Vietnam War Snipers Were The Best

[Satasaurus]

In my opinion, Vietnam War snipers were the best. There were several snipers from the Vietnam War that set records with average rifles in unbelievable conditions. A few notable ones being Carlos Hathcock, Adelbert Waldron, and Charles Mawhinney. Here's a cool story about Hathcock:

"Hathcock only once removed the white feather from his bush hat while deployed in Vietnam. During a volunteer mission days before the end of his first deployment, he crawled over 1,500 yards of field to shoot an NVA commanding general. He was not informed of the details of the mission until he accepted it. This effort took four days and three nights, without sleep, of constant inch-by-inch crawling. Hathcock said he was almost stepped on as he lay camouflaged with grass and vegetation in a meadow shortly after sunset. At one point he was nearly bitten by a bamboo viper but had the presence of mind to avoid moving and giving up his position. As the general exited his encampment, Hathcock fired a single shot that struck the general in the chest, killing him. He had to crawl back instead of run when soldiers started searching, and later regretted taking the mission, for in the aftermath of the assassination the NVA doubled their attacks in the area, apparently in retaliation for their general being killed and leading to an increase in American casualties.

After the arduous mission of killing the general, Hathcock returned to the United States in 1967. However, he missed the Marine Corps and returned to Vietnam in 1969, where he took command of a platoon of snipers."

In my opinion, the snipers of today have equipment and technology that makes sniping take much less skill then someone like Hathcock had. He used a Winchester Model 70 .30-06 with the standard 8-power Unertl scope and got 93 confirmed kills. People today are using .338s, .50 BMGs and all this other ridiculous stuff and it's almost cheating in my book. They shouldn't let records be broken with rifles that require muzzle brakes to even be fired. Vietnam War snipers will always be the best as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Sam Cade]

Oh my.



Play nice folks, and keep all blows above the belt.

 

[TheHappyGunner]

Opinion is opinion. But "cheating" should never be used to describe anything that our men and women do in the service.

 

[Satasaurus]

Oh my.



Play nice folks, and keep all blows above the belt.

Haha, I know it's coming. It's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. For the record, I know that he got a 2,500 yard scoped Browing M2 shot, but that obviously wasn't common at the time and most of his confirmed kills were with the 30-06.

 

[Satasaurus]

Opinion is opinion. But "cheating" should never be used to describe anything that our men and women do in the service.

I didn't mean it like that. I'm grateful for what they do over there, and I'm sure lives are saved because of the larger calibers, but I still think it would be more impressive with a 30-06 then a .50 BMG.

 

[yamahawarrior89]

If you ain't cheating you ain't trying

What ever it takes to give our soldiers the advantage. If you're enemy can hit you at 1200 meters, and you can only shoot 600, you lose. And that loss is your life.

 

[Art Eatman]

While one might think it "takes" less skill, that does not mean that today's snipers are indeed less skilled.

As near as I can tell from information available to a civilian, there is more training, today, than there was back forty years ago. Odds are that today's guys are very much equal to those of yesteryear.

Looks to me that the shooting is the easy part of a sniper's deal. Learning stealth, silence, patience and of course the methods and use of camouflage are generally more difficult. The first is a matter of repetition and practice. The latter is mental, the creation of an entirely different mindset from normal life.

 

[CraigC]

Technology and equipment have been replacing skill and bettering chances of victory since the beginning of time. You could just as easily say Hathcock cheated because he used them newfangled high velocity metallic cartridges and optical sights rather than powder, patch, lead and iron sights.

Bottom line is that you can't judge history from a 21st century perspective.

 

[dvdcrr]

I think the civil war snipers were the best. Try hitting a mounted Colonel at 600 yds with a Whitworth. (Figure of speech)

 

[Nighteyes]

Haha, I know it's coming. It's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Yep, and I honor yours even if I might disagree.

I think we all need acknowledge the simple truth -- opinions are just like noses. Everybody's got one, and most of 'em smell.

[Bet y'all thought I wuz gonna say somethin' else now, didntcha? ]

 

[taliv]

by that logic, WWII snipers would have been even better. War between the States snipers would have been better yet. And Revolutionary War snipers would have been the best

 

[Hangingrock]

In the beginning sniper school I believe was set up a DaNang. There was a mixture of rifles taken from the shooting teams usually Winchesters with Unertl scopes but also M1 rifles with low power scopes on offset mounts. The Remington rifles with Redfield scopes came later.

 

[Satasaurus]

I know what you guys are saying, but at the same time the 60s and 70s were the peak of everything in my opinion. The music was better, the people were smarter, the economy was better, almost everything was built better, etc, etc. I just feel like the Vietnam War was the peak of skill and the peak of traditional rifles. By that time the rifles were arguably better then the rifles of WWII but still normal rifles without all the fancy crap and calibers the size of small rockets.

Hathcock ghetto rigged an M2 with a scope mount that he came up with and set the world record for the longest sniper kill. You just don't see that these days. Not only that but in my opinion Vietnam has rougher terrain than the desert.

 

[eldon519]

The people were smarter? That's kind of offensive. I'd recommend dismounting the nostalgia high horse.

 

[Art Eatman]

"I still think it would be more impressive with a 30-06 then a .50 BMG."

Sure, but that merely justifies using the BMG, in some situations.

But as I said before, that's just part of the package. The harder part of the deal is in getting to where you can use whatever sniper rifle is appropriate for the situation or is available at the time.

Kinda like deer hunting in my desert country. The shooting is the easy part. Finding a trophy buck isn't all that easy.

