Advanced Marksmanship How'd Carlos do it?

[Nostradumbass]

Reading Marine Sniper again and wondering...."how did Carlos Hathcock estimate range?". He didn't have a LRF, and to the best of my knowledge, the unertl optic he used didn't contain a range estimating reticle. Is there a skill that can be honed without the use of a reticle?
Sorry if this question has already been asked.
Thanks,
Phillip

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

All scope's can be used for R/F, to a degree, but your weapons error range, an your ability's really come into play, quickly

Yes, there is a Military skill set or three. Carlos like many others who shot longer than two patties, was very good at it.

Most of the basic skills came from what was called AIT in the Army, circa 60's on. Those that went to specialized schools were honed much, finer.

Those that were OJT via a road show either learned quickly or leaked.

 

[arborpro]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Not sure exactly. but i thought back then they used a 600 or 700yd zero and just held off. I haven't researched any numbers ballisticly but I'd say a belt buckle hold should be good out to that range for a hit with some Kentucky windage. i think that 3006 white box 173 grainers run about 2640 in velocity

arborpro

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Many (Marines)used AP in the 30-06, as it was much more consistent.
Many a 67 TW ball round (Army) was used also, as many lots of the 147 gr TW ran circles around 7.62x51 S/B. Not all glassed sticks had a 600yd zero. Many that did drop off duty were working as close as <100yds to a max of 300yds do to A/O. Zero's were changed depending gig.

 

[ArcticLight]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Nostradumbass</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Reading Marine Sniper again and wondering...."how did Carlos Hathcock estimate range?". He didn't have a LRF, and to the best of my knowledge, the unertl optic he used didn't contain a range estimating reticle. Is there a skill that can be honed without the use of a reticle?
Sorry if this question has already been asked.
Thanks,
Phillip </div></div>

It isn't asked ENOUGH!

He (Or perhaps it was Ed Kugler) mentions about lay ing out football fields.

Everyone (From sports) knows how long a football field is. Estimate using that.

That's the logic, but he also said everyone has their own method.

For example, trees in my AO are all roughly 150 feet tall, I know if I laid two down it's 100 yards....there are estimates you can do from that.

Very good question. Despite owning a Laser, I will always attempt a manual range estimate before using the laser, it's to confirm.

Too much "Tacticool technology" out there.

 

[hamr56]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Could not agree more Arctic! If people spent more time studying the basics of good marksmanship rather than buying every "tacticool toy" that comes out. They would find themselves much better shooters in my opinion.

Nothing replaces intimate knowledge of situation and rifle.

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Interesting to wait an see how many recall the old ways, battery's not required,....LOL
They may not be as close as a modern LRF or ranging reticle, but will allow you to tag the target just the same.
It's the Indian, always has been, always will be.

Many of the old ways are so simple, most here now, will wonder why they never thought of it.

One hint,...Slit Card's are used for what?

Field-Craft ability is the battlefield winner,... the weapon is but a tool for the final touch/tag.

 

[KM375]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Even in in Army sniper school in the 90's we were required to use naked eye at a +/- 15% estimate, 10 power binos w milling reticle +/- 10%, and the Leupold Scope fixed 10 power with mil-dot +/- 5%
I was in the Army, but here is a pretty good Marine pdf link.

http://www.militarytraining.net/Marksmanship/Lesson%20Plans/SLR29F.pdf


http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-10/ch42.htm#s6p2

 

[2Shots]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

I bet if you carried and shot the same gun everyday, same glass, same load and had to get good or die! Most of us would overcome and get the job done. And if you never had a cool gadget to depend on you figured it out. Remember the Louis and Clark expedition? He figure out the distance from coast to coast by dead reconing! That estimating distance from tree to tree, tree to rock, and so on and got within like 1% accuracy! And how many months and thousands of miles? But that's what he did from childhood on. So don't under estimate the ability of yourself or your enemy if it's survival!

 

[kraigWY]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

I don't know how carlos did it, but estimating range "back then" isn't a whole lot different then estimating range with a Mil Dot.

I taught sniper schools for the National Guard when they were still using M1C/Ds. We didn't have LRF or Mil Dots, we had the the front post and reticle of the M84 scope.

