Carlos Hathcock

Carlos Hathcock was a great man, great American, great fighter, and most likely known as probably the best sniper ever. This guy is my role model and I hope to be a sniper just like him. What are all of your opinions on this person?

this guy is a hero nothing less thats all i have to say and if you don't know who this is research him.

For those of you who don't know who he is or are just too lazy to research him here's a link that covers his life to his death and a lot in-between. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock
By the way, one thing that I'm proud of is that he's from Arkansas. Just like me.

Great guy good example of the american soldier but I wouldnt call him the best sniper ever. Yes he basicly made the marine corps snipers but they are hundreds of Russian women during world war 2 that made twice as many sniper kills ( I mean his comfirmed and unconfirmed). My grandfather in world war 2 watched one of these russian snipers kill well over one hundred men in half a day he lost count after 114. So I would call him the best AMERICAN sniper ever but there were better and equals love the guy though.

Definitely a lounge topic.

Oh BTW I don't think he is the best sniper in the US either. Yes he has the 2nd highest kill rate in the US, but he used tactics that there had to pioneer for him. He may have made the second longest shot in the world but that was half luck. You know that total kill that a sniper gets include kills that are not used with a sniper rifle. IE he could have used an M14 to get some of his kills when he was navigating to his hide or whatever. Not saying that he wasn't good, but he wasn't the best. He was a great guy and an excellent shot but had some people stayed as long as he did, with the limits that he had then I can assure you more people would have broken his records.

Oh and not to put the Russians down but most off their shots were at 300M area. So they did more of a supporting DM thing than snipers. Again I think its amazing they archived so many kills but they had(and still do)different ideas about sniping. Just look at their primary snipers. The SVD draganov and the SVDS(para sniper). Both were made with mass targeting in mind.

If you guys want to read a really good book about early war snipers in Vietnam, read this: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804118752/melssnipepage
That guy had 17 confirmed with only 2 years in nam. If you read the book you will find that most of those two years were being wasted by using snipers in normal grunt companies. He pretty much pioneered the way for the two man sniper teams and sniper squads that are used by Canadian forces today. I believe 70% of his kills were achieved in the last 6months of his tour. There is no doubt in my mind that he would have broken Carloses record. Oh and he made a confirmed shot at 1300 yards with a 30-06. thats darn near impossible with the 8X scope that he had.

Just for reference a target at 1300 yards magnified by 8 makes the target look like its 162 yards away.

All the above snipers are really good at what they do, I just don't believe we should glorify one mans effort in Nam. If you ask any sniper wanna be about snipers in Nam they will immediately answer Carlos Hathcock. It shouldn't be that way.

sticks

The best snipers of all time were the sharpshooting quads of the Civil War in my opion . Shooting Sharps , Spencers , and Maynards , along with many other guns that were made for sniping . Of course the Civil War was the dawn for sniping due to smoke less cartreges and primitive long barreled scopes , farther shooting guns , carbines , breech loaders , and blasting caps , not to mention training began for men to become snipers much as they do today . Carlos merely just used his training and skill as all snipers must , but these men had little to no training and relied mostly on skill and a precise pair of eyes and steady pair of arms and legs , not to mention the great head on their shoulders . Conferate or Union , sharpshooters were deadly .

He is mine and my uncles (uncles a sniper for the marines) He sounds soo cool I wish I could met him.

Alabama_Sniper wrote:

The best snipers of all time were the sharpshooting quads of the Civil War in my opion . Shooting Sharps , Spencers , and Maynards , along with many other guns that were made for sniping . Of course the Civil War was the dawn for sniping due to smoke less cartreges and primitive long barreled scopes , farther shooting guns , carbines , breech loaders , and blasting caps , not to mention training began for men to become snipers much as they do today . Carlos merely just used his training and skill as all snipers must , but these men had little to no training and relied mostly on skill and a precise pair of eyes and steady pair of arms and legs , not to mention the great head on their shoulders . Conferate or Union , sharpshooters were deadly .

Yeah but most of these guys had previous hunting experience. Or atleast shooting experience, so they wearnt flying by the seat of their pants. They did extremely well for their equipment though. thanks for adding that to the picture.

sticks

No problem , I love history and tend to know a lot about it , escpecially the Civil War . But still most snipers have had shooting experiences , even us airosft snipers and you DMs , I imagine most of you have either went hunting a lot or at least used a gun more than once . So if we were to join the army we wouldn't be up the creek with out a paddle . I imagine Hathcock had some shooting experince prior to joing to Core .

yes and these civil war guys plinked cavalry off their horses which were moving. not to mention you have a fog that is created by the black powder volleys.

And not to mention the forty pound Nepoleans blasting aways .

reminds me of that movie shooter i saw not so long ago

"focus on the target..." BOOM "WTF"
"I said focus on the target!"
"Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast!"

I agree with sticks on this. If he wasn't put in the spots that he was he wouldn't be so famous. Such as the saving 7 men from the jeep. He was very lucky to have made that shot through a scope. And he was in Vietnam for a very long time.

I know A lot about WW2 and Vietnam war and a little about desert storm from my own experience once we start learning about that in history I will catch on and self educate myself on that.

Just trying to point something out. It doesn't matter how many confirmed kills a person has. What matters(in my opinion) is the skill and what the person did to help other people. Plus, Hathcock set the world record on the farthest ever confirmed kill until it was broken by PPCLI Corporal Rob Furlong of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda in 2002. He also shot another sniper through his scope thus killing him. He also crawled through foot tall grass and shot a enemy general which killed him. I'm pretty sure that there were better snipers in Vietnam but in my opinion Carlos Hathcock is the most humble, nice, and deadliest sniper that I've read about. The one thing that I enjoy reading most was when his helicopter caught on fire and he pulled all of passengers saving himself last. He suffered 3rd degree burns on 43% of his body and survived too. The bad thing was that he developed steaphylococcus infections and his red blood count dropped 28%. To me...this person is my hero.

Quote :

"focus on the target..." BOOM "WTF"
"I said focus on the target!"

Wasn't that from the movie Shooter?

Quote :

If he wasn't put in the spots that he was he wouldn't be so famous.

Yeah, that's true.

Quote :

And he was in Vietnam for a very long time.

He was only in Vietnam for 2 years.

ya i agree i think that it is more impressive when someone makes a kill in a mountain turain and the wind and snow is going then if someone in a urban area got 10 kills it really depends on the skill of the shot.

Read a Book called Marine Sniper. It's all about carlos hathcock.

Thank you AFU for reminding me of the books. Here's his books and links:
White Feather http://www.amazon.com/Carlos-Hathcock-Whitefeather-Chandler/dp/1885633092
Silent Warrior http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Warrior-Snipers-Vietnam-Continues/dp/0425188647/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225939022&sr=1-1
Marine Sniper http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Sniper-93-Confirmed-Kills/dp/0425181650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225939049&sr=1-1