Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Sniping: The Australian Guerilla Book 2
    Sniping: The Australian Guerilla Book 2
    Sniping: The Australian Guerilla Book 2
    Ebook95 pages1 hour

    Sniping: The Australian Guerilla Book 2

    By Ion Idriess

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ion Idriess was a spotter for the famous Australian sniper, Billy Sing, and this book draws on his own experiences in the Gallipoli trenches during World War One. Sing had a reputation as an excellent marksman, lurking in the dark and silently sneaking up on the enemy. One day he was shot by a Turkish soldier. The bullet travelled down the barrel of his telescope, wounding both hands then went through his mouth, out his cheek and into his shoulder. He recovered from the injury, but was never really the same...

    Idriess was a trooper with the Light Horse at Gallipoli, all the way to Beersheba, and his diary was published as The Desert Column. Drawing on his military experience, this is one of six manuals written for soldiers and civilians in 1942, when invasion by the Japanese seemed imminent.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherETT Imprint
    Release dateOct 1, 2019
    ISBN9781925416848
    Sniping: The Australian Guerilla Book 2

    Read more from Ion Idriess

    Related to Sniping

    Related ebooks

    Military Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Ruger 10/22 Model 1151

      Jun 18, 2021

      SINCE its first appearance 57 years ago, the affordable Ruger 10/22 rifle has been a favourite among shooters. Through the years, very little has changed, apart from Ruger producing different variants: the Carbine, Compact, Take-down, Tactical and Co

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cartridge Case Design

      Dec 16, 2019

      Cartridge Case Design
      6 min read

    • Article

      Medals of Desert Storm

      Jul 24, 2019

      Medals of Desert Storm
      6 min read

    • Article

      My .303 Cast Bullet Recipe

      Oct 14, 2019

      I own two Lee-Enfields in .303 BR and over the past 10 years have discovered that both shoot cast bullets accurately. When I started out with cast bullets, first for muzzleloaders, I did a lot of reading on the subject and soon realised that cast bul

      5 min read

    • Article

      Escape From Mt Whitcombe

      Oct 14, 2021

      Escape From Mt Whitcombe
      4 min read

    • Article

      From Sea To Land

      Oct 26, 2021

      From Sea To Land
      3 min read

    • Article

      Life In The Legion

      Jan 24, 2023

      Life In The Legion
      6 min read

    • Article

      Riflescopes

      Apr 26, 2021

      Riflescopes
      41 min read

    • Article

      Movies For Gun Guys

      May 25, 2021

      Movies For Gun Guys
      10 min read

    • Article

      A Time Of Pure Exploration

      Jun 28, 2023

      A Time Of Pure Exploration
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ground Rules

      Oct 14, 2021

      Ground Rules
      6 min read

    • Article

      Snipers Of The Eastern Front

      Dec 23, 2021

      Snipers Of The Eastern Front
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Marine At Guadalcanal

      Nov 6, 2018

      A Marine At Guadalcanal
      8 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jul 15, 2021

      Letters
      7 min read

    • Article

      Sporting Answers

      Dec 21, 2022

      Sporting Answers
      11 min read

    • Article

      Polishing Your Form

      Apr 21, 2021

      Polishing Your Form
      4 min read

    • Article

      Who Dares Wins

      May 3, 2023

      I was born in London in 1920, while my family was passing through the city. Two weeks later, with me a babe in arms, we moved to Gloucestershire, where life was hard – but we didn't see it that way. Today, of course, everyone's lives are so different

      3 min read

    • Article

      Sporting Answers

      Jun 28, 2023

      THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING QUIZ TEAM BILL HARRIMAN BASC’s head of firearms and global authority on guns MAT MANNING Airgunner and journalist from the West Country DIGGORY HADOKE Vintage gun expert, firearms dealer, author and journalist BRUCE POTT

      9 min read

    • Article

      How Do We Measure Up?

      Nov 4, 2020

      How Do We Measure Up?
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Famous Five

      Jun 17, 2020

      A Famous Five
      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Jan 12, 2022

      First let me commend Matt Cross and Aidan Hartley for their articles on what a trophy hunting ban would not achieve (News and A sporting life in Africa, 29 December 2021). I also recommend to your readers a video on YouTube — bit.ly/EconTrophy — made

      4 min read

    • Article

      Past Versus Present

      Jun 21, 2023

      WISDOM AND TRADITIONS GATHERED OVER A LIFE AT THE COAL FACE, THIS WEEK WITH LINDSAY WADDELL When we look back on old records and either admire or slightly squirm at the size of the bags, the state of the countryside and indeed the world as whole must

      3 min read

    • Article

      Memories Are Made Of This

      Jan 12, 2022

      Memories Are Made Of This
      4 min read

    • Article

      Gallery

      Mar 18, 2022

      Gallery
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Sniping

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Sniping - Ion Idriess

      titlepage

      This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2019 for Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd

      Also by Ion L. Idriess

      The Australian Guerrilla: The Scout

      Prospecting for Gold

      Flynn of the Inland

      The Red Chief

      Nemarluk

      The Desert Column

      The Australian Guerrilla: Sniping

      First published 1942 by Angus & Robertson

      Copyright © Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd 2019

      ISBN 978-1-925416-85-5 ( paper )

      ISBN 978-1-925416-84-8 ( ebook )

      This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

      ETT IMPRINT

      PO Box R1906

      Royal Exchange NSW 1225

      Australia

      CONTENTS

      The Real Sniper

      The Cards of the Game

      He Lives Longest Who Learns the Game Best

      The Art of Hiding

      The Art of Immobility: How Movement Betrays

      The Art of Freezing

      The Art of Camouflage

      Invisibility Is Salvation

      Form and Formlessness

      Preparing for Action

      The Sniper Fights

      The Sniper Is Adaptable

      Appendix: The Sniper

      From The Yellow Joss and Other Tales

      CHAPTER I

      The Real Sniper

      The most dangerous individual soldier, and the world’s best rifle-shot, is the sniper.

