Posted on 01/02/2010 7:54:24 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
The army's best shot watched in delight down the sights of his L96A1 rifle as the launcher bobbed along for 20 yards behind the wall... and paused.
The point of the rocket dipped and aimed towards him. The enemy's face bobbed up into the crosshair. And Steve squeezed the trigger.
He saw the face wobble with the impact. Half of it blew away. The grenade launcher fell back over the wall and disappeared... but only briefly.
Seconds later it was back up, bobbing along the wall. Steve watched it until it stopped, and fired again as a second Taliban face appeared. "Looked like someone bounced a football off his head, the way it snapped backwards," says the L Cpl. Throughout that day Steve shot dead another five insurgents from the snipers' nest he shared with fellow crackshot Frank "The Yank" Ward.
Steve, 29, says it's their "job to kill people and there's no other way of saying it".
And award-winning writer Sam Kiley, who followed their exploits, believes the pair epitomise the desire of the British Army to get the job done. "Afghanistan is in many ways a sniper's war," he says. "Most insurgent attacks are conducted by up to a dozen men who can tie up a whole company.
"If a sniper can kill or injure two or three, he drives down the ability of the Taliban to suck energy out of the British."
In their snipers' nest on the roof of forward operating base Gibraltar, Steve and Frank used a bizarre decoy to draw the Taliban from cover... a blow-sex doll in uniform.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsoftheworld.co.uk ...
Most snipers when asked what they feel when they shoot someone from thousands of yards away reply, “Recoil.”
That’s not an assault rifle. This article is about the limeys and it says what rifle they are using.
The one I was thinking of was the SA80. And it’s a bullpup of the ar18, not the ar15. Appears I got the caliber wrong too. It’s a standard 556 nato cartridge. Now I just need to figure out what rifle I was thinking of that shot a tiny 20 caliber round. Pretty sure it was a bullpup style.
How was it said? It takes 43 muscles to frown, 17 to grin, and 2 to pull a trigger. I’m lazy.
it’s an Enfield SA-80: L85 A1 or A2 and it fires NATO 5.56
Grateful to these guys..imagine how many lifes are saved for taking these down...
Its always a pleasure to hear about somebody who loves his work and is so good at it.
The predecessor to the SA 80 was the EM2 or rifle no.9 MK1 or “Janson rifle” which fired a .280 round but never entered service because the US wouldn’t standardize on that weak of a round.
The Brits toyed with a smaller caliber with the SA 80, but when NATO went with the 5.56 they rechambered the rifle.
556nato is smaller than .280.
Could someone kindly explain this to me? I thought snipers use a laser for targeting. And that this laser can be used by the bad guys to identify the location of the sniper, which makes being a sniper a far more dangerous job than it would appear. Is this still true? I’m wondering why these guys are able to keep doing what they do without getting knocked off themselves.
(I ask partly because I have a teenage son who spends a lot of time in target practice and wants to become a sniper.)
I think its an infra red laser and is invisible. Read by instrument for range.
You mean the old “pig skin”. LOL
2 is like discovering there are only 2 potato chips left in the bag. You enjoy them of course but... you ALWAYS crave more.
Sweet........ use of these professionals is very effective against this islamakazi trash !
Send in 10,000 more to the stan and get it done ......
Stay safe JJ ! Merry New Year Bud !
Thanks, gentlemen.
You mean this?:
'And their determination "has meant that they have managed to survive the poor political decisions that have taken them to Helmand under-equipped and under-manned."'
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It's absolutely true! It's not even a dig.
I had to look up Helmand. It's a province in Afghanistan.
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