“This is the ultimate coffee table book. It’s not ‘Mexican Muralists’ or another photo essay of the rain forest. No, it’s sniping – people shooting people from long range, and the effect on history. It is impossible to put down; John Plaster’s style is so clear and easygoing. The description of firearms, tactics, situations – are so wonderfully accessible and clean, and above all else each incident is just good storytelling. Don’t sit down with this book if you have to be somewhere on time.”

—John Milius,
Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn

“This is the best damn book on the history of sniping ever published. Plaster’s expertise is unparalleled. He’s in the ten-x ring with this one.”

—Robert K. Brown,
Publisher, Soldier Of Fortune magazine

“Major John Plaster’s book, The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting, is the most comprehensive and complete book ever published on the subject. It is filled with many accurate details that have never before been documented. The research and presentation are magnificent!”

—Maj. Edward J. Land Jr., USMC (Ret.),
Secretary, National Rifle Association,
Founder, 1st Marine Division Scout Sniper School, 1966

“A superb, absolutely fascinating book! Magnificently written and liberally illustrated with rare photos and sketches, it is very difficult to put down – no matter how late the hour.”

—Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, U.S. Army

“For centuries, sniping has been an underappreciated secret weapon. Still is, at least in the popular mind. But the troops know better, and The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting goes a long way towards closing the gap. Written for a general audience, by a military professional, the technical details are explained painlessly, along with compelling accounts of how snipers operate, and why they now dominate modern battlefields, if not the headlines.”

James F Dunnigan,
Editor, Strategypage.com (jimdunnigan.com),
Author of A Quick and Dirty Guide to War

“Major John Plaster has done it again! He previously presented the A to Z of the techniques of military and police sniping. His current book provides the back-story of the development of sharpshooting to the current modern precision sniping. His focus is on the integrated evolution of technology and techniques to show why we are where we are today with this vital battlefield skill. Skilled and trained riflemen can still dominate the battlefield, particularly in irregular combat. This is a one-stop reference for the military and police sniper, riflemen of all callings, and for the historian or enthusiast.

—Charles D. Melson,
Chief Historian, U.S. Marine Corps

10 Questions with
Maj. John L. Plaster, USAR (Ret.),
author of
The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting

On November 6, Paladin Press released John Plaster’s monumental new book, The History of Sniping and Sharpshooting. Decades in the making, exhaustively researched, richly illustrated, it is the most comprehensive combat history of sniping ever written. We caught up with Major Plaster to ask him some questions about writing the book, its incredible content, and his future writing projects.

Why did you write this book?

I wrote this book for the same reason that I wrote my sniper training handbook, The Ultimate Sniper—I wanted to produce the most thoroughly researched and most complete such volume ever written. I had a shelf full of sniping histories, but none, I thought, delved deeply enough. Very few even attempted to answer the essential question, “How?” I think readers want to understand how these weapons operate, their inherent advantages and disadvantages, and how they’re employed. As well, a number of histories just gloss through entire conflicts and battles, reflecting little research or understanding. Several sniping histories, for instance, detail World War I sniping at Gallipoli but don’t even notice that the senior commander of Australian-New Zealand Army (ANZAC) forces there, Major General William Bridges, was shot dead by a Turkish sniper. I set out to write a book of sufficient length that I could truly cover the subject—and thanks to Paladin Press, I was given enough space to do that.

Is it true that this book evolved from your sniper training lectures?

Yes, that’s true. Some 25 years ago, I began collecting historical sniping anecdotes to make training points to my sniper students. It was pretty fascinating stuff and helped hold the students’ attention. The more information I assembled, however, the more I began collecting it out of a growing personal interest. By the time I wrote The Ultimate Sniper in 1992, I had enough historical material for one chapter of that book, but it was deleted to reduce the book’s length.

After that, I made it a point to collect historical information wherever I traveled across America and Europe. Between trips to museums and tours of battlefields—along with acquiring rare books—those historic materials grew and grew. I even test-fired old rifles and used a laser rangefinder to document the distances of famous shots. By the year 2000, the Internet had become a worthwhile research tool. Initially I used it solely to find obscure, out-of-print books—some more than 150 years old—which offered rich perspectives. Later, on-line articles and books proved to be very useful resources.

By the time I sat down to write this book, my research materials filled 16 crates—more than 10,000 sources, including official reports, book extracts, interviews, transcripts, newspaper stories, photos, magazine articles, award citations—huge piles of information. The Civil War newspaper accounts alone numbered around 1,000.

How did your background as a longtime sniper instructor, qualified sniper, and Special Forces combat veteran contribute to the book?

I’ve always been a student of tactics and firearms; in U.S. Army Special Forces I was a weapons specialist. It colored my approach and was the perspective by which I conducted research and interpreted information. Did a World War I German sniper’s armament offer him a decided advantage over his British counterpart? In the Revolutionary War, how well did the Hessian mercenary’s rifle compare to the American’s Kentucky Long Rifle? Just how accurate was the Confederate sharpshooter’s Whitworth rifle? How did the introduction of smokeless powder affect sniping? I don’t think you can separate technology from tactics and techniques—they evolve together and interplay.