      I do not mean the soldier who is a good shot and who is occasionally detached as a sniper, as is grudgingly done now in most armies. I mean the real sniper, the lone wolf. He is deadly. He is feared more than the tank, more than the aeroplane. The sniper has ever been a lone wolf, has ever been independent. He is the fighter who has remained unchanged throughout the ages right up to today. In all our mechanized armies, our vast organizations, and titanic movements of massed troops, he is the one man who is independent of them all. He wages his own deadly little war regardless of the movements of battlefields, air fleets, panzer divisions, or armies. And he does it all with everyman’s weapon. That weapon was once the club. It developed into the arrow. Now it is the rifle.

      The sniper holds his life by his initiative, his wits, even more than by his fearlessness. It is not only his rifle, it is his thought beforehand, added to cunning, which makes him so deadly, even against armies. He can kill where an army cannot. And he can bring down the highest. Many a victorious chief, many fighting kings have fallen to the lone wolf. Many a famous general he has laid low. One of the best of our own Australian generals fell to a sniper at Gallipoli. Several Italian, and some among the best known of the German generals, have already fallen to the Russian snipers during this war. In every war the world has known, the sniper has done his deadly work.

      And he needs no vast organization behind him. To a great country like Australia with a tiny population, a single brigade of snipers would be worth more than an army corps. Australia breeds the best snipers in the world, and breeds them in numbers. Many an Australian bush lad has grown up with a rifle in his hands. During the last war we outshot the Turkish snipers, and they were noted among the armies of the world.

      For long past I have been advocating the organizing of our born snipers, their offensive power to be used for sniping work only. Perhaps it is not yet too late.

      The ambition of every keen rifleman while his country is at war is to be a sniper. I’ll tell you all I know about it, but always be eager to learn more. A sniper can be born to the game. On the other hand, he can learn. But he will never become a real sniper unless he develops into an expert. It is a fascinating game he takes on, but one fraught with deadly peril. You become a lone hunter stalking the most dangerous game on earth—armed men, savage because they know you are seeking their lives; deadly because they are watching out for you. Your own life will be always at stake. Hence, never tire of learning more and more about the game. The knowledge that you gain from others will prove of great value. The knowledge you gain from personal experience will complete your education. Never lose your wariness for one moment.

      Make up your mind from the start. If you decide to become a sniper, then the die is cast. No matter whether you are in the regular army or the irregulars, if you decide to become a sniper your life will be in your own hands. There will be no one to help you—unless you are detailed as a sniper in some trench position within your own lines. Inefficiency, carelessness, overconfidence, just one little slip and you are a goner. So, learn all you can before you venture out to shoot men. You must of course be a good shot beforehand. Indeed, an excellent shot; under certain circumstances, for a sniper to miss is fatal.

      Before we go into details, get a broad view of the subject. You will then realize what a big (though unrecognized) job has been the sniper’s, and what a big job yours can be. There is far more in it than sitting behind a rock waiting for a target to stroll along.

      The first sniper did just that, millions of years ago. His enemy was a giant of a fellow, with a tremendous reach and club. The little fellow knew he’d have no chance. So he sat down and frowned and thought—and hit on the brilliant idea of hiding behind a rock and waiting for his enemy to come to the pool to drink. Then, with his little bow and arrow, he shot him while he was bending.

      And that was the first Jack the Giant Killer act, the first sniper.

      The rule applies perfectly today: Catch your enemy bending. How many of our own armies have been caught bending during these last two years!

      As I have already indicated, thought is the very life blood of the sniper. From the moment he sets out with his rifle, his wits must be razor keen.

      From the first, every tribe has bred its envied snipers. In an age when every tribe had to find its food by the hunt, every man, you’d think, would be a sniper. Not so. It was only the thinkers amongst their craftiest hunters who were the snipers, the hunters who thought beforehand where the game were likely to feed, where the fat bucks would most likely come to water. Those were the men who could plan beforehand just where they would most likely catch their enemy bending. The Boers were a tiny army of trained hunters, every man a rifle-shot from boyhood up. In a body, with their mobility and good rifle-shots, they proved elusive and very dangerous. But the actual out and out snipers amongst them were, fortunately for us, comparatively few.

      The northwest frontier of India and Afghanistan is notorious for its snipers. The lone wolf sniper, the deadliest of his species, is comparatively rare. For no matter what a man’s job may be, few in that job think really deeply. All of us learn our game, but few become really expert. We have too many other interesting things to think about.

      Providing you have the will, there is nothing to prevent you from becoming a sniper when you realize this. Realize that the dangerous sniper is not dangerous merely because he is an excellent shot but because he also thinks deeply; thinks out his own

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1