This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Describe Scope Snipe Discussion here.
Malchus: Changed the original article pic to something I whipped up from a frame-by-frame screen capping of that famous scope snipe scene from Saving Private Ryan. I hope nobody minds.
- Nevrmore: Mythbusters verdict aside, there is a documented case of a Scope Snipe: Carlos Hathcock, Vietnam sniper with 93 confirmed kills, managed to spot and shoot another sniper through the scope. I'm almost positive the only reason that it was considered "Busted" by Mythbusters is because they had neglected to use the types of equipment that were available for the army at the time, which included a scope that would not be able to handle a bullet impact as well as a modern scope would, plus they didn't consider hiring a someone more suited to experimenting something like that - a military-trained sniper, for instance - to attempt to replicate it.
LTR - I was going to make the same comment, but held off. Thinking specificaly of this case, but I couldn't remember the soldier's name.
Whogus The Whatsler: The James Bond gun barrel sequence isn't an example of this. For one thing, as the name suggests, it is not a scope we are looking through but rather a gun barrel. (Seriously, they originally filmed the sequence through the barrel of a gun.) Furthermore, Bond isn't shooting through the gun barrel, he is simply shooting his would-be assassin, presumably in the torso. The original sequence, with the barrel training on Bond, Bond turning and shooting, and the barrel sliding shakily off the screen, made a perfect narrative sense. Things were confused in later films with the addition of blood seeping down the screen as the shooter died; then for Die Another Day there was the unpopular choice of showing Bond's bullet come down the gun barrel, which rendered the sequence perfectly nonsensical.
Kendra Kirai: Well, in Mythbusters' defense, their criteria for 'busted' isn't 'Completely impossible', it's 'More likely than hitting a bird in mid flight with a golf ball, while blindfolded.' That one documented case, out of how many hundreds of thousands of shots fired from a sniper rifle? Really, it requires circumstances to be exactly right..to the point that it either requires prior setup, or what amounts to divine intervention. Plausible myths are merely unlikely. Confirmed of course, confirm the circumstances given in the myth as exactly as possible.
Coolnut: A recent episode of Mythbusters revised this myth, using a shorter (what they believed period-era) scope with fewer lens and an armor-piercing bullet (also period-era) to perform the snipe. They scored what the crew believed to be a lethal hit. They revised their result from 'Busted' to 'Plausible'.
Seth: Mythbusters annoy me (Even though i like the show) because they often ignore real world evidence if they themselves can't replicate something. Never mind that there are people with more skills/expertise/time than them out there who have pulled these things off.
