Thousands of years ago, an ancient hunter draws his makeshift bow
as his target comes into view. The large animal doesn’t see the hunter,
and the hunter squints his eyes to get the best possible shot. He hopes for the
best - and lets loose an arrow with the goal of getting some meat in his belly tonight.
Today, the highly trained soldier has a very different target in his sights. The enemy
commander is a difficult man to pin down, and he knows he’ll only get one chance to eliminate
him - with a high-powered rifle from over a mile away. But he won’t be sending his bullet out on
a wing and a prayer - he’ll be aided by one of the most advanced sniper scopes ever created.
How did we get from there to here? This is the history of rifle scopes through the ages.
The first ranged weapons didn’t have much going for them besides aim and luck. The first was
likely a thrown spear or hatchet that would be lucky to go fifty feet - making it only a
slight advantage over hunting by hand. Soon, primitive hunters would develop the bow and
arrow - with the first example of this early ranged weapon dating back to at least 60,000
years ago. But in terms of hitting the target, these hunters had exactly one tool at their
disposal - their eyesight. And aiming at an animal meant that you likely only had one shot,
because if you missed, the animal would usually get spooked and run - or charge.
The same went with most early ranged weapons.
Whether you were talking about the sharp throwing star of Japan known as the Shuriken,
the air-propelled dart guns commonly coated with poison, or the self-returning Boomerang,
they could all do a lot of damage - if they were aimed properly. The same
went for the more advanced weapons once gunpowder was developed. Whether it was
a simple musket or a large, booming cannon, you just had to do the best
you could to figure out where your target would be, and let the ammo fly.
And the origins of the next development would come from an unexpected source.
For thousands of years, this was just part of warfare - human eyesight would do the best it
could, but there were no certainties. A speck of dust in the eye or a particularly foggy day
could ruin a mission. There were no tools to aid in shooting - until the 1630s. That
was when the first quantum leap came from someone who had nothing to do with warfare.
William Gascoigne was an amateur astronomer from England who was experimenting with his
telescope, and put it in his case to do something else - leaving the case open.
And it got an unexpected visitor.
A spider crawled inside and spun its web inside the case, and when Gascoigne took a look,
he got the most dramatic up-close look at a spider-web anyone had ever seen in history!
After realizing what had happened - and possibly making some dramatic grossed-out
noises - Gascoigne realized that the arachnid without proper respect for property rights or
personal space had led to a massive revelation! The spider-web was in focus with distant objects,
and this meant that he could use the same principle to create the first telescopic
sight - and that’s exactly what he did, building the first prototype.
And naturally, it wouldn’t be long before people went “Science,
schmience - how can we make this useful to us?”
The year was 1776, and things were shaking up in the American colonies - to put it lightly.
The Americans were outmanned, outgunned, and largely expected to get routed by the British
forces once the Revolutionary War kicked off. But one thing they had going for them was a
lot of innovative thinkers. Ben Franklin was the most famous, but other inventors
like Charles Willson Peale and David Rittenhouse were also doing their parts for the war effort.
These two scientists were the first to have the idea to mount a telescopic sight to a rifle.
But first prototypes rarely work out.
There was nothing to base a rifle-mounted scope on, and the two designers weren’t able
to figure out how to mount it forward enough. The scope worked to provide a better view of
the target - but when it was fired, the recoil propelled the gun back and the scope directly
into the shooter’s eye. This was naturally a problem when you need your eyes to shoot,
and this first attempt at a rifle scope never made it to the battlefield
Or did it?
Later that year, British soldiers described seeing a gun that looked like it had a rifle-mounted
scope on it, and documented it, but there was no proof what gun they were seeing.
But it wouldn’t be long before the next big leap.
It was 1835, and maybe the early American experiments had given people some ideas.
They certainly did to civil engineer John R. Chapman and gunsmith Morgan James. The two men,
during a period of relative peace for the United States, developed what would come
to be known as the Chapman-James Sight. These were more experiments than anything, but they
proved the idea of a telescopic sight could work - and in 1855, an optician named William
Malcolm took the next step. He used achromatic lenses similar to the ones used in telescopes,
and made key adjustments to the position. The result was a scope that could magnify
images between three and twenty times - creating a major advantage for shooters.
And they would be needed soon.
As the Civil War kicked off in 1861, the Union and Confederate armies were armed
with deadlier weapons than they ever were before. It was the Confederates who first
became known for their sharp-shooters - often stationing soldiers in trees as they picked
off the Union soldiers from the sky. It’s believed that the only Major General killed during the war,
Union commander John Sedgewick, was picked off by a sniper from almost 2400 feet away.
The Confederates were mainly using scoped rifles imported from England - some of
the most expensive weapons in the arsenal, and well worth the cost.
