By the way you can buy one if you like on the internet for a little less than $10,500 dollars.
I kept thinking about the distance of two miles and the extreme difficulty of hitting a target at such a distance. For the soldier to hit his target 3,540 meters (3,871 yards) he would need to account for every atmospheric factor that would affect the shot. Wind speed, temperature, barometric pressure, the bullets yaw and the rotation of the earth would all need to be considered before pulling the trigger. All these variables, once exploited from devices such as a handheld weather meter and range-finding equipment on the gun, would then be processed through a ballistic calculator that would let the shooter make the necessary adjustments on the rifle’s scope. A little like that long scene of heat, and distance, and plastic juice bags from the movie Hurt Locker. It was so contrary to the bomb deactivation scenes. One is a microscopic encounter by a human with plastic explosive and the other is a little like someone on earth eliminating another planet 7 light years away using the Hubble Telescope to guide their high tech lance. How can one even see their target at that distance I thought? Well that's the WOW part,, the techno hypnosis, the "first awe" that sweeps away your breath and your mind all at the same time.
Snipers:
Sniping became established with the invention of a mechanical manner of delivering a lethal blow. All else labeled sniping before that was just a form of personalized ambush. It was the invention of the hand held crossbow that gave birth to the industry of sniping. It is not known exactly who invented the handheld crossbow but we know that it originated in East Asia. I like to think it was a guy named Yínán zá zhèng, which means "gotcha" in chinese. From a great distance one could take out their enemy stealthily. A good clean kill. As time went on kills just kept getting cleaner,,, at least from a great distance.
Sniping, like everything else became more refined. It is compelling to pit the hidden against the confident, flagrantly exposed. During the American Revolution, the colonists used knowledge of the terrain and willingness to take advantage of blaring red coats to off them from the distant shadows, however there was a gentlemanly agreement not to kill officers. Later all that high assed protocol was trashed and anyone was fair game for a well placed bullet. The English themselves widely used sniping in their various occupations around the world. An enemy of their State was down and out before he knew what hit him.
In The Civil War sniping was used by both sides to advantage and greatly improved by the development of a special rifle called the Whitworth invented by a british subject in 1860. The Whitworth was a rifle that fired a 500-grain bullet capable of one-mile shots. This rifle employed polygonal rifling, which increased the accuracy and speed of the accompanying hexagonal bullet and the entire unit only weighed 9-pounds. The bullets from the Whitworth made a distinctive whistling sound but the targets were most likely dead before hearing it. It was the unintended targets diving for cover who recorded the death whistle.
There is a story about a famous southern sniper in The Civil War, Jack Hinson. At the outbreak of the Civil War Hinson owned a flourishing plantation in Stewart County, Tennessee. He decided however to "sit out" The Civil War refusing to choose sides. However the war found Hinson. The following sounds like a frame from the movie The Patriot. In 1862 a Union Patrol picked up Hinson’s sons, George and John while out hunting for game.The Union soldiers assumed the two Hinson boys were rebel guerillas despite their pleas of innocence. The two were disarmed, tied to a tree and then shot. As a further outrage, a lieutenant with the company used his sword to decapitate the two and set their heads on posts around the Hinson farm. Jack Hinson swore revenge. After the death of his sons Hinson did not retaliate immediately but instead quietly ordered a very special rifle: a .50 caliber Kentucky Rifle that had a 41″ barrel and weighed a whopping 18 pounds. This rifle—in the hands of Hinson—could hit targets at about half a mile away, making it far more powerful than most firearms to see service during the Civil War. Jack Hinson moved into a cave above the Tennessee River where he could watch the passing Union transports. He targeted the officers because it was a lieutenant’s sword that cut his boys heads off and he held the top brass responsible for the orders to raid his family farm. Hinson also targeted the river pilots and tormented gunboats in an effort to disrupt the traffic and supply lines on the river below. Historians place the number of Union officers and pilots that fell to Jack Hinson’s Kentucky rifle at around one hundred.
Ok Ok, so he had some justification for his acts of long distance revenge,,,, but “Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.” ― Walter Scott, The Heart of Mid-Lothian.
Back to the two mile canadian sniper. The media handled this like it was an amazing acccomplishment. I fail to see the difference between this and some army nerds in Wisconsin maneuvering killer drones on the other side of the world like they were playing a video game. They are both means so far removed from ends by the anonymous, for whom scruples are a 1000 liight years away.
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