I saw on History Channel a show about Snipers. They described the history of sniping from the Revolutionary War to the present. They showed several archive clips from WWI and WWII but the clips were fast so I couldn't get a great stare at any one rifle for an appreciable amount of time.

1. They showed a pic of the Springfield 1903 with a scope but the front sight blade was still intact on this rifle. I know the 1903A4s of WWII had no front sight blade. Did the WWI snipers actually use scoped 1903s?

2. I thought I saw a pic of a M17 having a scope and so, used as a sniper rifle. Were scoped M17 rifles used as sniper weapon during WWI?

3. Now isn't this a conflict of interest: The history channel said Britain was hard up for rifles during WWI and proposed a deal with the Germans to supply the Britishicon with rifles (presumably Mausers) in exhange for rubber. The Germans declined the offer reasoning the deal would be counter-productive. Anyone pic up on that?

4. The show stated that during the Viet Nam war captured U.S. snipers as well as infantry soldiers were killed outright. The V.C. then did some disgusting mutilations to the U.S. bodies which are too graphic for me to mention.

5. The master snipers during WWII were the Russians, women as well as men.

6. JFK was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald using an Italianicon military rifle considered to be inaccurate by U.S. standards.

I watch these shows repeatedly and always pic up on something new each time.

Did you know that during the Viet Nam war many soldiers carried modern-made tomahawks (see the show on Axes)? The tomahawks were used in a utilitarian role rather than as a weapon but the indigenous populace culture respected the "blade".

Thomas
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