It was not until World War I that sniper rifles began to be used more regularly in battle and certain soldiers given specialized training to use such a rifle. After the Boer War, the Scouts became the first official sniper unit in the British Army.
Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard said of them that "keener men never lived". The men wore ghillie suits for camouflage and were expertly skilled in observation. The Lovat Scouts was a British Army unit formed in 1899 that was renowned for the expert marksmanship and stalking skills of its personnel. In the open terrain of South Africa, the marksman was a crucial component in battle. The British were equipped with the Lee–Metford rifle, while the Boers had received the latest Mauser Model 1895 rifles from Germany. ĭuring the Boer War, the latest breech-loading rifled guns with magazine and smokeless powder were used by both sides. By the 1870s, the perfection of breech loading magazine rifles led to sniper rifles having "effective accurate" ranges of up to a mile away from its target. The telescopic sight, or scope, was originally fixed and could not be adjusted, which therefore limited its range. This allowed a marksman to more accurately observe and target objects at a greater distance than ever before. Davidson, using optical sights produced by Chance Brothers of Birmingham. Much of this pioneering work was the brainchild of Colonel D. During the American Civil War, the Confederate sharpshooters equipped with Whitworth rifles were tasked to kill Union field artillery crews, and were responsible for killing Major General John Sedgwick – one of the highest-ranking officers killed during the Civil War – at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.ĭuring the Crimean War, the first optical sights were designed for fitting onto the rifles. Also, the Whitworth rifle was able to hit the target at a range of 2,000 yards, whereas the Enfield could only manage it at a distance of 1,400 yards. At trials in 1857, which tested the accuracy and range of both weapons, Whitworth's design outperformed the Enfield at a rate of about three to one.
His rifle was far more accurate than the Pattern 1853 Enfield, which had shown some weaknesses during the recent Crimean War. Designed by Sir Joseph Whitworth, a prominent British engineer, it used barrels with hexagonal polygonal rifling, which meant that the projectile did not have to bite into the rifling grooves as was done with conventional rifling. The Whitworth rifle was arguably the first long-range sniper rifle in the world.
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