Green Jacket sniper scores a `quigley` in afghanistan The book “Dead Men Risen” is written by Tony Handen and features the Welsh Guards Battle Group to which the Green Jacket sniper team were attached. Published by Quercus Publishing, 400 pages, ISBN13 9781849164214. On sale at Amazon from £9.75.
“Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond.“
The L96 Sniper Rifle
Operating from a remote patrol base in Helmand, two British snipers were responsible for killing 75 Taliban fighters in just 40 days. In one remarkable feat of marksmanship, two insurgents were dispatched with a single bullet. The arrival at the newly-established Patrol Base Shamal Storrai (Pashto for “North Star”) in late August 2009 of *Serjeant Tom Potter and *Rifleman Mark Osmond marked the start of an astonishing episode in the history of British Army sniping. Within 40 days, the two marksmen from 4 Rifles, part of the Welsh Guards Battle group, had achieved 75 confirmed kills with 31 attributed to Potter and 44 to Osmond. Each kill was chalked up as a little stick man on the beam above the firing position in their camouflaged sangar beside the base gate – a stick man with no head denoting a target eliminated with a shot to the skull. Osmond, 25, was an engaging, fast-talking enthusiast, eager to display his encyclopedic knowledge of every specification and capability of his equipment. He had stubbornly remained a rifleman because he feared that being promoted might lead to his being taken away from sniping, a job he loved and lived for. Potter, 30, was more laid back, projecting a calm professionalism and quiet confidence in the value of what he did.
The Sniper Team on the motorcycle that carried the two Tali- Potter had notched up seven ban that were killed with the confirmed kills in Basra in 2007 `Quigley` shot. and 2008 while Osmond’s total was 23. Both were members of the Green Jackets team that won the 2006 British Army Sniper Championships.
On one occasion they killed eight Taliban in two hours, ‘I wasn’t comfortable with it at first,’ said Osmond, ‘you start wondering is it really necessary?’ But the reaction of the Villagers inspect the bodies af- locals soon persuaded him. ‘We had people coming up to ter the `Quigley` us afterwards, not scared to
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talk to us. They felt they were Potter and Osmond’s working being protected’. day would begin around 7 am Most of the kills were at a range and end a dozen or so hours of 1,200 metres using the 7.62 later at last light. Up to about 900 metres, they would aim at mm L96 sniper rifle. an insurgent’s head, beyond The snipers used suppressors, that at the chest. reducing the sound of the muzzle blast. Although a ballistic Often, Potter would take one crack could be heard, it was side of a compound and Osalmost impossible to work out mond the other. Any insurgent where the shot was coming moving from one side to the from. With the bullet travel- other was liable to be shot by ling at three times the speed of the second sniper if the first sound, a victim was unlikely to had not already got him. Each hear anything before he died. used the scopes on the rifles to Walkie-talkie messages re- spot for the other man, identivealed that the Taliban thought fying targets with nicknames to they were being hit from heli- do with their appearance. copters. The longest-range shot taken was when Potter A fighter wearing light blue was killed an insurgent at 1,430 dubbed ‘the Virgin Mary’ and metres away. But the most cel- one clad in what looked like ebrated shot of their tour was sackcloth was referred to as by Osmond at a range of just ‘Hesco man’, after the colour of the base’s Hesco barriers. Both 196 metres. the Virgin Mary and Hesco man On September 12th, a known were killed. Taliban commander appeared on the back of a motorcycle Others were given a nickname with a passenger riding pillion. because of their activities, like There was a British patrol in Hashish man, a Taliban who the village of Gorup-e Shesh doubled up as a drug dealer. Kalay and under the rules of Occasionally, insurgents got engagement, the walkie-talkie posthumous monikers. If one the Taliban pair were carry- target presented himself, both ing was designated a hostile snipers aimed at him simultaact. As they drove off, Osmond neously in a coordinated shoot. fired warning shots with his “Everybody you hit they drop pistol and then picked up his in a different way,’ says PotL96, the same weapon – serial ter. ‘We did a co-ord shoot on number 0166 – he had used in to the one bloke and he just Iraq and on the butt of which looked like he just fell through he had written, ‘I love u 0166’. a trap door. So we called him Taking deliberate aim, he fired Trapdoor Man.” a single shot. The bike tumbled and both men fell onto the Major Mike Bader-Simpson, road and lay there motionless. their company commander, When the British patrol re- describes Potter and Osmond turned, they checked the men as the “epitome of the thinkand confirmed they were both ing riflemen” that his regiment dead, with large holes through sought to produce. “They know the consequences of what their heads. they’re doing and they are very The 7.62 mm bullet Osmond measured men. They are both had fired had passed through highly dedicated to the art of the heads of both men. He had sniping. They’re both quiet, achieved the rare feat of ‘one softly spoken, utterly charmshot, two kills’ known in the ing, two of the nicest men in sniping business as ‘a Quigley’. the company, if the most danThe term comes from the 1990 gerous.” film Quigley Down Under in which the hero, played by Tom *Sjt Potter and R Selleck, uses an old Sharps rifle KƐmond are identified by to devastating effect. ƉƐĞƵĚŽŶLJŵƐ for security reasons.