And yet, tactics vary from army to army, along with variations of organization and training. To understand how a Japanese sniper operated in World War II, for instance, it’s essential to consider his training, selection, armament, tactics, and organization. It’s not that this book simply contains more information than ever before assembled on Japanese sniping, but that it’s understandable, quite readable, and helps you appreciate why the Japanese fought as they did.

Your book breaks new ground by incorporating numerous accounts of Native Americans, women, and African Americans as snipers and sharpshooters. Was this a purposeful attempt at diversity?

The book contains a diversity of sharpshooters and snipers because there have been so many great rifle shooters forgotten in the dusty cracks of history. It gave me immense satisfaction, for example, to tell the story of Ojibwa Chief Francis Pegahmagabow, an acclaimed World War I sniper and Canada’s most decorated Native American. Similarly, I discovered an entire company of Indian sharpshooters from Michigan who fought with distinction in the Civil War. The book’s section on the Indian Wars includes a lengthy account of Plains Indian sharpshooting, too. The most acclaimed shooter at the Battle of Bunker Hill was Salem Poor, a black, whose image appeared on a bicentennial postage stamp in 1976. And when it comes to women, I did extensive research on Russian women snipers of World War II, finding that some were merely propaganda symbols and others were genuine heroes. These accounts were included along with all the others because they’re great stories about great shooters.

You said that your research required some 25 years and relied upon more than 10,000 sources. Can you tell us of some surprising things you learned during the book’s research and writing?

My most surprising discovery was the Confederate Army’s employment of African American sharpshooters, which I’ve well documented. One of these sharpshooters, Holt Collier, later was a hunting guide for President Theodore Roosevelt and even has a National Wildlife Refuge named for him in Mississippi, where he is officially recognized as a Confederate army veteran.

In the area of technology, I was surprised to find that the Austrian Army actually deployed air rifle sharpshooters during the Napoleonic Wars, and that these weapons proved deadly. This same type of air rifle, the Girandoni, was carried by Lewis and Clark during their famous Journey of Discovery. The West Point Museum includes a Girandoni in its collection.

I also found some bizarre coincidences. For example, U.S. Army General Henry Lawton, a Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, was the man who captured Apache Chief Geronimo in 1886. Thirteen years later, during the Philippine insurgency, Lawton was killed by one well-aimed shot fired by a Filipino sharpshooter—whose commander was, ironically, named Geronimo.

You recount hundreds of remarkable—even amazing—sniping and sharpshooting episodes. Any favorite stories or characters?

An especially colorful figure is John Burns, an elderly veteran of the War of 1812 who, in 1863, showed up on the Gettysburg battlefield and volunteered to fight for the Union forces. At first he wasn’t taken seriously. Then, after getting off a few shots, Union officers supplied him with a captured sharpshooter’s rifle, and he proved very effective. Badly wounded, Burns survived the battle to be thanked face-to-face by President Lincoln.

From the Revolutionary War, I accorded American rifleman Timothy Murphy and British rifleman Patrick Ferguson lengthy coverage. They were great shooters and great spirits, worthy of recognition.

Readers interested in black powder firearms will appreciate my account of buffalo hunter Billy Dixon’s incredible shooting at the Battle of Adobe Walls and the Buffalo Wallow Fight. Dixon was one of the few civilian scouts ever awarded the Medal of Honor.

And there are some great “might have beens,” such as Abraham Lincoln dodging Confederate sharpshooter fire in 1863, and close calls by both Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant. In Lee’s case, a Union sharpshooter’s bullet actually creased his cheek.

 Last year, an Iraqi terrorist sniper known as “Juba” appeared on Al Jazeerah television and cited you by name. Any comments on that?

Today’s terrorist snipers know who I am because of my writing, my many sniper graduates, and my occasional appearances on international television. Last year’s Al Jazeerah video, which featured sniper commander “Juba,” was a response to my live appearance on television in Iraq, where I correctly identified the propaganda angle of the enemy videotaping sniper attacks on U.S. troops. I think Juba and his comrades were very upset by my comments—as I’d hoped they would.

How important is sniping in the fighting in Iraq today?

More so than any previous American conflict, the conditions in Iraq have spurred a dramatic growth of, and reliance upon, snipers. As Iraq’s insurgency took shape and fighting grew in heavily populated areas, the need for placing shots precisely—and thereby avoiding civilian casualties—grew as well. In many instances, U.S. snipers have engaged enemy fighters that could not have otherwise been fired upon without extensive collateral damage. American snipers also have proven to be an extremely valuable counter to insurgents planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs). And their ability to infiltrate without detection and invisibly observe areas of interest has been an important means of surveilling suspected insurgent locations.

To what extent are you still involved in sniping?

Within the past year I’ve coached U.S. Army snipers but have otherwise pretty well retired—although I may be conducting one or two short courses next year on extreme-range shooting with the .50-caliber sniper rifle. Otherwise, I think there are so many excellent, experienced U.S. snipers today that they don’t need an old instructor such as me.

Now that the desk is finally cleared and the crates of research are packed away in the basement, what’s next on your writing schedule?

My interest in history inspires me to try my hand at writing historical fiction. We’ll have to see how that develops. There’s also the possibility of another nonfiction book or two, perhaps dealing with military history. Otherwise, I continue to work with firearms and optics manufacturers to develop new concepts and products, and I occasionally consult with U.S. defense organizations.