by Gary Yee
Casemate Short History
SHARPSHOOTERS
MARKSMEN THROUGH THE AGES
Gary Yee
Published in Great Britain and
the United States of America in 2017 by
CASEMATE PUBLISHERS
The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE, UK and
1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083, USA
© Casemate Publishers 2017
Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-61200-486-0
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CONTENTS
Introduction
Timeline
Notable Sharpshooters and Snipers
Chapter 1: Early Flintlock Era (1700–81)
Chapter 2: Rifles Win Acceptance (1797–1815)
Chapter 3: Percussion Era and the Minié Ball (1817–57)
Chapter 4: The American Civil War (1861–65)
Chapter 5: From Sharpshooting to Sniping (1866–1918)
Chapter 6: World War II to the Present (1940–)
Select Bibliography
Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my mother.
INTRODUCTION
THE STORY OF MARKSMANSHIP PREDATES WRITTEN history and Homer’s Odyssey recounts Odysseus shooting an arrow through twelve ax heads to win back Penelope’s hand. Centuries later the crossbow began supplanting the bow and in 1382 a Moscow cloth maker used a crossbow to slay a Tartar commander at 650 paces. Firearms gradually replaced stringed weapons and Hungarian borderers ambushed the Ottomans with them from concealment in around 1522. In 1565 the Ottomans applied their experience by sending out their matchlock-armed soldiers at Fort St. Elmo to hide in the bushes and pick off unwary Christians.
Initially firearms progress was slow and the 1466 Swiss shooting matches for matchlock firearms were held at 100 paces. Six years later, with the introduction of rifling—spiral grooves cut inside the barrel that imparted a spin to the ball that made it fly straighter for a longer distance—the distance for the matches was 230 paces. By the 16th century matches were commonly held at 250–280 paces.
Despite the rifle’s superior accuracy, the smoothbore musket remained the preferred infantry arm. Volume of fire followed up with a bayonet charge decided battles, not accuracy. A skilled musketman, firing an undersized ball, quick to load, was expected to fire five times a minute. In contrast the rifle fired a tight-fitting ball that could take several minutes to load and since rifles weren’t adapted to accept a bayonet, a rifleman with an empty rifle was defenseless. After a few shots, the rifle barrel fouled, making reloading more difficult, reducing the rate of fire further as the rifleman struggled to reload. Rifles then were limited as an auxiliary arm and remained largely in the hands of specialized troops. From a cost perspective, rifles were also more expensive and timely to produce. Rifling a barrel required a day’s labor.
Starting with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), rifles slowly gained acceptance when the Landgrave of Hesse armed three companies of his green-clad chasseurs with rifles. They served as scouts and guides who also harassed the enemy. Other states that issued a limited number of rifles included Bavaria (1645), Prussia (1674), and Sweden (1691). It is unknown when the Holy Roman Empire issued rifles, but rifles were in the hands of Tyrolese civilians and grenzers (border dwellers) of the Empire. In the early 18th century the Norwegian ski jägers were issued rifles.
As rifles gained acceptance, there arose a greater understanding of their potential. In 1808, writing under the pseudonym of “A Corporal of Riflemen,” Captain Henry Beaufoy prophetically penned:
When opposed to riflemen, it is the bravest who fall, for it is the bravest who expose themselves most, and thus become most conspicuous. The Officers of our own army in Holland obtained this experience, and in several instances found it necessary to change their hats, and assimilate themselves to the private men. That powerful influence on the mind also, which prevails in a variety of ways in an army, has its full effect in that by which this species of force is employed, as well as that against which it is directed. It has been readily confessed to the writer by old soldiers, that when they understood they were opposed by riflemen, they felt a degree of terror never inspired by general action, for the idea that a rifleman always singled out an individual, who was almost certain of being killed or wounded; and this individual every man with ordinary self-love expected to be himself. How much more must this influence operate, where individual danger is incurred in heroic actions, the success of which must be rendered almost impossible, while the individual conceives himself the particular object of perhaps numerous riflemen. Destroy the mind, and bodily strength will avail but little in that courage required in the field of battle.
Accuracy and rifles traveled an arduous road before winning widespread military acceptance. As fate would decree it, by the time the muzzle-loading rifle was universally adopted, it was rendered obsolete by the breechloader. However, muzzle-loading rifles established a legacy of marksmanship that has been relegated to the dustbin of history. Almost equally forgotten is the story of the rifleman and the sharpshooter who began a tradition maintained by their heirs, today’s snipers.
TIMELINE
c.1470 Rifling invented.
1565 Matchlock-armed Ottomans snipe at Malta’s defenders of Fort St. Elmo.
c.1630 Flintlock mechanism is invented.
1631 Landgrave of Hessia, William V, raises jäger companies from his forest rangers and gamekeepers.
1645–49 Bavaria, Prussia, France, and Sweden issue limited number of rifles.
1740 Frederick the Great raises Chaussers de Cheval (mounted jägers) and later his Chaussers de Pied (infantry jägers).
1759 German jägers delay French advance at Minden. By the Seven Years’ War’s conclusion the Austro-Hungarian Empire, virtually all German states as well as Russia have jäger companies.