These rifles were still primitive - but they had a major impact.
The scopes were usually simple side-mounted telescopes, combining two inventions into one
deadly package. Shooters would look through the scope, get a clearer picture of where their target
was, and then let loose. The real power was the ability to impose long-range fear on enemy troops.
It was common for Union troops to wander into what looked like a wide-open battlefield - only
for it to turn into a killing field as the snipers unleashed fire, picking people off from
close to half a mile away. These weapons were a big part of the Confederacy’s early success
before the wheels fell off, and not just anyone could get their hands on one of these weapons.
And naturally, the Union soon got in on the game too.
The Union primarily used American-made weapons, which meant supplies could be lower but cost would
be as well. The Union Army used a sharpshooter squad since 1861, and required high standards of
this unit. Soldiers needed to pass a marksmanship test to get their hands on one of these weapons,
but they then became some of the only soldiers to largely control their own actions. They didn’t
have to do typical camp chores or drills, and could pursue high-value targets at their own pace.
But halfway across the world, the future of the rifle scope was being developed.
The term “Sniper” was actually developed in Germany, being derived from “Scharfschutze”
or sharpshooter. And the British had been using the weapons heavily in India, where they were
often engaged in combat in thick jungle brush. By the time World War I rolled around, both armies
were well-armed with long-range guns. And this was a recipe for carnage - as both could now
pick off enemy soldiers from a mile away in the middle of the largest conflict in human history.
And the rifle scopes themselves would evolve as well.
The earliest rifle scopes were little more than a telescope strapped to a gun,
with the two pieces not exactly working together. However, soon gun designers would figure out new
ways to make the two pieces of the weapon work in unison - and the result would be newer and
deadlier weapons. Until now, all rifle scopes were simple telescopes that provided a longer
view at something far away, but around 1880 a new innovation made its way on the scene - the
refractor scope. This was adapted from a new type of telescope that allowed light to pass
directly to the eye of the person holding it, making it easier to see in low-light conditions.
But it would be a while before they made their way to the battlefield.
It took a lot of tinkering, but eventually the lenses were small and sturdy enough to
be added to guns. You needed a lens that wouldn’t be too big to mount comfortably,
but also one that could sustain the recoil of the rifle. And it would be the German
army that took the momentum when it came to this new innovation - outfitting their
soldiers with some of the most advanced rifle scopes available. Much of World
War I was determined by trench warfare, and that gave the Germans the early advantage.
And by the time the US Army entered the fray, they had some catching up to do.
There was little time to waste, so the US Army set out retrofitting existing guns
with the scopes they had on hand - a 6x magnification Warner & Swasey. While this
weapon was rather clumsy, it kept the US soldiers from being sitting ducks.
This was the first war where sniper scopes weren’t a surprising new innovation - they
were a common tool that every army was expected to have to keep up. The United States won the war
despite being at a disadvantage early on, and that set Germany’s weapons development back.
But for the US, it was full steam ahead.
Sniper rifles had made a big part of the difference in the past war,
and rifle optical technology was a top priority going forward. The US knew they had to upgrade,
and there were three key areas - more powerful scopes that could see further, longer-range
weapons, and smaller rounds that would cause less wear and tear on the rifle and the user.
The primary weapon used during this period was the M1 rifle, and most were outfitted with a
standard 2.5x magnification scope - but snipers were often given a 10x scope created by Unertl,
one of the most powerful scopes created at the time and highly effective at bad-weather shooting.
And it would be a good thing - because World War II would be the most sniper-heavy war yet.
The Second World War saw heavy ground combat in the European theater, as well as no small
amount of fighting in the Jungles of Asia against the Japanese empire. Both posed challenges for
shooters in low visibility, but the scopes were up to the task - except in one area.
When the sun went down, the shooting largely stopped, at least from the snipers. None of
the current rifles were capable of accounting for low-light conditions at night, and being
able to shoot from a greater distance didn’t help if you were looking at pitch-black dark.
And that’s where the Nazi mad scientists came in.
The first attempt at a night vision system was created in 1944,
as the Nazi war machine debuted the Vampir system. Dramatic name aside,
this was a rifle scope that also included an infrared spotlight. This was produced by
a heavy battery backpack attached to the gun, which made using the system cumbersome. It was
a primitive near-infrared system that couldn’t illuminate body heat, but could make it easier
to notice movement. Despite the drawbacks, the Nazis thought it was promising enough
to start using in combat in February 1945 - only months before the war came to an end.
But while it didn’t work out for the Nazis, there was a lot to build off.
The Vampir was initially designed for short-range shooting rather than snipers,
but it would be the basis for future developments in night vision. However,
it would be a long time before any more quantum leaps were made - simply because they weren’t
needed! The Korean War, the next major war after World War 2, was mostly a brutal close-quarters
combat and didn’t see the innovation in weapons that the World Wars saw. However,
the end of the war led to one big opportunity - for weapons companies on the home front!
