at the battle of colenso in the boer war. Colonel C.J Long of the royal artillery unlimbered his twelve 15 pounder guns 1250 yards from boer riflemen and were quite quickley shot up, so bad that in the four attempts to get the guns out of danger 4VCS (victoria crosses) and 18DCM (distinguished conduct medals) were won most posthumously only 2 guns were ever recovered.

1250 yards with 7mm rifles assisted by spotters but shot with open sighted rifles, not bad shooting i reckon.

Originally Posted by bush musketeer

1250 yards with 7mm rifles assisted by spotters but shot with open sighted rifles, not bad shooting i reckon.

Nope not bad shooting at all. Guess the red coats helped with the sight picture: did they use this uniform during the Boer War?

On British Uniforms: Assuming you mean the First Boer War (1880-1881), then the British soldiers were indeed still being issued the famous "redcoats". If memory serves, this war was one of the primary reasons why the British Army switched to khaki-coloured field uniforms; I'm pretty sure that the change had been made by the time of the Second Boer War (1899-1902 -- also kown as the South African War).

On Sniping at Bicycles: If I remember correctly, the kid would probably have not been riding the bike at the time -- I believe the common practice was to load the bicycle with a couple hundred pounds of equipment (weapons, food, whatever) and to walk it along the trail, allowing the bike to carry much more weight than the courier could by himself. Shooting the bottom bar on a bicycle in an aimed shot from 1000m is quite a feat, although I can see a master sniper being able to do so. Of course, hitting ANY part of a bicycle with a .50 caliber round is going to pretty much disable it.

Originally Posted by Mark Conley

Nope not bad shooting at all. Guess the red coats helped with the sight picture: did they use this uniform during the Boer War?

colenso happened in the boer war 1899 to 1902 when they had already switched to the kahki uniforms. the boers used superior tactics compared to the british. they did things like putting sticks in the ground at different ranges so they didn't have to guess the range. or lettining them take a trench like at spion kop which had trenches dug on surrounding hills that gave them enfailading fire. at spion kop 9 out of ten men were shot thru the side of the head after getting into that trench.
there are also accounts of ther boers shooting down artillery crews in that war at a range of 2700 yards, with the help of their little sticks in the ground is there any modern army with soldiers capable of doing this?

Its off but does the 90 percent of how good shoot wil be depends triger control???

Originally Posted by bush musketeer

there are also accounts of ther boers shooting down artillery crews in that war at a range of 2700 yards,

Bull puckie.

there are also accounts of ther boers shooting down artillery crews in that war at a range of 2700 yards, with the help of their little sticks in the ground is there any modern army with soldiers capable of doing this?

Yes, with a 120mm tank gun .....Are you joking? That sounds redicules to me.

I am quite curious as to why you think i am joking. The writer of the article, that had that information in it. is a well known australian millitary/historian by the name of Ron Owen(he lives in qld and i have actually met him).
2700yards only equates to 2490.30 meters.
Its a bloody long way but even the sights on my jap arisaka rifle go that far, as do some of the sights on boer war rifles i have seen.
The boers were well known for there use of marking sticks, trip wires and set lines that would alert them to the enemys presence and or range as well.(battle of Magersfountain, december 1899)

At mon's the the british used volley fire at 800 yards to literaly blast german companies away. "the germans advanced in companys of 150 men in files five rows deep". which was described as insane because every bullet would hit at least two targets!

even The bren gun was even tested out 2500 yards (1931 longe range accuracy assesments at HYTHE). the 7mm cartridge of the boers rifles was a much flatter shooting cartridge then the ole 303's. So it shouldn't be that surprising that the could do such shooting

sorry if i went to far

but remember the boers would have grown up in a time when the would of had their rifles with them more then likely all day every day. So they knew them intimatly and could use them to their full limitations.
cheers

p.s longrange musketry is one of my fav subjects.

I might believe that a 2700 yd shot happened ONCE with a 7 mm rifle, just out of shear dumb luck, but I would have to actually see it with my own eyes to believe it was anywhere near a common occurence. The problem is that not only do you have to worry about the trajectory (you would be firing your rifle like it was a mortar tube at that distance), but at that range wind, air temperature, and just plain miscalculations of the target's position due to heat waves and the like would all have an enormous effect on your accuracy. Let alone that your front sight would entirely cover a man-sized target at that distance.

As far as your Arisaka rifle goes, it also has anti-aircraft sights, doesn't it? How many planes do you think actually even got hit by those rifles? Point being, there are a lot of things put on rifles that you will actually never use, especially WWII Japanese rifles.

Originally Posted by FutureRANGER

Dear Mr. Goalie, Mr. Redneck, Mr. Mark, and Mr. Ed, this is the funniest thread I've read in days.

The longest recored sniper kill was made by Carlos Hathcock, a marine sniper, during Vietnam with a .50 BMG. It was 2250 meters, approximately a mile and 3/8.

Edit:

I believe this is what he is talking about. On that shot the target Gunny Hathcock was riding a bicycle.