military is, not letting him be a “freedom fighter” anywhere else in town…
/spit
… or, those of us with a brain marvel at the marksmanship, and thank whatever pagan deity our guru told us to pray to that the hospital wasn’t levelled and instead the “insurgent” with the AK is a grease stain. Nice shooting!
So instead of levelling the building, we had one of our snipers take the guy out with a 3/4 mile kill shot.
Man oh man, I just love our military!
Wow you all love your millatary, is that the same millatary thats getting its arses kicked over there in Iraq, they got technology but no balls, yep thats the US Millatary,
Hathcock had a confirmed at 1.4 MILES (With kludged Vietnam technology)
Not to take anything away from this guy’s shot… but you know more about ships than snipers. 😉
P
Everyone seems impressed by this marksman’s feat except for his seasoned commander “Col John Gronski, the overall United States commander in Ramadi, who said there could not be a military solution”.”You could spend years putting snipers out and killing IED emplacers and at the political level it would make no difference.”
As for levelling Ramadi hospital.. American forces are already under heavy verbal attack from the hospital personnel(who)are reporting regular raids and interference by the Us military. It does seem like a no-win situation, and increasing air strikes cannot gurantee the same accuracy as occured with this sniper.
Dickmore-
I think the commander was impressed by the sniper being put out of action, thereby preserving the lives of more of his troops.
As for the levelling, I suppose the hospital workers think a bit of aggravation from “interference by U.S. troops” is preferable to the effect of a terrorist car bomb. Did you stop to think that perhaps the hospitals are being “raided” precisely because of guys like this shooting out of the windows?
I don’t have my Hathcock book with me at the moment, but I believe that 1.4 mile shot was made with a tripod-mounted thumb-release .50 caliber.
Congrats to the US sniper. It woulda been a great kill from 20 yards, too.
Wanderlust – In the future, I’ll be sure to check with you to find out just how I’m supposed to feel. After all, we lefties are all godless, America-haters. You’re such an idiot.
To “gusie”
Wander down my way and we will see if you have any “balls”.
wrong e-mail in above post
From what I read in his biography Hathcock’s famous longest-range shot was made with a customized (accurized and scoped) M2 .50-caliber machinegun, off a tripod.
I do believe that this current incidnt is the longest-range kill ever made with a 7.62mm bolt-action rifle, ever.
George- I don’t remember the details either and I’m too lazy to google — But as I recall he took a 50 cal machine gun and fashioned a scope and a bipod (might be tripod) mount.
I don’t remember the whole story, he might have done something even crazier with it… I know he kludged it.
Maybe I should make a post on the guy’s birthday or something… but it was a hell of a story especially when you factor in the ingenuity side of it.
(Every memorial day I like to highlight a hero nobody ever heard of… Maybe I’ll do Hathcock this year. I bet 95% of the people never heard of him or his 90ish kills. )
Dunno. But knowing me if you read Wizbang long enough you’ll see a post on it from me sooner or later.
How long will it be before the MSM says: “US forces fire on Iraqi hospital”?
jhow66,
Yeps your just like the US millatary, very good from a distance but aint got the balls to come up close….aint it annoying with all the air power and superior weapons those Iraqis still dont fear your millatary a single bit…haha
Gus:
How very, er, primitive of you.
The willingness to close hand-to-hand may make statements of the courage of the soldier (maybe), but it sez little about competency and nothing about the likelihood of winning.
Consider the Japanese soldiers of World War II. Without a doubt, these were courageous troops. As British General Slim observed, while many militaries talked about fighting to the last man, only the Imperial Japanese Army actually carried it out.
But a willingness to undertake banzai charges made little difference in terms of winning battles against American, Commonwealth, or Soviet troops. You can deride superior technology, or try to pretend that American troops are somehow less courageous, but I suspect that the soldiers whose ancestors survived Antietam and Chapultepec and Belleau Wood and Iwo Jima will weigh you and find you wanting, “Gus.”
Hey “gusie” (or is that “gutless”) wonder how close our men were in the door to door fighting and who came out the winner. You could not be one of them camel humping towel heads could you?
I found this bit interesting:
“I believe it is the longest confirmed kill in Iraq with a 7.62mm rifle,” said Staff Sgt Gilliland, 28, who hunted squirrels in Double Springs, Alabama from the age of five before progressing to deer – and then people.
There’s that nasty gun culture of flyover country.
Screw the BBC.
I note that under the political resolutions passed by the U.N., the American soldier would be considered the war criminal; he fired upon a self-appointed militant seeking liberation from colonial occupation, who is considered to have the same rights as noncombatants. But it is undeniable that the American soldier was firing into a hospital…
Welcome to the madness of a world of moral relativism…
“…a self-appointed militant seeking liberation from colonial occupation,…”
Says who?
I recall reading (sorry, no link) an op-ed in the Washington Times late last year, written by the father of one of our Marines in Iraq and based on his son’s letters home. A couple of points stood out to me:
1. Random autopsies of terrorists show that, in many cases, they go into battle coked to the eyebrows on opium. Courage from a needle, perhaps?
2. Terrorists were told before taking on our troops that US soldiers rely solely on technology and have no stomach for close quarters combat. They found out differently, which is why they tend to restrict their activities to IEDs and suicide bombs.
3. Oh, yeah, and the M-16 is a POS.
The terrorist firing on our troops from the window of a hospital isn’t very surprising. Remember all the indignation about battle damage to mosques a year or two ago? Then we saw the terrorists using them as fighting positions… or bombing them to kill Iraqi civilians. The terrorists aren’t much interested in ‘playing by the rules’.
docjim505
lolzzzzzzzzzzzz………I really have to laugh at you yanks…you really are on a different planet…wakey wakey stop fantasising