The best sniper. The best snipers of all time. List of the most successful Soviet snipers
When it comes to sniping during the Second World War, people usually think about Soviet snipers. Indeed, such a scale of sniper movement, which was in Soviet army in those years, there was no other army, and the total number of enemy soldiers and officers destroyed by our riflemen is in the tens of thousands.
What do we know about German snipers, “opponents” of our shooters on the other side of the front? Previously, it was not officially accepted to objectively assess the merits and demerits of an enemy with whom Russia had to wage a difficult war for four years. Today, times have changed, but too much time has passed since those events, so much of the information is fragmentary and even doubtful. Nevertheless, we will try to bring together the little information available to us.
As you know, during the First World War, it was the German army that was the first to actively use accurate rifle fire from specially trained Peaceful time snipers to destroy the most important targets - officers, messengers, machine gunners on duty, artillery servants. Note that already at the end of the war, the German infantry had at its disposal up to six sniper rifles per company - for comparison, it must be said that the Russian army of that time had neither rifles with optical sights nor trained shooters with these weapons.
German army instructions stated that “weapons with telescopic sights are very accurate at a distance of up to 300 meters. It should be issued only to trained shooters who are able to eliminate the enemy in his trenches, mainly at dusk and at night. ...The sniper is not assigned to a specific place and position. He can and must move and position himself so as to fire a shot at an important target. He must use an optical sight to observe the enemy, write down his observations and observation results, ammunition consumption and the results of his shots in a notebook. Snipers are relieved of additional duties.
They have the right to wear special insignia in the form of crossed oak leaves above the cockade of their headdress.”
German snipers played a special role during the positional period of the war. Even without attacking the enemy’s front line, the Entente troops suffered losses in manpower. As soon as a soldier or officer carelessly leaned out from behind the parapet of the trench, a sniper’s shot instantly clicked from the side of the German trenches. The moral effect of such losses was extremely great. The mood of the Anglo-French units, which lost several dozen people killed and wounded per day, was depressed. There was only one way out: to release our “super-sharp shooters” to the front line. In the period from 1915 to 1918, snipers were actively used by both warring parties, thanks to which the concept of military sniping was basically formed, combat missions for “super marksmen” were defined, and basic tactics were developed.
Exactly German experience The practical use of sniping in conditions of established long-term positions served as an impetus for the emergence and development of this type of military art in the Allied forces. By the way, when in 1923 the then German army, the Reichswehr, began to be equipped with new Mauser carbines of the 98K version, each company received 12 units of such weapons equipped with optical sights.
However, during the interwar period, snipers were somehow forgotten in the German army. However, there is nothing unusual in this fact: in almost all European armies (with the exception of the Red Army), sniper art was considered simply an interesting, but insignificant experiment of the positional period of the Great War. Future War Military theorists saw it primarily as a war of motors, where motorized infantry would only follow the attack tank wedges, which, with the support of front-line aviation, would be able to break through the enemy front and quickly rush there with the aim of reaching the flank and operational rear of the enemy. In such conditions there was practically no real work left for snipers.
This concept of using motorized troops in the first experiments seemed to confirm its correctness: the German blitzkrieg swept across Europe with terrifying speed, sweeping away armies and fortifications. However, with the beginning of the invasion of Nazi troops into the territory Soviet Union the situation began to change quickly. Although the Red Army was retreating under the pressure of the Wehrmacht, it put up such fierce resistance that the Germans repeatedly had to go on the defensive to repel counterattacks. And when already in the winter of 1941-1942. snipers appeared in Russian positions and the sniper movement began to actively develop, supported by the political departments of the fronts, the German command remembered the need to train their “super-sharp shooters.” In the Wehrmacht, sniper schools and front-line courses began to be organized, and the “relative weight” of sniper rifles in relation to other types of small arms gradually began to increase.
A sniper version of the 7.92 mm Mauser 98K carbine was tested back in 1939, but this version began to be mass-produced only after the attack on the USSR. Since 1942, 6% of all carbines produced had a telescopic sight mount, but throughout the war there was a shortage of sniper weapons among German troops. For example, in April 1944, the Wehrmacht received 164,525 carbines, but only 3,276 of them had optical sights, i.e. about 2%. However, according to the post-war assessment of German military experts, “type 98 carbines equipped with standard optics could in no case meet the requirements of combat. Compared to Soviet sniper rifles... they differed significantly in the worst side. Therefore, every Soviet sniper rifle captured as a trophy was immediately used by Wehrmacht soldiers.”
