April 30 marks the 41 st anniversary of the fall of Saigon since renamed Ho Chi Minh City and the end of American military involvement in that country.
While the war in Vietnam ushered in a number of new technologies, particularly the widespread use of helicopters and night vision equipment, much of the equipment had been tried and tested on the battlefields of earlier wars.
In turn, the Winchester factory had submitted a sniper prototype of the Model 70 fitted with a round detachable box magazine to the US Army back in the early s. Ultimately neither of these proposed rifles was ultimately adopted. It was the Marines who pressed the Winchester Model 70 into service as a sniper rifle in Vietnam.
Lacking a suitable precision rifle for issue, the Corps quickly scoured its stateside arms rooms and soon a small quantity of Model 70 target rifles were in the field in South Vietnam, taking the fight to the enemy.
We saw them," he remembered. I saw her squat to pee, that's how I knew it was her. They tried to get her to stop, but she didn't stop.
I stopped her. I put one extra in her for good measure. One day during a forward observation mission, Hathcock and his spotter encountered a newly minted company of NVA troops. They had new uniforms, but no support and no communications. I dumped the officer in front, my observer dumped the one in the back.
According to Hathcock, once a sniper fires three shots, he leaves. With no leaders left, after three shots, the opposing platoon wasn't moving. When morning came, the NVA were still there. That didn't get far either. He designed a rifle mount, built by Navy Seabees, which allowed him to easily convert the weapon.
I was there three days, observing. On the third day, I zeroed at yards, longest Here comes the hamburger, came right across the spot where it was zeroed, he bent over to brush his teeth and I let it fly. If he hadn't stood up, it would have gone over his head. But it didn't. Many American snipers had a bounty on their heads. These were usually worth one or two thousand dollars.
Like a sequel to Enemy at The Gates, Hathcock became such a thorn in the side of the NVA that they eventually sent their own best sniper to kill him. He was known as the Cobra and would become Hathcock's most famous encounter in the course of the war.
Navy Seabees. He would observe the area and help fit the new weapon for operational use. From his position on top of a small mountain, they could see they were surrounded by bad guys. After observing the enemy's movements for three days, he was able to zero his new weapon.
The closest range was 1, yards and the furthest was 2, As soon as he was able to zero the weapon, like clockwork, came North Vietnamese troops. One of them stepped right into the spot where Hathcock had just zeroed his new. One possible apocryphal story of Carlos Hathcock's time in Vietnam is another counter-sniper story. Legend has it that a Viet Cong sniper harassing Hathcock's base was on the wrong end of a gun fired by Hathcock.
Except it wasn't a bolt-action rifle, it was a mm M4 0 Recoilless Rifle. One of Hathcock's sniper rules states that a sniper should fire no more than three shots from one location. Then, they should move on. When Hathcock noticed the VC sniper liked to take potshots at Marines from one location, he zeroed in on that area with the M40's.
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Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile. Log out. US Markets Loading H M S In the news. Ryan Pickrell. The M40 rifle was the same type of weapon used by Marine sniper Sgt. Charles "Chuck" Mawhinney. Mawhinney is the deadliest sniper in Marine Corps history, with confirmed kills.
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