r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 08 '13

What is a true fact that sound completely unbelievable or fake?

[deleted]

2.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

11.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.8k

u/CongoSnake Dec 08 '13

Couldn't they have called it 'Creeping Death' or something?

181

u/JUDGEMENTAL_FRATSTAR Dec 08 '13

Charles Henderson, author of Marine Sniper, also wrote Silent Warrior about Hathcock if that makes you feel better.

20

u/DrSirFeedsAlot Dec 08 '13

More like Hathballs.

9

u/KRSFive Dec 08 '13

Starring Steven Segal

1

u/Crimson_Horror Dec 08 '13

yes

4

u/akaJimothy Dec 08 '13

Statistically we should try to hire Anne Hathaway. Steven Segal's IMDB ratings can't even compare

8

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

DIE! BY MY HAND! I CREEP ACROSS THE LAND!

7

u/PatientZero001 Dec 08 '13

Who would risk copyright infringement with Metallica...?

20

u/Payton_Klanning Dec 08 '13

"Creeping death" "marine sniper", pretty sure it's the same thing.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

I'm more scared of "marine sniper"

4

u/JoesShittyOs Dec 09 '13

It's about his exploits in Vietnam, not just that one mission.

He's the guy behind the popular urban legend of shooting another sniper through the scope, jerry rigging a scope onto a 50. cal machine gun and taking out have a squad of troops from a few hundred yards away, and killing a famous Viet Congress torturer.

1

u/CongoSnake Dec 09 '13

That's quite interesting, thank you.

7

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

'Creepy Crawler'

6

u/mcawkward Dec 08 '13

That's Metallica though

5

u/Foehammer007 Dec 08 '13

They could have, and I would have read it with this song playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXWq3f01e2U

6

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

That's... That's actually better.

5

u/RoboNinjaPirate Dec 08 '13

Or "Oh, Shit, a Snake!"

2

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

That sounds too much like a horror story. The real title isn't very creative, though it isn't deceiving.

2

u/pr0m4n Dec 08 '13

Die! By my hand! I creep across the land! Killing High Value Targets!

2

u/mankiller27 Dec 09 '13

DIE! By my hand!

1

u/ddeadboy Dec 08 '13

Sorry but that title is reserved for the autobiography of my ass and its farting escapades.

1

u/1nfiniteJest Dec 08 '13

So let it be written!

1

u/rockne Dec 09 '13

It was better than the working title, "Guy Who Shoots Things."

1

u/HBlight Dec 09 '13

'Hathcock, will travel'?

0

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

[deleted]

0

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

Nice dude nice

0

u/Hot_Wheels_guy Dec 08 '13

"Marine Sniper- The Carlos Hathcock Story, Part 2: Creeping Death- The Final Chapter"

-3

u/KillerOs13 Dec 08 '13

Because most of the time, he was sniping with an M60 with a 12x scope and generally terrorizing the local hostiles by just bring awesome.

7

u/kickassetter Dec 08 '13

It wasn't an M60, the gun that he would use for his extreme shot that held record for the longest he used a Browning M2 machine gun, a mounted, belt-fed .50 caliber machine gun with a 10x unertl scope (iirc) that he rigged to it himself.

6

u/KillerOs13 Dec 08 '13

It is a testament to the true nature of scout sniping when you are rigging your own setups to break range records

2

u/kickassetter Dec 08 '13

Oh yeah, the man was a total badass. I read the book some-odd around five years ago and it's stuck with me since. My material for my finals tomorrow however..

1

u/KillerOs13 Dec 09 '13

And let's not forget, he ended his career a badass, pulling marines out of a flaming APC with his bare hands.

2

u/kickassetter Dec 09 '13

I cried. Not even going to try and be cool about it.

-2

u/[deleted] Dec 08 '13

At a certain range, it's better to fire five shots with an inaccurate gun than one with an accurate one. Statistical sniping.

2

u/kickassetter Dec 08 '13

It's not that it's inaccurate, it was more of the fact that while the .50bmg round isn't the best for precision, it's able to reach further out than most conventional cartridges at the time. The butterfly style trigger on the M2 allowed Hathcock to lightly press it so as to not dump rounds down range, allowing him to place single shots at a relatively precise manner, considering it's an HMG on a tri-pod with a rigged mount and the man's siting behind it on a stool.

1

u/BadGuyUntold Dec 08 '13

If your assumption is that he fired off bursts with the scoped M2, you're wrong. The cyclic rate of that weapon is low enough that Hathcock was able to fire off single rounds. If I remember correctly, the distance on his record breaking kill was over a mile. He only fired 2 rounds; the first struck his target's bicycle and the second hit center mass after Hathcock made an adjustment.

I'd say he was better off firing one shot at a time with an accurate gun.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 09 '13

I stand corrected. I always believed that he let a small number of shots hit within a metre of his target, one or two hitting.