A good story which reflects on the Canadian military attitude of using effective well placed shots that are accurate, as opposed to swaming the target with the gratest volume of munitions and hoping to hit something. Our snipers are the best and our artillery is the most accurate. |
"The
U.S. magazine says the Canadian snipers from the Edmonton-based 3rd
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry battle group
surpassed their U.S. counterparts, adding "Canuck snipers supposedly
had the highest number of confirmed kills in the
Shah-i-Kot Valley fight. "A source in Kandahar working with the Canadian
sniper teams estimated 'well over 20 confirmed kills at long ranges.'"
The magazine, known for its war-zone reporting, also said there were unconfirmed, but widely circulated reports, of a "2,400-metre kill [chest shot] against the driver of an enemy resupply truck" by a Canadian using a .50 BMG McMillan Long Range Sniper Weapon (LRSW). It said the record for the longest shot by a military sniper in action was 2,250 metres by gunnery Sgt. Carlos Hathcock, USMC, near Duc Pho, South Vietnam, in 1967 with a Browning .50 HMG mounting an eight-power Unertl telescopic sight. The magazine details how a three-man team of Canadian snipers went into the battle of Shah-i-Kot during Operation Anaconda alongside U.S. units, including the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade "Rakkasans." "When the American grunts became pinned down, the three Canadians and three accompanying U.S. Army Special Forces shooters armed with M24 Remingtons went to work. "Moving to a vantage point, they began picking off al-Qaeda fighters engaging the 101st infantrymen. For more than an hour they fought it out with heavily dug-in al-Qaeda fighters." The magazine, which interviewed one of the snipers back at his base in Edmonton, said the Canadians attached to the 101st, "received a bit of a culture shock seeing the wealth of gear and support the U.S. Army receives, in contrast to the Canadian Army. They also experienced the U.S. infantryman's unique Hooah attitude and esprit." It said the Canadian skills were well-known. Canadian snipers had won top honours at the U.S. Army Sniper School's first international sniping competition at Fort Benning, Georgia. Canadian snipers learn their skills in the Sniper Cell of the Combat Training Centre's Infantry School at CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick, according to the magazine." |
 |
Corporal
Bernard Gooden, a 22-year-old tank gunner with the U.S. Marines, is the
first Canadian to be killed in combat in the war to oust Saddam Hussein.
The marine, who immigrated to the Toronto area from Jamaica in 1997, was
killed in a gun battle in central Iraq on April 4th, 2003.
Gooden attended Centennial College from from 1998 to 2000 during the time when Prof. Richardson was teaching at Centennial. |