History
Rhodesian Mike Rousseau was serving as a mercenary in the Mozambican War of Independence. While engaged in fighting at the airport of Lourenço Marques (modern-day Maputo), Rousseau was armed with only a Browning HP35 pistol. As he turned a corner, he bumped into a FRELIMO guerrilla armed with an AK-47. Rousseau immediately performed a "double tap" maneuver, a controlled shooting technique in which the shooter makes two quick shots at the target's torso. Rousseau hit the target on either side of the sternum, usually enough to incapacitate or kill a target outright. Seeing that the guerrilla was still advancing, Rosseau made an attempt at a head shot that hit the guerrilla through the base of his neck, severing the spinal cord.
Rousseau later related the story to an acquaintance, shootist Jeff Cooper. Cooper later incorporated the "triple tap" maneuver (two quick shots to the torso and one quick-aimed shot to the head) into his practical shooting technique. Rousseau was later killed in action in the Rhodesian War.
This story is false as there was no fighting at Lourenço Marques during the whole period of the colonial (or independence) war, nor were Rhodesian mercenaries employed or allowed there, only Rhodesian armed forces and police units provided by the Rhodesian government limited to actions near the Rhodesian border. It may, perhaps, refer to some episode of the Mozambican civil war.
Read more about this topic: Mozambique Drill
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)