It was time for the rifle scope to go mainstream.
Initially, these long-range weapons were limited to military use, but the 1950s saw them introduced
to civilians for the first time. They didn’t typically use the most powerful scopes,
but hunters were very enthusiastic - because now they could snipe deers without having to worry
about getting gored by an angry buck! At first, the scopes typically only had a magnification
of up to 6x, there was more and more demand for high-quality rifles - and it wouldn’t be
long before arms companies were putting the most powerful scopes ever onto the market!
And these scopes lasted the test of time.
These powerful analog refracting scopes were the best of the best,
and many of them can still be used today - because this was about as good as it got
for analog scopes. The Vietnam war played out very differently than the Korean War,
because the North Vietnamese troops made extensive use of snipers. These savvy
soldiers typically didn’t have advanced weaponry, but they knew the jungle inside and out - and the
US needed to even the odds. Vietnam was the first US war where success in guerilla warfare was key.
And one man would change the sniper game forever.
His name was Carlos Hathcock, and the US Marine was already a shooting champion when he was
deployed to Vietnam. Armed with a classic M2 machine gun, he managed to obtain a basic
telescopic scope - not even the most advanced model - and hooked the two up. In doing this,
he took a fast-firing close-range weapon and turned it into the most deadly long-range gun
ever created. The big problem? The powerful recoil of the machine gun,
which made accuracy challenging for everyone but the best soldiers.
And that was exactly what Hathcock would prove to be.
Hathcock would become famous - or infamous - for his 93 confirmed sniper kills during the Vietnam
War, and he would also set the record at the time for the longest kill ever recorded at over six
thousand feet. While many were initially skeptical about the combo of a high-powered weapon with a
sniper scope, the success was impossible to argue with. The extra range combined with the volume of
shots meant an army could wipe out an enemy unit from afar. Soon enough, the military was
turning this into a standard weapon - and after much experimentation, it became the M107 rifle.
So how did we get from there to today?
The US wasn’t involved in any major wars for the decades after Vietnam until the millennium,
with most conflicts like the Gulf War being against highly outmatched opponents. But there
was now a profit motive to keep creating better rifle scopes - both for the military and civilian
hunters. The high-powered 10x rifle scopes from military weapons soon became standard on hunting
rifles, and designers were able to create smaller scopes that would provide excellent visibility
without weighing down the gun. Not only did the glass used become much more advanced, but it
became common to replace it with transparent polymers - both lighter and harder to break.
And soon, it was time for these scopes to go electronic.
The original scopes were simple fixed devices, but later versions introduced the concept of
variable magnification. This meant that snipers could train their scope to the right perspective,
depending on how far away their target was and how clear a shot they needed.
It made it much easier to pinpoint a target - but nothing as much as this
next innovation did. It’s probably the most memorable image people remember from
TV or movies about snipers. How does a target know a sniper is after him?
It’s that telltale red dot.
The addition of laser sights to sniper rifles makes it easier for the shooter to know exactly
where their bullet will hit. This is popular with hunters - and the deer being targeted
usually doesn’t know what that red dot means. They might even try to lick it off. A human
target in a war might be alerted by the red dot - but an effective sniper wouldn’t give
them the time to get away. Lasers not only give the sniper the opportunity to measure the target,
they allow the leader in a squad of snipers to let his men know exactly where to aim.
And the need for sniper rifles would be back in full force at the turn of the millennium.
When the War on Terror began in 2001, everyone knew it would be a very different war. While
there were governments to topple, like the ruthless Taliban of Afghanistan and
the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, both fell relatively quickly - and the bulk of
the war would be spent fighting scattered terror groups and insurgents in urban areas
and isolated mountain regions. Being able to pinpoint enemies with only seconds to spare
was often the difference between a clean shot and an Al Qaeda leader disappearing.
So what is the future of sniper scopes?
The US is not currently engaged in any wars after its withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan,
but its hunters are as enthusiastic as ever - so the odds are that better but
not necessarily bigger scopes will keep on being developed for civilian use. And many
of the guns the US sends abroad to Ukraine will likely be equipped with
high-powered scopes to help the Ukrainian military take on the Russians from afar.
But there might be one thing keeping rifle scopes from being as essential as they were in the past.
Unmanned drones - because the only thing better than a human sniper being able to
take out an enemy from afar, is a machine that can do it without putting anyone at
risk. Could robots be putting snipers out of work soon? Not if the snipers currently
training have anything to say about it - but they might just be a deadly combo.
Want to know more about the history of snipers? Check out
“10 Deadliest Snipers In The History of the World” or watch this video instead!