1776 David Rittenhouse makes the first American scoped rifle and installs a spring- loaded recoil pad.
1794–1803 One battalion of the Royal Americans (either the 1/60 or 4/60) was equipped with rifles. Three years later 5/60 is raised by consolidating Hompesch Chasseurs and Löwenstein’s Jägers regiment into a rifle regiment. This is followed in 1803 by placing the newly raised Rifle Corps among the numbered regiments as the 95.
1807 Andrew Forsyth discovers fulminate of mercury.
1817 Joshua Shaw invents the percussion cap.
1836 Casimir Lefauxheux invents the metallic cartridge. It is refined in 1846 by Flobert into a rimfire cartridge, making it practical for repeater designs.
1838 The first practical breechloading rifle by William Jenks was adopted by the U.S. Navy. Prussia adopts the Dreyse needle gun in 1841.
1846 Minié gun adopted by France, ending the round ball’s reign as the bullet used by rifles. To take advantage of the lon
ger range offered by the Minié gun, the French military school at Vincennes offers marksmanship classes. Other powers follow the French example and the School of Musketry at Hythe (Kent) is opened in 1854.
1856 Scoped rifle first used in combat in India.
1861–65 Scoped rifles fielded by both sides in the American Civil War. The Confederacy though is the first nation to issue them. Both breechloaders and repeater rifles are used in combat. Mirrors first used for aiming.
1866 Austro-Prussian War. Last war in which a major power uses muzzle-loaders.
1899 Boer War. “Snipers” and “sniping” see common usage.
1908 U.S. Army adopts the telescopic sight. Some are purportedly carried by Pershing’s men during the Punitive Expedition in Mexico.
1914–18 Scoped rifles are used by all major powers for sniping. Periscope rifle is invented. Postwar, sniping is promptly forgotten.
1932 Soviet Union adopts sniper rifles but this offers them no advantage in the Winter War against Finland (1939–40).
1945 First infrared sights developed in Germany and the United States.
1946 Following the end of World War II, only the British Royal Marines and the Soviet Union retain snipers and sniping.
1967 AN/PVS-1 Passive night vision sight fielded in combat in Vietnam.
1998 AN/PAS-13, thermal imaging sight for small arms issued by the American military.
NOTABLE SHARPSHOOTERS AND SNIPERS
Name Affiliation / War Score or Feat
Moses Hazen Massachusetts Colony / French & Indian War Prevented French from routing retreating British at St. Foy
Tim Murphy USA / American Revolution Shot General Fraser
Ephraim Brank USA / War of 1812 Ghostly spectre who unnerved an approaching column
Elijah Kirk USA / War of 1812 600-yard kill
Tom Plunkett Great Britain / Napoleonic Wars 20+ kills, shooting of General Colbert
Henry Muller King’s German Legion / Napoleonic Wars Threw two French columns into confusion after shooting its commanding officer.
W. A. Godfrey Great Britain / Crimean War Silenced Russian battery at 600 yards
Henry Herbert Great Britain / Crimean War 1,000–1,300-yard kill
Henry Tyron Great Britain / Crimean War 100+ kills
Truman Head USA / American Civil War Kills at over 500 yards, use of bushes for camouflage
William Dawson Dorris USA / American Civil War 117 kills
Henry Foster USA / American Civil War Burrowed into ground and dug a loophole—first sniper hide
Jack Hinson Confederate States / American Civil War 36 kills. Harassed Union shipping
Billy Dixon USA / World War I 1,538-yard kill
Herbert McBride Canada / World War I 100+ kills
Billy Sing Australia / World War I 160 kills
Francis Pegahmahabow Canada / Winter War 378 kills
Sulko Kolkka Finland / Winter War 400+ kills
Simo Häyhä Finland / Winter War 542 kills
Matthias Hetzenauer Germany (Austria) / World War II 345 kills
Sepp Alleberger Germany / World War II 257 kills
Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko USSR / World War II 500 kills
Mikhail Ivanovich Budenov USSR / World War II 437 kills
Fyodor Maveyevich Ohlopkov USSR / World War II 429 kills
Fyodor Trofimovich Dyachenko USSR / World War II 425 kills
Vasili Ivanovich Golosov USSR / World War II 422 kills
Stepan Vassilievich Petrenko USSR / World War II 422 kills
Lyudmila Pavlichenko USSR / World War II 309 kills. Highest-scoring female sniper
Vassili Zaitsev USSR / World War II 225+ kills
Aldebert Waldron USA / Vietnam 113 kills
Chuck Mawhinney USA / Vietnam 103 kills
Carlos Hathcock USA / Vietnam 93 kills, one at 2,286 meters
Chris Kyle USA / Iraq 160 kills
James Gilliland USA / Iraq 1,250-meter kill with M-24 7.62 mm NATO rifle
Nick Ranstad USA /Afghanistan 2,100-meter kill
Rob Furlong Canada / Afghanistan 2,430-meter kill
Craig Harrison UK / Afghanistan 2,475-meter kill
Thoughts on scores from the blackpowder era to the present
Sharpshooters of the blackpowder era were not concerned with score keeping, and belief in the Commandment against killing discouraged bragging. Robert Cooper, co-author of the Rifle Green series of books on the 95 Rifle Brigade, felt the men believed they had a job to do and they did it. When not busy fighting, they saw the human element in their foe and fraternized with them. Civil War soldiers shared this view and when not fighting, exchanged newspapers, coffee for tobacco or anything else that was available.
