The History Of Sniping And Sharpshooting [Hardcover]

John Plaster (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2008

Thirty-six months in combat. Twenty-four years as a sniping instructor. Twenty years of exhaustive research, including decades spent seeking out hundreds of historic volumes long out of print, test-firing historic firearms, walking Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields with a laser rangefinder, and visiting military museums in the United States and Europe. Only Major John Plaster, author of the highly acclaimed The Ultimate Sniper, has the background and knowledge to bring you this authoritative history of sniping and sharpshooting – the first such book from a combat rifleman's unique perspective.

In The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting, John Plaster has assembled the most comprehensive combat history ever published on the subject. It begins in the 15th century, with the first use of "precision" musket fire in Europe and continues into the 21st century with the significant role sniping is playing the Iraq and Afghanistan and the global War on Terror. Detailing major engagements and minor skirmishes over five centuries of warfare, Plaster has unearthed hundreds of incidents where calculated precision rifle fire has changed the course of battles – and, sometimes, history. He fittingly addresses well-known sharpshooters and snipers – Hiram Berdan, Vasili Zaitsev, Carlos Hathcock – but also pays tribute to forgotten riflemen such as John Burns, Benjamin Forsyth and Arthur Wermuth, to name but a few. He also explains how the evolution of firearms and optical technology has intertwined with sniping on the battlefield and how it has influenced tactics, organizations, and capabilities – a subject that has never before been address adequately.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Plaster’s sprawling, copiously illustrated history of sniping as a military strategy pays special attention to the requisite skills involved. Starting with the advent of shoulder arms, Plaster describes technological innovations that allowed for ever-greater accuracy and distance, noting, for instance, an early reference to rifling in a 1476 Italian armory inventory that mentions “spiral grooved barrels” and discoursing lovingly on the development and use of the flintlock firing mechanism. Among the historical nuggets unearthed is the fact that according to a U.S. Army study, “not a single German general was lost to a sniper in the West during World War II, but three generals were killed on the Eastern Front by Russian snipers,” which attests to Red Army marksmanship but also the “wide red stripe on the pants legs” of the German generals’ uniforms—shades of Yankees picking off Red Coats in the American Revolution! Consider this powerful, well-researched work an essential resource on one mainstay of military science and a lavish picture book sure to please ordnance fans. --Mike Tribby

About the Author

Major John L. Plaster served three tours in the top-secret unconventional warfare group, Studies and Observations Group, in Vietnam. As a long-range reconnaissance leader, he led tiny intelligence-gathering teams behind enemy lines in Laos and Cambodia before leaving SOG in late 1971. He was decorated for heroism four times and retired from the U.S. Army as a major.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 687 pages
• Publisher: Paladin Press (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158160632X
• ISBN-13: 978-1581606324
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.7 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,361 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A shooter's must-have, August 2, 2008

By 

Marius Ferreira "Sniper Country" (Pretoria, South Africa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History Of Sniping And Sharpshooting (Hardcover)

In November 2007 I got an email from Greg Nichols at Paladin Press, asking whether I would be interested in reviewing Maj. John Plaster's latest book, "The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting", to come out early in 2008. Of course I would. What a question to ask of somebody from a site called Sniper Country.

Shortly before Christmas 2007 the book arrived, and I was immediately impressed. Due to their prices I don't have valuables such as the Chandlers' series (Death from Afar) on the US Marine Corps' sniping, nor Peter Senich's books on sniping in specific wars (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc.) - though I would love to still get them. Thus I don't have anything to compare this volume with, but then, quality shows and need not be compared to be appreciated. And this book shows quality from start to finish.

A large book, coffee-table quality, with lots of drawings, illustrations, photos and facsimiles of brochures - all black-and-white - it is an excellent read. Its 670-odd pages are crammed with information, and the bibliography alone is a veritable treasure trove.

It is divided into six parts, namely:
* Early Wars in the New World and on the Continent
* The American Civil War
* Sharpshooting in Transition
* The Two World Wars
* The Asian Wars
* Sniping into the 21st Century

Each of these parts is further divided into chapters covering specific periods of interest, for example The Asian Wars is divided into two chapters, one each on Korea and Vietnam.

The book starts at the beginning of it all, in essence the first rifled-barreled rifles appearing around 1450. And it ends with sniping in Afghanistan and Iraq as late as 2007.

And basically every page I said to myself "I have to remember this" only to repeat it later on the same page, or on the next page. The book does not go into all the technical detail of every firearm discussed, neither is that the intention. It discusses the different developments and how it evolved through the ages, and how these developments affected the wars they were used in, from being new in one and the standard in the next, leading to new innovations. And around every war or era it also goes into more details on specific inventors, shooters and shots, and their influences on it all.

An incredible revelation is that, after EVERY war, right from the start until after Vietnam, that which was just learned at the cost of much blood and many lives, were just discarded, and all training stopped. All the lessons learned regarding musketry, accurate shooting, sharpshooting, sniping - all just swept under the carpet. And after Vietnam it may have well happened again, had it not been for Major Jim Land, who bullied Marine HQ until the Marine Corps started a sniper school. Thus he ensured that with Desert Storm invasion of Iraq in the early 1990's, the US Armed Forces were for the first time ready in terms of their sniper capability when going into a war.