You have to know the demensions of the target, and the width of your reticle.

Here's an example: The E-Sil. target is 19 inches wide. The average width of the front sight on the M1 Rifle is .076. If you divide 19 (target width) by .076 (front sight width) you'll come up with 250. OR, the the front sight will fit the width of the target exactly at 250 yards. (I think that's where the Army got the ideal of the 250 yard Battle Sight Zero for the M1).

OK, lets assume the front sight is twice as wide as the target (while looking at the target through the sights, that would tell you the target is 500 yards away. Then if the target is twice as wide as the front sight, that would mean its 125 yards away.

Like the mildot, accuracy is gained by practice.

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

All glass, including spotting scopes an binoculars, have a field of view of X at Y yds on Z power. In any math ranging task, if you have any two known's, the third is but brain wave away.

Military Gear spec's are known no matter who's it is. TO&E books were fielded that had every ones gear numbers given in inch's, including ours. Gear spec's do not change, unlike those your trying to tag.
30", belt to top of head was a good rule of thumb, until you started looking at the difference between Russian's an Vietnamese, with a North Korean or Chinese player throw-ed in. Depending the range an weapon, 30" will still get it done.

Field Craft was the 2nd hardest thing FNG's had to master.

 

[GillJr]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

I don't remember how Carlos said he ranged in the video I saw of him. But do remember him talking about taking a shot in a pond that was about the same distant from him to his target to make sure he was on.

 

[arborpro]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

I think there are some obvious tools that we may be overlooking that would've helped Hathcock back in the day. Its been many years but i have read a similar version of the same book.
He was a country boy that new how to hunt a stalk, went in the marines and got hookup with competitive shooting. If i recall he did a lot of work from known or specific hills which I'm sure in the day were based on maps and reconnaissance photos. which i'm sure he used as range cards. Hathcock did call in a lot of artillery according to some of the exploits in the book so he definitely new his position, ranges with maps etc. I also believe a lot of Hathcocks talent came from the many thousands of rounds of competitive shooting. I think he worked some time in the bush with his coach an mentor, an officer by the name of Land (i think) so they new how to work together as a team.
I also recall that Hathcock would zero his rifle when on these hills. Like see that there rock out by the tree line where we saw that activity or a patrol saw some activity the other day, and shoot until he got a strike on it. then do what snipers do, wait until a opportunity presents itself.
Depending on which version of his longest shot you may have heard because there are many. The most plausible is, that he used the fifty cal and not his Winchester. and he had just minutes earlier zeroed it on a rock and an enemy solider just presented himself in that same area.

Still he had some Great Talent. his name will not be forgotten.

 

[threetrees]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

i don't know what kind of scope he had, but in my area even the beginners hunters learn the following for range estimation:
- you have a cross in your (standard) scope. thin in the center, further out it will turn into thick bars.
- left to right from the think bar is 1m at 100m.
(see, for instance, the schmidt+bender fd7)

small deer, with about a length of 1m, only filling half of left-to-right will mean it's about 200m away.

not at all as great as current mil-dot scopes. but i think technique wise they (could?) have done such a scope decades back.

 

[kraigWY]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Ref to Carlos in the field, like I said, I don't know what he used, but I'm pretty sure marines were like the army.

Most places in Vietnam, like I where I was (I Corp) wasn't flat. Even in the jungle, you could find a point where you can over look the terain. We had a thingy that I believe they still use today called a "coordinate scale" that you could over lay on your map which would tell you the distance from where you were to any point you could see. That's assuming you can read a map of course (something you learned in Basic and AIT).

Lets assume from your location you are covering a trail junction. You simpley lay the coordinate scale on the map, the zero at your location, line it up where the scale for the map you are using crosses the trail junction. You just look at where the scale reaches the junction and it tells you where how far away. The map will tell you the elevation of both you and the road junction so you have the angles.

I think in todays military, map reading is becoming a lost art because of GPS's 'n such.

As for "call for and directing artillery", that's not a sniper trait, any infantryman worth his salt can do it, (or they use to be able to do it), all you need is a map, scale to fit the scale of your map, compus, know location of your arty, and where you are.

You can do the same thing while hunting, just convert your BLM map to grid coordinates.

