 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2010) |
 First edition | |
| Author | Stephen Hunter |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Bob Lee Swagger series |
| Genre | Thriller, conspiracy fiction |
| Publisher | Bantam Dell |
Publication date | March 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 451 pp |
| ISBN | 0-553-07139-4 (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 26633980 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3558.U494 P65 1993 |
| Followed by | Black Light |
Point of Impact is a 1993 thriller novel by Stephen Hunter.
Point of Impact revolves around a former Vietnam War sniper named Bob Lee Swagger or Bob "the Nailer". This character is loosely based upon the real Vietnam War sniper and U.S. Marine Corps legend Carlos Hathcock. [1] [2]
Bob "The Nailer" becomes involved in a plot by dirty big-government types. The story is about how he is first approached and used by them, and their subsequent attempts to end his life.
Disenchanted with warfare when invalided out of the U.S. Marine Corps in the 1970s, Bob retreats to a small town in Arkansas, where he lives in a trailer and devotes himself to firearms.
Here he is approached by representatives of RamDyne, a black-bag government organization whose personnel commit off-the-record atrocities as needed. The RamDyne people, masquerading as employees of Accutech, a high-end ammo manufacturer, enlist Bob's help. He detects their untruthfulness and confronts them, at which point they "reveal" to him their true motives: foiling an attempt on the life of the President of the United States at the hand of the same Soviet sniper who ended Bob's military career.
Bob agrees to work for them but in the end, is framed into the crime of attempted assassination. He escapes the frame and finds himself friendless, pursued by every law enforcement agency in the country, pursued by RamDyne, and suffering two nearly fatal bullet wounds.
The major portion of the book details how he escapes the frame, wins absolution for the crime of which he was accused and wins the love of a woman.
As the story progresses, the reader is introduced to the actual shooter who took the shot at the Salvadoran Archbishop: one Lon Scott. Lon is a crippled man, who was once a great competition benchrest shooter. Bob tracks Lon by tracing the .300 H&H Swagger is given at the Accutech shooting range to Lon's father, Art Scott. Art received the .300 H&H, referred to as "The Tenth Black King", as a gift for his shooting for Winchester. In a tragic twist of fate, Art accidentally shot his son, crippling Lon from the waist down. He then proceeded to take his own life, with the same rifle. Bob hunts through some old files, and with Nick Memphis' help manages to track Lon to his home. Bob and Memphis are then ambushed, but escape. Much later in the novel, Lon makes another appearance as Colonel Shreck tries to set Bob up in Hard Bargain Valley, near the end of the book. Nick Memphis ends up taking a thousand yard shot at Lon, subsequently killing him. Bob then goes through legal proceedings, and embarrasses the United States government. The careful reader will then notice, during a description of the distribution of Lon's possessions in accordance with his will, that there was found a "curious collection of fired 162-grain .264-caliber bullets from some bizarre project or other in the early sixties, found in his safe deposit box. [3] After some research, it can be learned that this is an allusion to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, in 1963. The rifle that supposedly fired the bullet that killed Kennedy was alleged to be a Carcano rifle, firing a 162 grain bullet, in 6.5 mm. It can thus be inferred that Bob Lee Swagger is not the only man that Lon Scott has set up, and that Lon Scott actually shot JFK on November 22, 1963, rather than Lee Harvey Oswald. In 2013, Hunter followed up on these hinted at threads and completed the tale in The Third Bullet.
In the 2007 film adaptation DVD special features short titled "Survival of the Fittest: The Making of Shooter", the author states
I wanted to write a novel about a sniper. I'd read a biography of Carlos Hathcock, a Marine sniper. It's a very provocative book. It struck me that he was kind of the Faustian intellectual of war, in the sense that he learned things that no man ever learned, but at great cost. And the cost was his exile and his bitterness and his grief. Carlos Hathcock lost a spotter in Vietnam. So, I had Bob lose a spotter in Vietnam. Of course, the movie has been updated, so Vietnam hasn't figured in it. But there's still - I love that the sniper is a man of grief, with something that I don't think anybody had ever gotten before.
A film adaptation of the novel was produced by Paramount Pictures in 2006, titled Shooter , starring Mark Wahlberg as Bob Lee Swagger. It was released on March 23, 2007. In January 2016, USA Network gave a series order for Shooter, a television series based on the novel and the 2007 film.
An Indian Telegu language movie called Athadu starring Mahesh Babu directed by Trivikram Srinivas released in the year 2005 is loosely based on this. [4]
A sniper is a military/paramilitary marksman who engages targets from positions of concealment or at distances exceeding the target's detection capabilities. Snipers generally have specialized training and are equipped with high-precision rifles and high-magnification optics, and often also serve as scouts/observers feeding tactical information back to their units or command headquarters.
The .50 Browning Machine Gun is a .50 in (12.7 mm) caliber cartridge developed for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard service cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous belt using metallic links.
