The best snipers of World War II: a list. The best sniper
The ability to hide makes a great sniper out of a shooter. Highly trained shooters who take out targets from incredible distances, they receive extensive combat training that makes them arguably the most dangerous weapon in the war effort.
Below is a list of the greatest snipers in history.
705 confirmed kills (505 with a rifle, 200 with an assault rifle).
Was a Finnish soldier who accumulated the highest number of confirmed victories in history!
Haya was born in Rautjärvi near the modern Finnish-Russian border, and began his military service in 1925. He began serving as a sniper during the "winter war" (1939-1940) between Russia and Finland. During the conflict, Haya endured frosts as low as -40 degrees Celsius. In less than 100 days, he has credited 505 confirmed victories, yet according to unofficial data from the front, he killed more than 800 people. In addition, he is also credited with 200 murders from
Suomi KP / 31, which in total gives 705 confirmed victories.
How Haya did his job was amazing. He was alone, in the snow, shooting Russians for 3 months in a row. Of course, when the Russians found out that so many soldiers had been killed, they thought that this was a war, there would definitely be casualties. But when the generals were told that one man with a rifle had done it, they decided to take emergency measures. First, they sent a Russian sniper to fight Haya. When his body was returned they decided to send a sniper team. When they did not return, a whole battalion of soldiers was sent to the place. They suffered losses and could not find him. In the end they
artillery strikes were ordered, but to no avail. Haya was smart. He was wearing an all-white camouflage. He used a small rifle to increase the accuracy of his shots. He compacted the snow in front of him so as not to stir it up during the shooting, thus not revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth to keep his breath from condensing and creating steam that could give away his position. Ultimately, however, he was shot in the jaw by a stray bullet during combat on March 6, 1940. He was found by Finnish soldiers who said that half of his head was missing. He did not die, however, and regained consciousness on the 13th day after the conclusion of peace between Russia and Finland.
Once again, let's count all the kills...
505 snipers + 200 machine guns = 705 confirmed kills...
and all this in less than 100 days.
Nickname: "Da Chung Kich du" ("White Feather Sniper")
93 confirmed kills.
Let's forget about the dozen shooting championships he won, he had 93 confirmed kills during the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese army approved a $30,000 bounty on his life for killing so many of his own people. The bounties for killing regular American snipers were usually $8.
Hatcock was the one who fired the most famous shots in history. It was he who shot from a very long distance at another sniper, hitting him in the eye through his scope. Hatcock and Roland Burke, his spotter, were pursued by an enemy sniper (who had already killed several Marines) who they believed was specifically sent to kill Hatcock.
When Hatcock saw the flash of light reflected from the enemy scope, he fired at him with one of the most accurate shots in history. Hatcock reasoned that such a situation was only possible at the moment when both snipers were aiming at each other at the same time. And then he was saved by the fact that he was the first to pull the trigger. "White Feather" was synonymous with Hatcock (he held
one feather in the hat) and pulled it out only once during the entire service. It was a mission where he had to crawl about 1500 yards to kill an enemy general. This mission took 4 days and 3 nights without sleep. One enemy soldier nearly stepped on him as he lay camouflaged in a meadow. Elsewhere he was almost bitten by a viper, but he did not flinch. He finally came to the position and waited for the general. When the general arrived, Hatcock was ready. He fired once and hit him in the chest, killing him. The soldiers began searching for the sniper and Hatcock had to crawl back to avoid detection. They didn't catch him. Nerves of steel.
Adelbert F. Waldron (March 14, 1933 – October 18, 1995)
109 confirmed kills.
He holds the record for the most confirmed victories of any American sniper in history. However, it's not only his impressive kill count that makes him one of the best, but also his incredible accuracy.
This is an excerpt from "Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam", a book by Colonel Michael Lee Lanning, which describes what I'm talking about:
“One day he was traveling along the Mekong River in a boat when he found himself an enemy sniper on the shore. Although everyone on board was still looking for this sniper, who fired from the coastline from a distance of more than 900 meters, Sergeant Waldron took a sniper rifle and killed a Viet Cong fighter who was sitting at the top coconut tree, with one shot (this is from a moving platform). That was the capability of our best snipers."
Francis Pegamagabo (March 9, 1891 – August 5, 1952)
378 confirmed kills.
300+ captured targets.
Medalized three times and badly wounded twice, he was an expert marksman and scout who is credited with 378 kills of German soldiers and over 300 target acquisitions. But killing about 400 Germans was not enough, he was also awarded medals for delivering important messages through heavy enemy fire when his commander was out of action.
Although he was a hero among his fellow soldiers, he was practically forgotten once he returned home to Canada. Regardless of this, he was one of the most effective snipers of the First World War.
Ludmila Pavlichenko (July 12, 1916 - October 10, 1974)
309 confirmed kills.