What's fun is trying to do this in, lets say western Alaska, where its flat, and all you have is blowing snow.

Seems like everyone who has shot a rifle has started some sort of shooting school now days, I think I might be different and put on a map reading class.

 

[arborpro]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Kraig

I think you just may have a good idea there.
Map reading where can we sign up?

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

We have a winner,...for the Army anyway.

Standard 1-50K Military maps, an a std issue 1/50K scale compass will get you there w/o issue. That was taught in Basic an deeper in AIT, back then. Road shows went very deep into it if you were cross training.
To a man, three most important items you 110% protected in the field, Weapon system first, Compass second, Map third. Eats, drinks, rags, ect. came way down the line of importance.

As contour lines stacked up on the map, it became way mo better, an if you were lucky enough to get 1-10 or even 1-20K maps it was better yet,... as long as you remembered that fact when you threw down you compass.

With a Map an Compass you got it all done, ranged, called Tac Air, Arty, Extraction, ect. Everything was dependent on your ability to tell where you were, going, or left a stand alone claymore/frag ambush, if you were booking up. Many a guy found out quickly you could tag one or two, book, set a stand alone bush an suck them in. Soon those you hunted quit running after the shooter right away, as they lost more guys from the stand alone (SAB's) set, than a single shooter.

If you were going to travel at night, you kicked off with a pocket full of small an large rocks. The small ones were for your 100 yd pace count, the big ones for the way points you had plotted prior to crossing the L/D or moving from a daylight stop over. A stick or some other odd item was used for each 1K yds to rotate the small rocks back to the other pocket for reuse. Traveling at night had many more bennies than daylight, but had a few bad things as well, depending A/O.

If you have never done a land-nav course, you should. Once you get good in daylight, step up to a night course. If you can pass a night course, you have done something you'll never forget, all the while gaining a skill set that will set you apart from many, many folks.
Once you ace the night course, step up to the next level of night courses, one you night land-nav w/ at least 6 way points (stakes w/ numbers w/in a 100yd radius of your actual target point) all the while being undetectable to the observers naked eyes an ears. Pass that, an the rest of field craft is down hill.
Shooting takes the glory, the rest is nothing but pure very hard work an mental abuse, up to the point you pass. Then you get to do it while others are hunting you,... bone-appetite.

By the way don't get caught, eat one of your own first, it's less pain full that way.

 

[Casey Simpson]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

GySgt. Hathcock's success had nothing to do with a bunch of flim flam slide-rule measurements, comparisons and tech-no babble. Like Sgts. York and Murphy long before him, he was, plain and simply, a shooter - a country boy who'd grown up shooting in woods and fields of central Arkansas, estimating distances and watching his impacts thousands of times before ever enlisting; he was born that way - having the gifts of respiration, trigger, range estimation, fear management, superior vision, commitment to service, maturity in one mind, and who would have wiped his ass with a slide-rule. He had natural, common, horse sense. He was a guy whom his trainers didn't have to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear with the heaviest, most accurate, smoothest, longest, camodest, biggests, smallest, tallest, shortest, SCAR, KA SuperSassyClassyAssy baked on, chrome lined bullshit. Oh! But nothing but the best. How bout the best shooter in the Brigade, not the best $25k rifle there is to be hawked at SHOT?

There was no organized sniper unit per se like nowadays, according to first hand accounts of what I've read and those I've spoken to who were there. An officer rounded up some men whom he recalled having scored high in rifle training and heard about by word of mouth, gave them a quickie course with scoped rifles, and turned them loose to shoot enemy soldiers, high profile preferably, at will, pretty much.

A friend is a former SE Asia Tiger Stripe Ranger who'd operated where we didn't operate told me they were doing same stuff -- scoping M2 BMG's shooting kids off bicycles a mile off. Stinking job. Lets not glorify this shit. I'll bet Carlos and his comrades didn't enjoy the mess they were into anymore than our guys now do in 'stan,stan. Leave it alone.

I drafted my friend above to RO a match for us here at Long Range Alley. His relay was 800 yards. He was like "WTF", adding, "...we never shot anything that far with small arms". If they were that far we called in an air strike or from offshore".

