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Hotshot sniper in one-and-a-half mile double kill

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Hotshot sniper in one-and-a-half mile double kill
Michael Smith  May 2, 2010
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A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.

Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.

“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.

In a remarkable tour of duty, Harrison cheated death a few weeks later when a Taliban bullet pierced his helmet but was deflected away from his skull. He later broke both arms when his army vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb.

Harrison was sent back to the UK for treatment, but insisted on returning to the front line after making a full recovery.

“I was lucky that my physical fitness levels were very high before my arms were fractured and after six weeks in plaster I was still in pretty good shape,” he said. “It hasn’t affected my ability as a sniper.”

Harrison, from Gloucestershire, was reunited in Britain with his wife Tanya and daughter Dani, 16, last month. Recalling his shooting prowess in Helmand province, he said: “It was just unlucky for the Taliban that conditions were so good and we could see them so clearly.”

Harrison and his colleagues were in open-topped Jackal 4x4 vehicles providing cover for an Afghan national army patrol south of Musa Qala in November last year. When the Afghan soldiers and Harrison’s troop commander came under enemy fire, the sniper, whose vehicle was further back on a ridge, trained his sights on a Taliban compound in the distance. His L115A3 long-range rifle, the army’s most powerful sniper weapon, is designed to be effective at up to 4,921ft and supposedly capable of only “harassing fire” beyond that range.
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MAS

Not sure what the conversion to millimeters would be be but it sounds like the .338 Lupa round being used by us and the Brits as the new Sniper round in the standard sniper rifle. Gone are the days of the 7.62 round found in our old C3.
 
I really hope they used false names for this piece.  There are more than enough Taliwhacker and AQ sympathizers in Britain who would go looking for some Islamic justice.
 
Yes but that was 2002 back when we were a little less PERSEC savy really and also had not gotten calls to our houses from less then nice people claiming to do less then nice things.
 
BulletMagnet said:
Yes but that was 2002 back when we were a little less PERSEC savy really and also had not gotten calls to our houses from less then nice people claiming to do less then nice things.

Using that rationale, everyone decorated for valour for whacking far more bad guys than this sniper should be anonymous.  ::)
 
Interesting, you do know that currently it is the CF policy that Snipers and members of the SF community will not use their full names nor disclose what their face looks like in any dealings with press right. You know why we (The CF) do that...So that the very issue I brought up does not happen.

If it can happen to some random Cpl in a regular Bn after his name and unit were in a little media piece then imagine what could/would happen to said Snipers after their exploits become known.
Well done with the eye roll feel free to keep arguing the policy though.

You will also notice in any modern valor decoration citation for the CF at no time does it say how many enemy were killed by that soldier killed while doing what he was doing.  The stories about our and our coalition partners snipers and such often say what/when/how and how many.


Edit: It was 6am and I had a spelling error
 
BulletMagnet said:
You will also notice in any modern valor decoration citation for the CF at no time does it say how many enemy were killed by that soldier killed while doing what he was doing.  The stories about our and our coalition partners snipers and such often say what/when/how and how many.

That's partly because the current length of the citiation submitted to Government House is usually limited to 80 words.
 
BulletMagnet said:
Interesting, you do know that currently it is the CF policy that Snipers and members of the SF cumminty will not use their full names nor disclose what their face looks like in any dealings with press right. You know why we (The CF) do that...So that the very issue I brought up does not happen. 

Thats more of protection from our own intrusive media and outspoken domestic 'defenders of the world' than from foreign insurgent or terrorist elements... 

 
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