In June 1941, Pavlichenko was 24 years old and in the same year Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Pavlichenko was among the first volunteers and asked to join the infantry. She was assigned to the twenty-fifth infantry division of the Red Army. She later became one of the 2000 Soviet women snipers.
Her first 2 kills were made near the village of Belyaevka with a Mosin-Nagant bolt rifle with a 4x scope. First military action which she saw was the conflict in Odessa. She was there for 2 and a half months and committed 187 murders. When the army was forced to move, Pavlichenko spent the next 8 months in Sevastopol for
Crimean peninsula. There she chalked up 257 murders. A total of 309 confirmed kills for the Second world war. 36 of those killed were enemy snipers.
Vasily Zaitsev (March 23, 1915 - December 15, 1991)
242 confirmed kills.
Zaitsev is probably the most famous sniper in history thanks to the movie Enemy at the Gates. This is a great film and I would like to say that it is all true. But it's not. There was no Nazi alterego for Zaitsev. Zaitsev was born in the village of Yeleninka and grew up in the Urals. Before Stalingrad, he served as a clerk in the Soviet Navy, but after reading about the conflict in the city, he volunteered for the front. He served in the 1047th Infantry Regiment.
Zaitsev made 242 confirmed kills between October 1942 and January 1943, but the real number is probably closer to 500. I know I said that there was no sniper confrontation, but in the memoirs Zaitsev claims that there was a certain Wehrmacht sniper duel with whom he spent three days in the ruins of Stalingrad.
detailed information of what actually happened is not complete, but by the end of the three-day period, Zaitsev had killed the sniper, and claimed that his scope was considered the most valuable trophy.
Rob Furlong
A former corporal in the Canadian Forces, he holds the record for the longest confirmed kill in history. He hit the target from a distance of 1.51 miles or 2430 meters.
This is the length of 26 football fields.
This amazing feat happened in 2002, when Furlong took part in Operation Anaconda. His sniper team consisted of 2 corporals and 3 master corporals. When three armed men from al-Qaeda set up camp in the mountains, Furlong took aim. He was armed with a Macmillan Tac-50 50 caliber rifle. He fired and missed. His second
the shot hit the enemy with a backpack on his back. He had already fired his third shot by the time the second hit, but now the enemy knew he was under attack. For each bullet, the flight time was about 3 seconds due to the huge
distance, and this time was enough for the enemy to take cover. However, the stunned gunman realized what was happening just as the third shot hit him in the chest.
Charles Mauhinney 1949 -
According to official records, he killed 103 people.
An avid hunter since childhood, Charles joined the Marine Corps in 1967. He served in the US Marine Corps in Vietnam and holds the record for most confirmed kills by a Marine sniper, surpassing legendary sniper Carlos Hathcock. In just 16 months, he killed 103 enemies, and another 216 kills were listed as probable.
due to the fact that it was too risky at that time to look for the bodies of those killed for confirmation. When he left the Marines, he did not tell anyone how big his role in the conflict was, and only a few Marines knew about his assignments. It took almost 20 years before someone wrote a book detailing his amazing sniper skills. Mowhinnie stepped out of the shadows because of this book and became a teacher at a sniper school. He once said, "It was a death hunt: a man was hunting another man who was hunting me. Don't tell me about hunting lions or elephants, they don't fight back with rifles."
Usually, a fatal shot was recorded at a distance of 300 - 800 meters, while Mauhinney killed from more than 1000 meters, which makes him one of the greatest snipers of the Vietnam War.
Sergeant Grace 4th Georgia Infantry Division
It was May 9, 1864, when Sergeant Grace, a Confederate sniper, fired that incredible shot that resulted in one of the most ironic deaths in history. It was during the Battle of Spotsylvania that Grace aimed his rifle at General John Sedgwick (pictured above) from a distance of 1,000 meters. It was an extremely long distance
time. Early in the battle, Confederate riflemen advised Sedgwick to take cover. But Sedgwick refused and replied: "What? Men are hiding from single bullets? And what will you do when they open fire all along the line? I am ashamed of you. They cannot even hit an elephant at this distance." His people stubbornly hid. He repeated: "They won't be able to hit
even an elephant at that distance!" A second later, Sergeant Grace's shot hit Sedgwick with a perfect hit under his left eye.
I swear it's a real, real story. Sedgwick was the highest-ranking Union casualty in civil war and upon hearing of his death, Lieutenant General Ulysses Grant repeatedly asked "Is he really dead?"
Thomas Plunkett died in 1851
He was an Irish soldier serving in the British 95th Fusiliers. A single shot made him great, the one that killed the French general, Auguste-Marie-François Colbert.
