10 Insanely Accurate Movie Details You Never Noticed
2. Unzeroed Scope - Saving Private Ryan
"Well, it seems to me, sir, that God gave me a special gift, made me a fine instrument of warfare."
Anyone who has seen Saving Private Ryan will know that the above statement is a fair reflection of Daniel Jackson's skill as a marksman. The young private is such a ferociously talented sniper that he can nail an enemy through his own rifle scope at a range of 450 yards.
As such, the final battle in Steven Spielberg's 1998 WWII epic gives the viewer reason to pause. Firing from a bell tower as the German forces swarm Ramelle, Jackson misses more shots in a few minutes than he had throughout the entire movie.
Why the sudden change in accuracy? The sharpshooter can be seen switching between two different scopes throughout the film - a Ureti 8x optic and an M73b 2.5x counterpart. The increased magnification of the Ureti means that it requires frequent adjustment, to account for the range between the sniper and more distant targets.
Jackson's frequent scope swapping and the recurrent need to calibrate the Ureti for different distances causes it to become "unzeroed". This essentially means that his crosshairs don't correlate with the bullet's actual point of impact. As a result, this WWII Hawkeye suddenly finds himself missing far more often than one would expect from a sniper of his capabilities.