By the way, the ZF41 optical sight with a magnification of 1.5x was attached to a specially machined guide on the sighting block, so that the distance from the shooter’s eye to the eyepiece was about 22 cm. German optics experts believed that such an optical sight with a slight magnification, installed at a considerable distance from the shooter's eye to the eyepiece, should be quite effective, since it allows you to aim the crosshairs at the target without stopping monitoring the area. At the same time, the low magnification of the sight does not provide a significant discrepancy in scale between objects observed through the sight and on top of it. In addition, this type of optics placement allows you to load the rifle using clips without losing sight of the target and the muzzle of the barrel. But naturally, a sniper rifle with such a low-power scope could not be used for long-distance shooting. However, such a device was still not popular among Wehrmacht snipers - often such rifles were simply thrown onto the battlefield in the hope of finding something better.
The 7.92 mm G43 (or K43) self-loading rifle, produced since 1943, also had its own sniper version with a 4x optical sight. The German military authorities required that all G43 rifles have an optical sight, but this was no longer possible. Nevertheless, of the 402,703 produced before March 1945, almost 50 thousand had an optical sight already installed. In addition, all rifles had a bracket for mounting optics, so theoretically any rifle could be used as a sniper weapon.
Considering all these shortcomings of the weapons of German shooters, as well as numerous shortcomings in the organization of the sniper training system, it is hardly possible to dispute the fact that Eastern Front The German army lost the sniper war. This is confirmed by the words of former Wehrmacht lieutenant colonel Eike Middeldorf, author famous book“Tactics in the Russian Campaign”, that “the Russians were superior to the Germans in the art of night fighting, fighting in wooded and swampy areas and fighting in winter, in training snipers, and also in equipping infantry with machine guns and mortars.”
The famous duel between the Russian sniper Vasily Zaitsev and the head of the Berlin sniper school Connings, which took place during Battle of Stalingrad, became a symbol of the complete moral superiority of our “super-sharp marksmen,” although the end of the war was still very far away and many more Russian soldiers would be carried to their graves by the bullets of German marksmen.
At the same time, on the other side of Europe, in Normandy, German snipers were able to achieve much greater success, repelling attacks by Anglo-American troops landing on the French coast.
After the Allied landings in Normandy, almost a whole month of bloody fighting passed before Wehrmacht units were forced to begin retreat under the influence of ever-increasing enemy attacks. It was during this month that German snipers showed that they, too, were capable of something.
American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, describing the first days after the landing allied forces, wrote: “Snipers are everywhere. Snipers in trees, in buildings, in piles of ruins, in the grass. But mostly they hide in the tall, thick hedges that line the Norman fields, and are found on every roadside, in every alley.” First of all, such a high activity and combat effectiveness of German riflemen can be explained by the extremely small number of snipers in the Allied forces, who were unable to quickly counteract sniper terror from the enemy. In addition, one cannot discount the purely psychological aspect: the British and especially the Americans for the most part subconsciously still perceive war as a kind of risky sport, so it is not surprising that many Allied soldiers were severely amazed and morally depressed by the very fact of being at the front some invisible enemy who stubbornly refuses to comply with the gentlemanly “laws of war” and shoots from an ambush. The morale effect of sniper fire was indeed quite significant, since, according to some historians, in the first days of the fighting, up to fifty percent of all losses in American units were due to enemy snipers. A natural consequence of this was the lightning-fast spread of legends about the combat capabilities of enemy shooters through the “soldier’s telegraph,” and soon the soldiers’ panicky fear of snipers became a serious problem for officers of the Allied forces.
The tasks that the Wehrmacht command set for its “super-sharp marksmen” were standard for army sniping: the destruction of such categories of enemy military personnel as officers, sergeants, artillery observers, signalmen. In addition, snipers were used as reconnaissance observers.
American veteran John Highton, who was 19 years old during the landing days, recalls his meeting with a German sniper. When his unit was able to move away from the landing point and reached the enemy fortifications, the gun crew attempted to set up their gun on the top of the hill. But every time another soldier tried to stand up to the sight, a shot clicked in the distance - and another gunner ended up with a bullet in his head. Note that, according to Highton, the distance to the German position was very significant - about eight hundred meters.
The number of German “high marksmanship” on the shores of Normandy is indicated by the following fact: when the 2nd battalion of the “Royal Ulster Fusiliers” moved to capture command heights near Periers-sur-les-Den, after a short battle they captured seventeen prisoners, seven of them turned out to be snipers.