During the Battle of Cacabelos, during Monroe's retreat in 1809, Plunkett, using a Baker rifle, fired at a French general from a distance of about 600 meters. Considering the incredible inaccuracy of early 19th-century rifles, this case can be considered either an impressive achievement or damned luck on the part of the shooter. But Plunkett, not wanting his comrades to think he was just lucky, decided to fire one more shot before returning to his position. He reloaded his gun and aimed again, this time at the major, who had come to the aid of the general. When that shot also hit its intended target, Plunkett proved to be an incredible shooter. After the second shot, he looked back at his line to see the surprised faces of others in the 95th Rifles.
For comparison, British soldiers were armed with Brown Bess muskets and trained to hit a man's body at 50 meters. Plunkett hit from 12 times the distance. Twice.
Snipers have always been the elite of the armed forces of any country, as they possessed a whole set of qualities that had to either be innate or acquired through many years of training. We will tell you about the five best shooters in history.
Carlos Hascock
Carlos Hascock is a famous American sniper during the Vietnam War. Coming into the army at the age of 17, he was met by his future brother-soldiers very cool. Everyone doubted that the boy in the hat was capable of anything, but their doubts came to an end after the first firing at the range. The young man never missed a beat. The command could not miss such a talent, and in 1966 Carlos went to Vietnam, where at least 300 enemy soldiers died from his bullets. Ultimately, the North Vietnamese put up a huge bounty on his head. notable feature Hascock was a white feather, which he always wore in his hat, despite the concerns of his colleagues about disguise.
One of Carlos' most famous shots was the killing of a Vietnamese sniper when the bullet went through the scope of his own rifle. This case formed the basis of many Hollywood blockbusters. In addition, Hascock was able to set a record for the range of a successful shot - 2250 meters, which was broken only in 2002.
But the war came to an end, and Carlos returned home without a single wound. He died in his bed, a little short of his 57th birthday. Hascock is rightfully considered one of the most famous military personnel in the US Army.
Simo Häyhä
Next on our list is a sniper from snowy Finland. Simo Häyhä became not just a soldier, but a real symbol both for Finland itself and for the Soviet Union. For several months Winter War, which lasted from 1939 to 1940, Hyayhya killed from 500 to 750 Soviet soldiers. A feature of the work of the "White Death" (this is the nickname Simo received among Soviet soldiers) was the use of weapons without an optical sight. History knows few examples when snipers used such rifles. The reliable distance at which the bullets of the Finnish sniper reached the opponents was 450 meters.
The name of Simo Häyuha raised the morale of the Finnish soldiers even in the most difficult situations for them, and he himself quickly became national hero Finland. Apart from vertically challenged(152 cm), which helped him in disguise, Häyhä used various tricks: for example, he kept snow in his mouth so that the steam from his mouth would not give it to enemies while breathing, or he froze the ice in front of the barrel of his rifle with water so as not to raise snow when shooting .
The famous Finnish sniper lived a long life and died in 2002 at the age of 96.
Ludmila Pavlichenko
The list could not miss the sniper who frightened the Germans during the Second World War as much as the "White Death" at one time frightened the Soviet soldiers. It's about about Lyudmila Pavlichenko - the most successful female sniper in world history. From the first days of the war, she was eager to fight and, having completed sniper courses, she ended up in the ranks of a rifle company.
As Pavlichenko herself admitted, the hardest thing to kill is the first time. In total, on account of the legendary "Lady Death" - 309 destroyed soldiers and officers.
Vasily Zaitsev
The name of another Soviet sniper terrified the German soldiers. We are talking, of course, about Vasily Zaitsev. He, like many Soviet soldiers, mercilessly destroyed enemy soldiers, but the most famous battle was a sniper duel with a German ace sniper who was tasked with destroying Zaitsev. After many hours of intense waiting, Vasily was able to calculate the location of the sniper by the brilliance of the optical sight and fire one accurate shot. The major of the army of the Third Reich was killed.
Zaitsev, who headed the school of masters, made a significant contribution to the development of sniper art, writing several books on combat and developing new tactics for sniper hunting.
Chris Kyle
One of the best snipers of our time who proved this title in real combat is Texas native Chris Kyle, who decided from the age of 8 that accurate shooting was his life's work. By 2003, the young man had experience of participating in special operations, and the command decided to send him to Iraq. There he proved to be a true master. A year later, when he had more than 150 people on his account, the nickname “Shaitan from Ramadi” stuck to him, and a $20,000 reward was put on his head. The American sniper is famous for his shot from a distance of 1920 meters, when the bullet overtook the Iraqi militia, threatening the advance of American tanks.
Chris Kyle was killed in 2013 by another Iraq War veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. During his service, Chris Kyle defeated 255 opponents.
The best snipers of the 20th century:
The process of evolution took place in such a way that men, being hunters in the blood, tried to be well-aimed shooters. This desire has become very firmly established in our world. It is worth considering in detail the five most famous snipers of the last century.
