Saturday, April 12, 2014

British sniper kills 6 Taliban soldiers with 1 bullet

  • Middle East

    British sniper kills 6 Taliban soldiers with 1 bullet

    Feb. 3, 2013: A U.S. Army sniper with Charlie Company, 36th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division looks down the scope of his rifle during a mission near Command Outpost Pa'in Kalay in Maiwand District, Kandahar Province.Reuters
    A British sniper killed six enemy combatants in Afghanistan with a single shot when he hit the trigger switch of a suicide bomber, causing the device to explode.
    The Daily Telegraph reports that the 20-year-old marksman’s shot, fired from 930 yards away, killed the suicide bomber and five others in the ensuing blast in Kakaran in Southern Afghanistan.
    “The guy was wearing a vest. He was identified by the sniper moving down a tree line and coming up over a ditch,” Lt. Col. Richard Slack told The Telegraph. “He had a shawl on. It rose up and the sniper saw he had a machine gun.”
    “They were in contact and he was moving to a firing position. The sniper engaged him and the guy exploded. There was a pause on the radio and the sniper said, 'I think I’ve just shot a suicide bomber.’”
    According to military officials, a second suicide vest packed with 44lbs of explosives was found nearby, leading them to conclude that the sniper prevented a major attack by the Taliban.
    The soldier, a lance corporal in the Coldstream Guards, was believed to be using an L115A3 gun -- the Army’s most powerful sniper weapon. The sniper had previously killed a Taliban machine-gunner from 1,465 yards with his first shot on the tour of duty, The Daily Telegraph reports.
    The incident occurred in December, but was only recently disclosed. British armed forces are decreasing their presence in Helmand province, and handing over the majority of security operations to the Afghan armed forces.
    Since the conflict began in 2001, 448 UK soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
    Click for more from The Daily Telegraph
    end quote from:
    http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/04/02/british-sniper-kills-6-taliban-soldiers-with-one-bullet/?intcmp=obinsi

    The first rifle I know that actually was designed to do this in battle was the 30 odd 6 M1 rifle used in World War I. My grandfather used one like this to hunt bears from about 1912 to about 1930. A 30 odd 6 was designed to penetrate 6 to 10 men in a line on a battlefield and this often was done during World War I. However, today's sniper rifles might be designed for this level of penetration even more than the 30 odd 6. A 30 odd 6 also will go through most engine blocks of vehicles and disable any engine as well so it is dysfunctional after the shot hits the block.
     

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