Here on the HIde, reclined in a Lazyboy, we are not trying to shoot people, are we? We're trying shoot a stupid plate of steel as far off as we can. Way different. Other sites deal with shooting people, and people who even discuss that seriously incur a wrath I don't want. I'm good on steel.

<span style="color: #3366FF"><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Chandler, Roy F. (1997). White feather: Carlos Hathcock USMC scout sniper : <span style="font-style: italic"><span style="font-weight: bold">an authorized biographical mem</span>oir</span></span> (1997 ed.). Iron Brigade Armory Publishing. ISBN 9781885633095. - Total pages: 277

Henderson, Charles (2001). Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills (2001 ed.). Berkley Books. ISBN 9780425181652. - Total pages: 315

Henderson, Charles W. (2003). Silent Warrior (2003 ed.). Berkley Books. ISBN 9780425188644. - Total pages: 336

Sasser, Charles; Roberts, Craig (1990). One Shot, One Kill (1990 ed.). Pocket Books. ISBN 9[/color]78067168219</span>4. - Total pages: 288
</span>

 

[Hellbender]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Gunfighter14e2</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

One hint,...Slit Card's are used for what?


</div></div>

I'll bite...what's a slit card??

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Hellbender</div><div class="ubbcode-body">what's a slit card?? </div></div>
A slit card is a field card guys made, that when placed at arms length would allow you to range your target. You would cut slits, into a piece of wax impregnated cardboard from the mess hall, while looking at a known size object at a known range. Each card was different as each persons view an arms length was different.
The ones used in SE/A at first, 1958-65 were Russian troop based 31-32" belt to top of head, an 71-73" total, as those were target one. Later they were sized for 26-27" belt to head an 58-60" total. You normally made two types. One, person based, the other weapon based.

Those cards worked OK, an much better than nothing if you lost your compass an map, but when Leatherwood Partners, an stateside hunting scopes and beyond, started showing up they faded rather quickly, but many a target was tagged using them.

 

[VJJPunisher]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

i heard that ole carlos would put a white feather in his bunghole, then fart and the direction the feather drifted gave him accurate wind measurements. And thanks for the info, for all this time I thought slit cards were little pictures of vaginas that would keep you warm on those cold nights in the boonies

 

[Guest]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

Your thinking about Slut cards from Bang-Cock, circa mid 60's to mid 80's,...

They came in damn handy when you got cold in +85* an rain while under a poncho

There were things in that skank hole, there's no cure for even in today's world, but a bamboo hut an things inside were no match for Mr. Willy-Peter either.

 

[Casey Simpson]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?


Dammit! I should've thought've this earlier. Here's the answer:

It's a secret. And Carlos ain't talkn"!

But this will get you close:

Chandler, Roy F. (1997). White feather: Carlos Hathcock USMC scout sniper : an authorized biographical memoir (1997 ed.). Iron Brigade Armory Publishing. ISBN 9781885633095. - Total pages: 277

 

[sandwarrior]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

One thing not discussed on this thread either is sound. Even though it varies in altitude and temperature, it'll get you pretty close. Seeing what will make a sound and then hearing that sound 4-6 seconds later (i.e. someone pounding a stake with an e-tool) gives a reasonable idea of range as well. Within a hundred yards or so. Knowing that makes for a lot quicker 'walk-in' of whatever rounds you can throw his way.

 

[threetrees]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: sandwarrior</div><div class="ubbcode-body">One thing not discussed on this thread either is sound. Even though it varies in altitude and temperature, it'll get you pretty close. Seeing what will make a sound and then hearing that sound 4-6 seconds later (i.e. someone pounding a stake with an e-tool) gives a reasonable idea of range as well. Within a hundred yards or so. Knowing that makes for a lot quicker 'walk-in' of whatever rounds you can throw his way. </div></div>

that's what we use to estimate the distance to thunderstorms: good old 330m/s (speed of sound) and counting seconds from lightening to thunder (for might human standards, light is 'very fast' and its time of flight need not be bothered with)

 

[Drife726]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

I think he has a yardage pro 440. Just my 2 cents.

 

[seanh]

Re: How'd Carlos do it?

been a while since I read the book but if I recall correctly it mentions exactly how he did it...he grew up shooting.