Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Interesting hunting/sniper rifle with historical significance

I think Archie hit it dead on

A presentation rifle makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, soldiers were allowed to bring private firearms back then as well, particularly officers.

Also keep in mind that in post war Germany where most of the Army was stationed between WW II and Korea, it isn't much of an exaggeration to say that a high dollar custom German rifle could have probably have been purchased for the price of a couple of cartons of cigarrettes. The ONLY customers available to a German gunsmith would have been GIs.

But either as a presentation rifle made in the 50s after the war, or as a rifle taken by an officer to Korea, the fact that it was German and seemingly custom made fits with what would have been available to Army officers at the time.

"If the ranges as stated are correct and the shots were witnessed as stated , this event would not just now be coming to light.

Argue with that statement."

Nobody seems to want to address this.It is the strongest argument for the "missing decimal point" theory.

As far as this particular rifle being different from the one that made the shot , I'm thinking Loggah matched the ser. no. on the plaque with the one on the rifle.But maybe he didn't.

I'm surprised by the number of posters who so readily accept two hits out of three shots at a one mile range with ANY rifle,let alone an '06.Overlooking the fact that the second guy stays within 5 yards of the dead guy.

It is extremely relevant that both the hits resulted in mortal wounds if the range is indeed over a mile.

If the range is 200 yards , it becomes more believable by several orders of magnitude.

Decimal points are left out or misplaced fairly often.A group of very senior U S Army officers running a scam rates very low on the probability scale - especially with no money involved!

The plaque s/n and the rifle s/n are the same!! well if nothing else it gives you guys something to think and argue about, instead of the A,B,C,s of Bra size !!!!!!!!! .Don

There was arguing on that thread?

It becomes believable to the point of being unremarkable and certainly not worthy of having a plaque made about it.

Listing 3 witnesses for 200 yard shots isn't even remotely close to believable to me.

That too.

Unless you start from the premise that it was remarkable for something other than the range of the shots.Several pages ago ,I said :

Has it occurred to anyone other than me that placing a decimal point one place to the left makes the whole story believable?

A group of field grade officers comes under fire from two enemy snipers , the officer most likely to be armed with a decent rifle , [the most junior] returns fire , killing both of the enemy.

The other officers have the plaque made in appreciation.

A "surveyed distance" usually has a decimal point.

And then this:

I've never been in the Army , but I was in the USMC from 1960 to '64.The scenario I offer certainly fits the military mentality.If officers wanted the distance surveyed , well , guess what every artillery outfit has in abundance!

The Captain may have done some fast and fancy 200 yard shooting that impressed the senior officers .Later , back in the States , one could have "borrowed " his rifle on some pretext and had the plaque made and installed.The engraver would not know that the scope was not the original.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion , but the idea that the Captain would falsify the event but use real names of senior officers is incredulous.

Soldiers actually know about rifles and their effective range.A veteran officer would NEVER try a stupid con like this one would be , if it were a con.

And I REALLY doubt that the Captain ever intended that his rifle be sold ."

The idea that the Captain was a sniper is not worth consideration.

The idea that a two star and a light colonel don't know exactly what an enemy sniper is , is not worth consideration.

Mine is the much stronger argument , and that is the best resolution available since none of us were there , and we are limited to the info on the plaque.

If someone had shot Booth from a distance of 15 feet an instant before he could pull the trigger on Lincoln , it would have been a REMARKABLE shot.

Of course, in your scenario, it would also require one of those senior officers who had the rifle made, to not only get the date wrong, but say that he was the CG of 3rd ID a full six months before he actually was.

And, of course, the idea that a 2 star and his entourage would expose himself to enemy snipers only 200 yards away is ridiculous as well. And futher, it is idiotic to assume that if fired upon from that distance, that the snipers would be engaged by a CPT with a nonregulation rifle instead of any number of other weapons on the line from heavy machine guns to mortars.

And finally, if fired upon at such close range by not just one but TWO snipers, then the North Koreans must truly have had the most incompetent snipers in the history of the world to have two of them that missed a chip shot on a two star general.

A picture of a pretty typical position by that stage in the Korean War:

1919 position

Curdog, they didn't get any smarter. I had two LT's come up to me one night, 1988 bouts in the Philippines because as the surveyor I could settle an argument. Was that star the north star?
I offered night survey classes because it was something I enjoyed and it got me out of doing stuff I did not enjoy so much, did these collage grads come to a nighttime survey class, nope.
And they were pointing STRAIGHT UP to Sirius, figuring hell it was the brightest. So I asked them to use that star and walk north. I'm sure this stuff got mentioned in OCS.

The one plausible fact missed.... maybe one Sniper was standing behind the other by 5 yards, and the "special" ammo to go with the "special" rifle... Ahem, Overpenetrated.


Otherwise the scenario of 2 idiots at nearly the same distance seems as unbelievable as most of the rest of the plaque.


Yea, I suspect this feat would have been written down in more places than on a plaque.


Someone mentioned earlier comments about said shooter, when I googled his name I got a bunch of threads from relatives looking for information and posting good things about our war hero, not comments from people who actually served under him????


Again stated, the assembly of such prominent people who witnessed this is odd, I would believe "witnessed by private xx and yy over a group of high ranking men, to be beleivable or actually intended to be believed by anyone not there.


Still cool gun, and thanking the family.

Allen

You have more faith in google and fifties era military records than is justified.

I doubt any of Hathcock's targets "knowingly" exposed themselves to him.

You continually make reference to "the line" when there is no evidence that the event occurred anywhere close to the "line".

There is a world of difference between a "trained sniper" and an ordinary soldier with his ordinary equipment who takes on the role.

Do you have an explanation for the plaque on the rifle that satisfies you?

You said:
"I'm not going to read the whole thread again, so maybe this has been mentioned. MG Ridings was the CG in December of 52. He became CG in May of 53 until October of 53."

I never did figure THAT out.

I make reference to "the line" because I know my history. By that stage in the war, all positions were held on a line more or less. The war was a stalemate. The Americans occupied a trench line on the military crest of one hill while across the valley the North Koreans and the Chinese occupied the military crest of another. Periodically, there would be attacks and maybe, after a battle the line might move by a hill or two, but it wasn't much different than WW I by that point. It was pretty much trench warfare with each side sending out patrols. But the line was static along the MLR by that point and all positions were fortified.

So, my scenario is that the generals visited the line. They walked around the trenches and while in the company CP they looked over the scene. And sometime during that visit the Captain made his shot on a couple of enemy across the valley who were in positions that the he and his company had been looking at for weeks, if not longer. Heck, the Captain may have even been taking pot shots for weeks as well.

He was "not" the CG in December of 52. He didn't become CG until May of 53. Prior to that he was Deputy CG of the 31st Infantry Division.

The plaque has five names and all are officers.Five won't fit in one M38 Jeep and officers don't drive themselves , so there were certainly enlisted guys around.

A scout/sniper team being only five feet apart seems strange to you?

So all four officers who witnessed the shots were watching from a mile off,saw the two hits and knew the enemy soldiers were killed dead.And they knew the enemy soldiers were "snipers" rather than regular soldiers.

And in your study of history of the Korean War , did you happen to run across any rifle kills at distances extreme enough to be thought worthy of mention? What would have been considered an extreme distance for a kill with a 30 cal. rifle?