Carlos Norman Hathcock II was a United States Marine Corps (USMC) sniper with a service record of 93 confirmed kills. Hathcock's record and the extraordinary details of the missions he undertook made him a legend in the U.S. Marine Corps. He was honored by having a rifle named after him: a variant of the M21 dubbed the Springfield Armory M25 White Feather, for the nickname "White Feather" given to Hathcock by the North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN).
Stephen Hunter is an American novelist, essayist, and film critic.
Arron Perry is a former master corporal in the Canadian Forces who in March 2002 broke the 34-year-old record for the longest recorded sniper kill in combat, completing a kill at a range of 2,310 metres (2,526 yd) during the War in Afghanistan. This shot exceeded the previous record of 2,286 m (2,500 yd), set by Carlos Hathcock in 1968 during the Vietnam War.
United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper is a secondary MOS designator of U.S. Marine Corps infantrymen and reconnaissance Marines that have graduated from a U.S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper School. Scout Snipers must earn the rank of Lance Corporal, be selected by their battalion to join the scout-sniper platoon, and complete an approved scout-sniper course in order to receive this designation.
Bob Lee "the Nailer" Swagger is a fictional character created by Stephen Hunter. He is the protagonist of a series of 12 novels that relate his life during and after the Vietnam War, starting with Point of Impact (1993) up to the most recent Targeted (2022). Swagger is the protagonist of the 2007 film and the 2016 TV series Shooter, each based on Point of Impact. Hunter has said that Swagger is loosely based on Carlos Hathcock, a U.S. Marine Corps Scout Sniper.
Black Light is a 1996 thriller novel by Stephen Hunter. It is the second novel in the Bob Lee Swagger series and the sequel to Point of Impact.
Time to Hunt is a 1998 thriller novel, and the third in the Bob Lee Swagger series by Stephen Hunter. In narrative sequence it is preceded by Point of Impact and Black Light.
Shooter is a 2007 American action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Jonathan Lemkin, based on the 1993 novel Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter. The film follows Force Recon Marine Scout Sniper veteran Bob Lee Swagger, who is framed for murder by a mercenary unit operating for a private military firm. The film also stars Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Levon Helm, and Ned Beatty. It was produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura through Di Bonaventura Pictures, and released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on March 23, 2007. It grossed $95.7 million on a $61 million budget.
Roy F. Chandler was the author of more than sixty published books and many magazine articles. He is known for his series of sniper related books, including the series "Death From Afar".
Charles Benjamin "Chuck" Mawhinney is a former United States Marine who holds the Corps' record for the most confirmed sniper kills, having recorded 103 confirmed kills and 216 probable kills in 16 months during the Vietnam War.
The M25 Sniper Weapon System is a joint venture precision rifle built for the U.S. Army Special Forces and the U.S. Navy SEALs. It was originally developed by the 10th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Devens, Mass., to fulfill a requirement for a sniper rifle based on a match grade M14 that satisfied the requirements of the Army Special Forces and the Navy SEALs.
War of the Rats is a World War II fiction novel written by David L. Robbins in 1999.
Master Sergeant Eric Roy England was a sniper for the United States Marine Corps 3rd Marine Division during the Vietnam War. He had 98 confirmed kills with many more unconfirmed. Joining the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) in 1950, England was a Nationals rifle shooting champion by age 19 in 1952, and a long-range champion by 1968. He received his first competitive training in USMC bootcamp from his cousin, Dr. James Harry Turner, at that time a Marine weapons instructor. This led to a 24-year career on the USMC rifle team, winning national and international competitions as participant and coach.
I, Sniper is a novel by Stephen Hunter, published by Simon & Schuster in 2009. It is Hunter's sixth novel whose hero is Bob Lee Swagger, a U. S. Marine Corps sniper who first appears in Point of Impact which is partially set in the Vietnam War. It is tenth in order of publication and sixth in the chronology of the character.
Reports regarding the longest recorded sniper kills that contain information regarding the shooting distance and the identity of the sniper have been presented to the general public since 1967. Snipers have had a substantial history following the development of long distance weaponry. As weapons, ammunition, and aids to determine ballistic solutions improved, so too did the distance from which a kill could be targeted. In mid-2017 it was reported that an unnamed Canadian special forces operator, based in Iraq, had set a new record of 3,540 m (3,871 yd), beating the record previously held by an Australian sniper at 2,815 m (3,079 yd).
Edward James Land Jr. or Jim Land, is a retired Marine Corps officer who was instrumental in starting the Marine Scout Sniper program.
Shooter is an American drama television series based on the 2007 film of the same name and the first three novels in the Bob Lee Swagger series by Stephen Hunter. The show stars Ryan Phillippe in the lead role of Swagger, a retired United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper from MARSOC living in seclusion who is coaxed back into action after learning of a plot to kill the President. USA Network picked up the pilot in August 2015 and ordered the series in February 2016.
According to the American sniper Carlos Hathcock, Apache was a female sniper and interrogator for the Viet Cong during the War in Vietnam. While no real name is given by Hathcock, he states she was known by the US military as "Apache", because of her methods of torturing US Marines and ARVN troops for information and then letting them bleed to death.