Synchronized Sniping

The work the Seals snipers did in the pirate hostage situation was pretty amazing:

These guys are amazing shots.

“For all three of them to fire those shots at the same time and take those guys out, it was quite a feat,” said Don Shipley, a former SEAL who now runs a private training school for commandos in Chesapeake, Va. “They showed the patience the sniper has, which is looking through the scope for hours to get that perfect shot.”

Several dozen SEALs had secretly boarded the destroyer Bainbridge late Saturday after parachuting into the ocean nearby and climbing into inflatable boats.

Then they bided their time, waiting for a chance to save the hostage, Capt. Richard Phillips. That came around dusk Sunday, as the Bainbridge towed the lifeboat holding the captain and pirates from its stern.

The snipers could see two pirates peering out from the back of the enclosed lifeboat and the third pointing his assault rifle at Phillips. President Barack Obama had cleared them to shoot if the captain faced imminent threat of death.

When the order came to shoot, former SEALs said, the hard part was not the distance – about 75 feet, an easy range for an experienced sniper.

The biggest risk came from the many moving parts: the bobbing lifeboat, the rolling ship, hitting three targets simultaneously in darkness.

With deadly accuracy, the snipers fired their rifles in unison. They killed the pirates with exactly three shots.

You've got three different things moving - the boat the snipers are on, the boat the pirates are on, and the pirates themselves within the boat. Despite all that it was one shot each - crisis over. Pretty impressive.