The profession of a sniper is one of the most difficult and unusual military occupations, which have long been overgrown with a whole string of all kinds of legends and stories. But it should be remembered that snipers cannot become only at will. This requires a lot of training and combat missions.
Every man, at least once, dreamed of becoming a sniper.
Here is some information about the real sniper aces who excited their opponents with resourcefulness and skill:
5. Carlos Norman, lived from 05/20/1942 to 02/23/1999
This true legend in the activities of the US Army. He earned great prestige when he fought against the Vietnamese. He holds an honorary title and is still remembered by the US Marines. During his service, he managed to neutralize about 93 targets.
4. Adelbert F. Waldron, lived from 03/14/1933 to 10/18/1995
The most famous American sniper. He was a brave marksman during the Vietnam War. He bothered to honor being the most productive in terms of destroying opponents. 103 neutralization of enemies for his own benefit is attributed to his merits. After the war, from 1970, Waldron taught recruits how to shoot at the SIONICS division, which was based in Georgia. He is also a hero who received the award given for valiant service.
3. Vasily Zaitsev, lived from 03/23/1915 to 12/15/1991
It was a sniper in the 62nd Army, which was located on the front of Stalingrad. He is also declared a war hero. During the period when the battle for Stalingrad was gaining momentum, namely from November 10 to December 17, 1942, he managed to neutralize 225 targets. Among them were 11 snipers and many fascist officers. He owns the development of most of the tactics and techniques of firing a sniper, and they became the basis for textbooks.
2. Francis Pegamagabo, lived from 03/09/1891 to 08/5/1952
This is a real Hero and an excellent military sniper. Francis is of Canadian descent. When the war ended, he managed to kill 378 German soldiers. He has been awarded the Medal of Honor three times and was close to death twice as a result of severe wounds. Unfortunately, this professional shooter was forgotten when he returned home to Canada.
1. Simo Häyhä, lived from 12/17/1905 to 04/1/2002
This future phenomenal shooter was born in an area bordering two countries, the USSR and Finland. His childhood was spent hunting and fishing. When he was 17 years old, he started working as a security guard. Further, in 1925, he was taken to serve. After 9 years of productive service, he is being trained as a sniper.
His talents were revealed in 1939-1940, when there were military operations. For 3 months, he managed to kill 505 soldiers from the USSR. But his merits were perceived ambiguously. The main reason for disagreement was the presence of the corpses of soldiers on enemy territory. Simo, also perfectly able to shoot a pistol, and therefore it was assumed that he used it and did not count such victims in his total number. Colleagues called him "White Death". When March 1940 came, he was not lucky enough to be wounded. The bullet went through the jaw and severely damaged the face. In the first days of the beginning of the war, Simo expressed a desire to go to the front, but he was refused due to past injuries.
A person who owns this rare profession is especially feared and hated by enemies. As a self-sufficient combat unit, a talented sniper is able to inflict significant damage on enemy manpower, destroying a significant number of enemy soldiers, and bring disorganization and panic into the ranks of the enemy, eliminating the unit commander. Get the title of "most best sniper"is very difficult, for this you need to be not only a super-sharp shooter, but also have great endurance, endurance, inner peace, analytical skills, special knowledge and excellent health.
The sniper carries out most of his operations autonomously, independently studies the terrain, outlines the main and reserve firing lines, escape routes, and equips caches with food and ammunition. Armed sniper rifle With a telescopic sight as a main weapon and a powerful multi-shot pistol as a secondary weapon, the modern sniper organizes high-tech caches of food and ammunition in his positions for long battery life.
There are many names of the most productive snipers from the times of various wars and local conflicts that took place in the world in last century. Some of these shooters single-handedly destroyed so much enemy manpower during the fighting that the number of those killed can be from a company to a battalion and even higher.
It is generally accepted in the world that the best sniper is a Finn Simo Hayha, nicknamed "White Death", who fought in the 39-40s of the last century against the Soviet Union in Soviet-Finnish war. According to fully confirmed data, the number of victims of Simo Haya, who was a hunter before the war, is more than 500 people, and according to unconfirmed information that was voiced by the Finnish command - more than 800 soldiers and officers of the Red Army.
Simo Haya had developed his own technique for successfully working even against a large enemy unit that was advancing on the area of \u200b\u200bthe sniper position. First of all, the Finn from the Mosin rifle fired at the rear ranks of the advancing enemy, trying to inflict painful wounds on the soldiers in the abdomen, thereby achieving disorganization of the attackers due to the screams of the wounded in the rear. The most effective wound in this case was considered to be liver damage. Simo Haya killed enemy soldiers who approached the distance of a direct shot with well-aimed shots to the head.
Simo Haya was out of action on March 6, 1940 after a severe bullet wound that dislocated the lower part of the skull and tore out the jaw. The best sniper, miraculously survived, for a long time was treated. Simo Haya lived a long life, he died in 2002 at the age of 96.