Crediting standard varies from nation to nation and what may be a confirmed kill for one may only be a probable by another. Another point is the Soviet propensity for propaganda and that Soviet claims might be inflated. During World War II the propaganda value of sniping was recognized by the Russians first and then the Germans. It was meant to inspire friendly forces and to instill fear into the enemy. Western powers were not overly interested in scores until after Charles Henderson’s book, Marine Sniper was published. Since Marine Sniper, sniping has public acceptance and score keeping became fashionable. In the internet age, where it is easy to locate individuals, the World War II British practice of keeping mum has validity. Last, score should not be the sole measurement of effectiveness and who is killed or the intelligence gathered can be more important.
CHAPTER 1
EARLY FLINTLOCK ERA
1700–81
“There were but very few of their officers who were not killed or wounded.”
The musket’s reign
CULVERINS, MATCHLOCKS, ARQUEBUS AND MOST WHEELLOCKS and flintlocks all share in common a smoothbore barrel. While not accurate at long range, with practice they could be reasonably accurate at shorter ranges (up to 75 yards). It was a matter of whether the shooter used a tight-fitting ball, sometimes attained with a patch, a skilled eye and steady hand, and a bit of luck. In battle it was not accuracy but volume of fire that mattered and linear formations of musket-armed infantry closed within short distance of each other before halting and exchanging volleys.
How accurate were muskets? Firing from a rest at a target measuring 1.75 meters by 3 meters, Prussian tests in 1800 attained 60 percent hits at 75 meters, 40 percent at 150 meters, 25 percent at 225 meters and 20 percent at 300 meters. After conducting experiments at Chatham in 1846, Colonel MacKerlie recommended that musket fire should never commence beyond 150 yards and even then there would be a large proportion of misses. MacKerlie noted that at 75–100 yards every ball struck the 2-feet-wide target. In tests conducted between 1969 and 1973 using a replica Brown Bess, Lawrence Babits found he could hit a man-sized target at 75 yards distance five out of six times. Babits however did one thing that most soldiers didn’t do—he practiced. Practice was believed by most colonels to be a waste of powder and shot. One should also bear in mind that tests only demonstrated the musket’s potential and ignored the stress of combat that includes the return fire and confusion.
Brown Bess musket.
Despite the musket’s limitation, some long-range hits were recorded. One exceptional hit during the English Civil War (1642–51) was Royalist John Dyott’s shooting of Lord Brooke at 150 yards distance. Another was witnessed by Private Plumb Martin during the American Revolution (1765–83):
[H]ere I saw a piece of American workmanship that was, as I thought, rather remarkable. Going one evening upon a picket guard … we had to march … close upon the bank of the river. There was a small party of British upon the island in the river. One of the soldiers, however, thinking perhaps he could do more mischief by killing some of us, had posted himself on a point of rocks at the southern extremity of the island and kept firing at us as we passed along the bank. Several of his shots passed along the files, but we took little notice of him, thinking he was so far off that he could do us but litt
le hurt and that we could do him none at all, until one of the guard asked the officer if he might discharge his piece at him. [T]he officer gave his consent. He rested his old six feet barrel across a fence and sent an express to him. The man dropped, but as we thought it was only to amuse us, we took no further notice of it but passed on. In the morning upon our return, we saw the brick coloured coat still lying in the same position we had left it in the evening before. It was a long distance to hit a single man with a musket; it was certainly over half a mile.
The distance from Manhattan Island to Blackwell (modern Roosevelt) Island is 350 yards.
The Seven Years’ War
Tensions between France and England ignited in 1754 when an expedition led by a young George Washington attacked and killed a French diplomat near Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh). Retreating to a nearby meadow, Washington built a palisade fort, Fort Necessity, and awaited the retaliatory force composed of the French and their Indian allies. Ignoring the advice of his Indian ally to ambush them while they were approaching, Washington instead chose to fight in the open and anticipated the French would do the same. Instead the French and Indians remained in the woods and picked off Washington’s Virginians. They fought back the best they could but when ammunition ran low and casualties mounted, Washington had to surrender. Washington unwittingly signed surrender terms that admitted that he had assassinated the French diplomat. In the wake of these incidents, a world war erupted that was fought not only in North America but also in the Caribbean, Europe, and India.
There is a myth that the Civil War-era Sharps rifle gave rise to the word sharpshooter. “Sharpshooter” is the English translation of the German scharfshützen and its adoption in the English language predates the invention of the Sharps rifle. Use of “sharpshooter” became popularized during the Napoleonic Wars.