 

[jmr40]

It still takes a lot of skill to be able to use the modern technology.

There is no such thing as cheating in war. If you're fighting fair, you're doing it wrong.

I respect skilled shooters from any era. The Vietnam snipers were very different. I read somewhere that the vast majority of shots were well under 100 yards. Around 40 if I remember correctly. That would be a long shot in most Jungles.

 

[Satasaurus]

It still takes a lot of skill to be able to use the modern technology.

There is no such thing as cheating in war. If you're fighting fair, you're doing it wrong.

I respect skilled shooters from any era. The Vietnam snipers were very different. I read somewhere that the vast majority of shots were well under 100 yards. Around 40 if I remember correctly. That would be a long shot in most Jungles.

Here's a quote from Mawhinney:

"Well, the rangefinder was set up to work with the scope on 3X, but when turning my scope up to 9X the zero would change about one minute of angle. So I just left the scope on 9X and sighted-in at 500 yards, estimating the range on shots. Most of our shots came from 300 to 700 yards, due to the terrain. We mostly shot from sitting, and shooting from sitting at somebody 1,000 yards away is senseless.” They kept rain off the scope’s lenses with the typical homemade deer hunter’s solution, a strip cut from a truck tire inner-tube.

 

[CraigC]

The music was better...

That's all a matter of opinion. There have been vast improvements in weaponry and everything else a sniper uses over the last 40yrs. No rifle available during the VietNam war can compete with a modern precision rifle, nor can any optic. Not to even mention the training and the concept that a highly trained, purpose built sniper is a viable tool in the field.

The problem is the idea that YOUR choice has to be any better than any other. The music I listen to was mostly recorded in the last 20yrs. I don't believe it's "better". It's what I like and that's all that matters. Same for guns, cars, etc.. It's all just personal preference.

 

[silicosys4]

This thread is going nowhere fast. I too am offended at the statement about better, smarter, etc....hopefully this isn't just another thread looking into the past with rose colored glasses.
The op should read up on modern sniping. There have been records broken and impressive shots made recently. Problem is, we know about Vietnam, but recent military missions and operations details arent declassified yet, and people are still active and not telling their stories yet

 

[68wj]

Carlos Hathcock did set many bars. His marksmanship and woods skills are such that should be emulated by our modern snipers, and his quiet modesty that defied his amazing accomplishments is a lesson for the OP.

 

[Sam1911]

In my opinion, the snipers of today have equipment and technology that makes sniping take much less skill then someone like Hathcock had.

You apparently don't know what you don't know. Of all the things that have changed in military life and made things easier, safer, and more sure for the soldier, long-range shooting has changed just about the least.

... but at the same time the 60s and 70s were the peak of everything in my opinion. The music was better, the people were smarter, the economy was better, almost everything was built better, etc, etc. I just feel like the Vietnam War was the peak of skill and the peak of traditional rifles. By that time the rifles were arguably better then the rifles of WWII but still normal rifles without all the fancy crap and calibers the size of small rockets.

This is absurd unfounded opinion muddled with questionable choices of "taste," and a rather bizarre form of crazily rose-hued nostalgia. I really don't see a useful discussion here at all.

There's not a single statement in this that can't be crushingly, comprehensively, rebutted, but to what end? Simply to disprove the entirely subjective taste preferences of the OP?

So you liked the '70s and are a "fan" of Vietnam era snipers. Great. Be content with that and don't try and create a pointless and utterly irresolvable argument out of it over which what and who was "best."

... and his quiet modesty that defied his amazing accomplishments is a lesson for the OP.

I'd imagine his quiet modesty would be outraged and offended at the OPs claims.

 

[Dr. Sandman]

Don't feed the trolls.

 

[d2wing]

I was there and 2 good friends were snipers, I was attached to the AMU for awhile. I agree with the music being better and we were smarter. How you can compare one group of soldiers to another is beyond me. You do what you have to do. I cannot measure courage, blood, skills or tools of one against another. I don't think civilians will ever get it. Just my 2 cents.

 

[CSC_Saint]

Nostalgia is great at times, I remember too many times and catch myself many times, thinking about the days when I came into the military, how it was harder and tougher. That was 7 years ago. I watch the older soldiers do the same, and they were in from not much longer than I was to coming up on retirement. We'll always look back and say that technology or changes in methods make things easy and we had it harder. And that's the way it's supposed to work. Otherwise there would be no need for technology nor improvement.

While the deeds of Hathcock and his like are and always will be impressive, using their actions as a standard against which we measure the performance of those to follow is wrong. Those actions give rise to improvements in equipment and doctrine so others may follow.

Watched a recreation of an Iraq veteran who shot 3 insurgents with one shot through a concrete wall. His shot is just as impressive as anything that Hathcock did and it stands upon its own merit. He may have been using a .50 Barrett, he may have been using API rounds, but he still utilized his skill, learned and honed over long arduous periods of time in crap environments, to make it all culminate into a blind one shot three kill shot. Impressive, period.

We as a nation have recently hailed Chris Kyle, former SEAL now dead, as the deadliest sniper our armed forces have seen. Carlos Hathcock will always be a bad@$$, but that doesn't mean that no one else is as well as long as he comes from the Vietnam era.

Each major conflict will bring out our nation's baddest, and with each conflict we will see more records set on distance, kill count, and all around badd@$$ery. With the exception of Murphy, I don't think anyones beating him out anytime ever.

 

[AethelstanAegen]

Simo Häyhä. End Thread.

We now have a counter example to the hypothesis, hypothesis thus invalid, and we can all move on with our day.