Another unit of British infantry advanced from the coast to Cambrai, a small village surrounded by dense forest and stone walls. Since observation of the enemy was impossible, the British jumped to the conclusion that resistance should be insignificant. When one of the companies reached the edge of the forest, it came under heavy rifle and mortar fire. The effectiveness of the German rifle fire was strangely high: the orderlies of the medical department were killed while trying to carry the wounded from the battlefield, the captain was killed outright with a shot in the head, and one of the platoon commanders was seriously wounded. The tanks supporting the unit's attack were powerless to do anything due to the high wall surrounding the village. The battalion command was forced to stop the offensive, but by this time the company commander and fourteen other people were killed, one officer and eleven soldiers were wounded, and four people were missing. In fact, Cambrai turned out to be a well-fortified German position. When, after treating it with all types of artillery - from light mortars to naval guns - the village was finally taken, it turned out to be filled with dead German soldiers, many of whom had rifles with telescopic sights. One wounded sniper from the SS units was also captured.
Many of the marksmen the Allies encountered in Normandy had received extensive marksmanship training from the Hitler Youth. Before the start of the war, this youth organization strengthened the military training of its members: all of them were required to study the design of military weapons, practice shooting with small-caliber rifles, and the most capable of them were purposefully trained in the art of sniper. When these “children of Hitler” later entered the army, they received full-fledged sniper training. In particular, the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth", which fought in Normandy, was staffed with soldiers from among members of this organization, and officers - from the notorious for its atrocities tank division SS "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler". In the battles in the Cannes region, these teenagers received a baptism of fire.
In general, Cannes was an almost ideal place for sniper warfare. Working together with artillery spotters, German snipers completely controlled the area around this city, British and Canadian soldiers were forced to carefully check literally every meter of the territory to make sure that the area was truly cleared of enemy "cuckoos".
On June 26, an ordinary SS man named Peltzmann, from a well-chosen and carefully camouflaged position, destroyed Allied soldiers for several hours, holding back their advance in his sector. When the sniper ran out of cartridges, he got out of his “bed”, smashed his rifle against a tree and shouted to the British: “I finished off enough of yours, but I’m out of cartridges - you can shoot me!” He probably didn’t have to say this: the British infantrymen gladly complied with his last request. The German prisoners present at this scene were forced to collect all those killed in one place. One of these prisoners later claimed to have counted at least thirty dead Englishmen near Peltzmann's position.
Despite the lesson learned by the Allied infantry in the first days after the Normandy landings, there were no effective means against the German “super sharpshooters”; they became a constant headache. The possible presence of invisible shooters, ready to shoot anyone at any moment, was nerve-wracking. Clearing the area of snipers was very difficult, sometimes requiring a whole day to completely comb the area around the field camp, but without this no one could guarantee their safety.
The Allied soldiers gradually learned in practice the basic precautions against sniper fire that the Germans themselves had learned three years earlier, finding themselves in the same situation at the gunpoint of Soviet fighter shooters. In order not to tempt fate, the Americans and British began to move, bending low to the ground, dashing from cover to cover; the rank and file stopped saluting the officers, and the officers, in turn, began to wear a field uniform, very similar to a soldier's - everything was done in order to minimize the risk and not provoke the enemy sniper to shoot. Nevertheless, the feeling of danger became a constant companion for the soldiers in Normandy.
German snipers disappeared into the difficult landscape of Normandy. The fact is that most of this area is a real labyrinth of fields surrounded by hedges. These hedges date back to Roman times and were used to mark boundaries land plots. The land here was divided into small fields by hedges of hawthorn, bramble and various creeping plants, much like a patchwork quilt. Some such enclosures were planted on high embankments, in front of which drainage ditches were dug. When it rained - and it rained often - the mud would stick to the soldiers' boots, the cars would get stuck and had to be pulled out with the help of tanks, and all around there was only darkness, a dim sky and shaggy hedge walls.
It is not surprising that such terrain provided an ideal battlefield for sniper warfare. Moving into the depths of France, the units left many enemy riflemen in their tactical rear, who then began the systematic shooting of careless rear soldiers. The hedges made it possible to view the terrain at only two to three hundred meters, and from such a distance even a novice sniper could hit the head figure with a rifle with a telescopic sight. Dense vegetation not only limited visibility, but also allowed the “cuckoo” shooter to easily escape return fire after several shots.
