Longest Confirmed Kills - Inside the world's longest-range sniper kill: How humidity, temperature and even the earth's rotation matter - Ukraine claims second deadliest hit on record
In an age of drones and precision-guided missiles, they are the last living legends of war: sharpshooters, silent assassins who can kill with one shot at incredible distances.
Longest Confirmed Kills
Ukraine claims one of its sharpshooters carried out the second-longest kill at 8,891 feet - equivalent to the height of the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, or 35 New York City blocks.
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But even that is dwarfed by Canada's unnamed world record of 11,319 feet - which would be the same as someone being pulled from the top of Big Ben on the platform of London's Liverpool Street Station.
As with everything, technology now plays a role - snipers use wind counters, laser range finders, and advanced sights to get the kill. But in a world where some of the deadliest hordes use video game controllers to blast figures on the screen, the skills of a sharpshooter still come down to one man with one rifle and one bullet.
And it's a skill they've turned to a deadly and precise science, taking into account everything from temperature to humidity to even the curvature and rotation of the earth to find their targets.
Ukraine claimed the longest second-range sniper kill, saying one of its sharpshooters took out a Russian soldier at 8,891 feet - beating Britain's Craig Harrison but still well behind r anonymous Canadian, who managed a distance of 11,319 feet.
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Ukraine released photos that the military said showed the record-breaking bullet, but gave almost no details, making it very difficult to confirm the kill.
Lower temperatures and higher altitudes lead to thinner air, which results in less bullet drag and therefore less bullet drop. Lower humidity can also lead to denser air, which tends to drag the bullet down faster.
Since the ground is still spinning after the bullet leaves the gun, long distance shots must also account for the difference between ground and target motions.
At about 1,000 feet, a few inches of difference between shots starts to be felt, depending on which direction the shots are fired.
World's Longest Confirmed Sniper Kill
When shooting north or south of the northern hemisphere, the bullet is most likely to land to the right of the target.
When shooting north or south of the southern hemisphere, the bullet will land slightly to the left.
Similarly, bullets fired to the West have less centrifugal force than bullets fired to the East because the earth rotates from west to east - called in Eötvös effect.
Although it may seem like a small difference, expert shooters must consider even small changes to avoid completely missing the target.
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Archers must also account for spiral drift. Instead of traveling down the middle, bullets are often angled up slightly after leaving the gun barrel - wind resistance causes the bullet to veer to the right at long distances.
British sergeant Craig Harrison, who served with the Blues and Royals in Afghanistan, had the longest confirmed kill record between 2009 and 2017 and is the only sniper among this elite club to speak about his experience.
Sergeant. Harrison told how he was forced to fire when his patrol came under fire from Taliban fighters during fighting in Helmand province in 2009.
During the three-hour shootout, Sgt. Harrison recalled seeing his friends trapped in a ravine under heavy Taliban machine gun fire - even though the target was well beyond the rifle's effective range.
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The conditions that day were perfect for long distance shooting: No wind, mild weather and clear visibility. Eight men were in danger of being injured or killed if they did nothing, Sergeant. Harrison decided to cut it.
After doing his calculations, Sgt. Harrison took aim at the L115A3 and fired - waiting six long seconds to find out if he was right.
It was not. The first shot was fired, but the Taliban fighters heard the whistle, and delayed their attack to find out where it came from - although it would have been difficult to find the Sergeant at that distance. Even if Harrison stands tall.
Making some adjustments, he fired a second time and after another tense wait he saw one of the jihadists fall to the ground. He was hit by a burst of adrenaline but knew he had to take out the second man or the patrol could still be killed.
Challenge: Longest Sniper Shot
Anyway, Sgt. Harrison repeated the impossible: Two more shots, and the second fighter fell to the ground. The patrol was safe. An Apache helicopter with a range finder was then sent over its firing position to measure the distance to the target, reaching an altitude of 8,120 feet - the longest confirmed kill up to that time.
It was a record that Sgt. Harrison would continue his efforts as a Canadian sniper fighting ISIS in Iraq until 2017, when he took down a militant in spectacular fashion - at 11,319 feet.
The longest-range shooting on record took place in Iraq in 2017, when an unnamed Canadian soldier shot and killed an ISIS fighter from more than two miles away.
A British sniper holds a separate record for killing six Taliban fighters with one bullet after blowing up his fellow jihadis by detonating a man-made kamikaze jihad.
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The Canadian military said the McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle used in the May 2017 killing took less than 10 seconds to hit the target. The soldier was a member of the elite Joint Task Force 2, which was supporting Iraqi forces at the time, and "disrupted" the ISIS attack against them.
Military sources added at the time that the killing was independently confirmed by video and other equipment that gathered information about the incident. "This is a world record that will never be equalled," added the source.
Little else is known about what happened - the Canadians refused to reveal the soldier's exact location or identity, fearing for their safety.
However, military news site SOFREP claimed that the killing took place in Mosul and that the team involved had recently been training for long sniper missions and had been hitting targets in the city for several days, pushing the distance every time.
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The bullet used to set the record was a .50-caliber armor-piercing round, the website added, adding that the record was captured by a Predator drone circling the head.
A separate record is held by another British sniper, who killed six Taliban with one bullet after hitting the key to his kamikaze vest.
Lance Corporal, 20, of the Coldstream Guards, fired the stunning shot in December 2013 in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan.
His shot traveled a relatively small 850m to reach his target, but the same sniper had previously taken out a Taliban fighter from 1,340m.
The Longest Kill
Ukraine has said nothing about the record shot other than the alleged distance - 8,891 feet - making it very difficult to verify the kill.
Ukraine is known to use the Snipex Alligator rifle, which is larger and has a longer range than its more popular Barrett .50 caliber cousin.
The Kyiv military is known to make liberal use of snipers, including a Canadian sharpshooter who uses the nom-de-guerre Wali, and the Snipex Alligator, one of the most powerful and long-lasting rifles.
Using a larger, longer range and heavier bullet than the more popular Barrett .50 caliber rifle in the US, it has an effective range of 6,600 feet but a maximum of 23,000 feet, which means it is certainly possible. One of the Kiev men killed a man who was just under 9,000 feet.
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Pictures released by the Ukrainian armed forces of the killing showed a man moving through the woods before the gunman pointed at his chest.
About three seconds later, before the figure falls to the ground, the thermal image jumps up, showing the rifle firing.
The second figure then runs over the first in an attempt to help his wounded companion before the sniper fires a second time. Both figures then fall to the ground.
Others pointed out that there was not enough time to calculate the distance traveled between the firing of the rifle and the fall of the soldier.
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Confirming military deaths is an extremely difficult task, relying largely on soldiers' self-reports due to the difficulty of obtaining information from behind enemy lines during a conflict.
Adolf Hitler was said to have severely miscalculated the strength of the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, as the Luftwaffe overestimated their kills by a factor.
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