And that is my one beef with this book, albeit a small and understandable one - it is written very US-centric. Other countries are mentioned almost as a matter of fact, or merely because they are part of the same war as the US - most often on the other side. In those cases Plaster does not neglect them, not at all, but other than the US conflicts he barely touches anything else. Being a South African I would obviously have wanted to see more on the Anglo-Boer War, but that is only very briefly mentioned. But then, there's not necessarily all that comprehensive documentation available on specific shooters and techniques employed in all these other countries and conflicts.

This is almost a lifetime of work, being the result of Plaster's own research, originally just done in order to be able to better teach his sniper students, later to ensure that the information is not lost - in all the work of almost three decades. Drawing on his 36-month combat experience as a operative with the top-secret MACV-SOG in Vietnam and later 24 years as a sniper instructor, Plaster combines this with his writing skills to put together a very definitive work.

This book is a must on the shelves of anybody who is serious about precision shooting, or who is in any way interested in the development and influence of firearms over the centuries. At more than $90US it is not cheap, especially if one has to multiply that by eight or more to get it into South Africa, but it is well worth the money.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE WAY HISTORY SHOULD BE WRITTEN!, June 18, 2008

By 

James Graves (Boulder, Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History Of Sniping And Sharpshooting (Hardcover)

I first became familiar with John Plaster when I read SOG: The Secret Wars of America's Commandos in Vietnam about 10 years ago. As a historian, journalist, and Vietnam veteran, I already knew quite a bit about SOG, but I was blown away by Plaster's meticulous research, his in-depth knowledge of these forgotten heroes, and his ability to make these long-ago war stories come alive on the page. Since then, I have read all of Plaster's history books and have never been disappointed.

And that holds true for The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting. It is an excellent account of the role of snipers in warfare, from the early day of rifles to the very latest battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not being a shooter, I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $90 on a book about sniping. But this book is worth every penny! It contains all the qualities that I expect in a book by Plaster--the extensive research, his unparalleled knowledge of the subject, his appreciation for what really happens in, his tributes to the forgotten heroes of long-forgotten battles, and the fascinating little "tidbits" of history that rarely make it into other books. Plus he unearthed a wealth of photographs and illustrations, many of which I had never seen before. This is not one of those dry history books that you put down after a chapter or two. It will hold your interest from beginning to end.

I take pride in my knowledge of military history, but I learned a lot of things from Plaster's new book. My favorite chapters were those about the Civil War, where sharpshooting really came into its own as an essential element of "modern" warfare.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most complete history of the art..., July 26, 2008

By 

Daniel Kemp "gun-toting book junkie" (Fort Campbell, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The History Of Sniping And Sharpshooting (Hardcover)

There is no way to describe how comprehensive and well-researched Major Plaster's work is. 16 crates of material and 20+ years of research went into this book, and it was worth every dime it cost me. Original training materials and rare photos share space with modern tests of vintage weapons ranging from the Pennsylvania/Kentucky rifles and the British Ferguson rifle of the Revolution to tests of the Soviet and German sniper scopes of WWII.

Vignettes that he used to illustrate tactics and techniques in "The Ultimate Sniper Manual", a book we used for unit training of 3/502 Infantry's scout-snipers here in the 101st, here are fleshed into full chapters. The marksmanship tests for Berdan's Sharpshooters, skirmishers of the Indian Wars, and other units are recorded.

Names that are touchstones and role models for those of us in the profession of hunting our fellow men with rifles are explored. Timothy Murphy, whose killing of British general Simon Fraser helped win the Battle of Saratoga. Finnish legend Simo "The White Death" Hayha. Carlos Hathcock. Patrick Ferguson, rifleman and gunsmith who could have ended the American Revolution with a shot he passed up out of chivalry. Russian sniper legend Vasili Zaitsev takes back seat to Captain Ivan Sidarenko's 500 kills. The problem of destroyed German records is analyzed in trying to decipher the truth beneath the Soviet propaganda about the Zaitsev/Konig-"Thorvald" duel. Captain Arthur Wermuth, the "Ghost of Bataan" who fought the Japanese and survived three and a half years of captivity, is documented.

In a review of this book in the most recent "American Rifleman", MAJ Jim Land, Hathcock's former commanding officer and officer in charge of the USMC's Pacific Theater sniper program before and during much of the Vietnam War, says that Plaster's description of the Marine sniper program is the most complete and accurate yet published. Having met MAJ Land, I am not prepared to dispute him. Certainly it meets or exceeds the amazing work in "Death From Afar".

From the first gunmaker who used a grooved barrel to impart a steadying spin to the lead slug to the sniper-countersniper duels playing out today in Ramallah and Baghdad, almost nothing is left untouched. Grenada, Panama, the roots of the Army's current sniper schools (Bragg's SOTIC and Benning's 29th Regiment course), and even the Chechens and the Irish Republican Army.

And Hugh, I'm speaking as a two-tour Iraq War vet. MAJ Plaster, having retired, is still involved as a civilian instructor training Iraq-bound troops. A lot of modern how-tos regarding to American military tactics, techniques, and procedures will not (and should not) be addressed due to operational security issues. Yes, I'm sorry some of the excellent Aussie snipers from Gallipoli to Afghanistan didn't get as much ink as you might have liked, but the World Wars go from page 291 to page 504. Then to go rate this book "one star" because you didn't like the typesetting is like turning down a date with Angelina Jolie because you think she's a lousy cook.