The battles among the hedges were reminiscent of Theseus' wanderings in the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Tall, dense bushes along the roads made the Allied soldiers feel like they were in a tunnel, in the depths of which there was an insidious trap. The terrain presented numerous opportunities for snipers to select positions and set up shooting cells, while their enemy was in exactly the opposite situation. Most often, in the hedges along the paths of the most likely movement of the enemy, Wehrmacht snipers set up numerous “beds” from which they fired harassing fire, and also covered machine-gun positions, laid surprise mines, etc. - in other words, there was a systematic and well-organized sniper terror. Single German riflemen, finding themselves deep in the rear of the Allies, hunted enemy soldiers and officers until they ran out of ammunition and food, and then... simply surrendered, which, given the attitude of the enemy military personnel towards them, was quite a risky business.
However, not everyone wanted to surrender. It was in Normandy that the so-called “suicide boys” appeared, who, contrary to all the canons of sniper tactics, did not at all strive to change position after several shots, but, on the contrary, continued to fire continuously until they were destroyed. Such tactics, suicidal for the riflemen themselves, in many cases allowed them to inflict heavy losses on the Allied infantry units.
The Germans did not only set up ambushes among hedges and trees - road intersections, where important targets such as senior officers were often encountered, were also convenient places for ambushes. Here the Germans had to fire from fairly large distances, since the intersections were usually tightly guarded. Bridges were exceptionally convenient targets for shelling, since infantry were crowded here, and just a few shots could cause panic among the unfired reinforcements heading to the front. Isolated buildings were too obvious places to choose a position, so snipers usually camouflaged themselves away from them, but the numerous ruins in villages became their favorite place - although here they had to change position more often than in normal field conditions, when it is difficult to determine the location of the shooter .
The natural desire of every sniper was to position himself in a place from which the entire area would be clearly visible, so water pumps, mills and bell towers were ideal positions, but it was these objects that were primarily subject to artillery and machine-gun fire. Despite this, some German “high marksmen” were still stationed there. Norman village churches destroyed by Allied guns became a symbol of German sniper terror.
Like snipers of any army, German riflemen tried to hit the most important targets first: officers, sergeants, observers, gun personnel, signalmen, tank commanders. One captured German, during interrogation, explained to interested British how he could distinguish officers at a great distance - after all, British officers had long worn the same field uniform as privates and did not have insignia. He said, "We just shoot people with mustaches." The fact is that in the British army, officers and senior sergeants traditionally wore mustaches.
Unlike a machine gunner, a sniper did not reveal his position when shooting, therefore, under favorable circumstances, one competent “super marksman” could stop the advance of an infantry company, especially if it was a company of unfired soldiers: having come under fire, the infantrymen most often lay down and did not even try to shoot back . Former commanding officer American army recalled that “one of the main mistakes that recruits constantly made was that under fire they simply lay down on the ground and did not move. On one occasion I ordered a platoon to advance from one hedge to another. While moving, the sniper killed one of the soldiers with his first shot. All the other soldiers immediately fell to the ground and were almost completely killed one after another by the same sniper.”
In general, 1944 was a turning point for sniper art in the German troops. The role of sniping was finally appreciated by the high command: numerous orders emphasized the need for the competent use of snipers, preferably in pairs of “shooter plus observer,” and various types of camouflage and special equipment were developed. It was assumed that during the second half of 1944 the number of sniper pairs in the grenadier and people's grenadier units would be doubled. The head of the “Black Order” Heinrich Himmler also became interested in sniping in the SS troops, and he approved a program of specialized in-depth training for fighter shooters.
In the same year, by order of the Luftwaffe command, educational films “Invisible Weapon: Sniper in Combat” and “Field Training of Snipers” were filmed for use in training ground units. Both films were shot quite competently and of very high quality, even from the heights of today: here are the main points of special sniper training, the most important recommendations for actions in the field, and all this in a popular form, with a combination of game elements.
A memo, widely circulated at the time, called “The Ten Commandments of the Sniper” read:
- Fight selflessly.
- Fire calmly and carefully, concentrate on each shot. Remember that rapid fire has no effect.
- Shoot only when you are sure that you will not be detected.
- Your main opponent is the enemy sniper, outsmart him.
- Don’t forget that the sapper shovel prolongs your life.
- Constantly practice determining distances.
- Become a master at using terrain and camouflage.
- Train constantly - on the front line and in the rear.
- Take care of your sniper rifle, don’t give it to anyone.
- Survival for a sniper has nine parts - camouflage and only one - shooting.
In the German army, snipers were used at various tactical levels. It was the experience of applying this concept that allowed post-war period E. Middeldorf in his book proposes the following practice: “In no other issue related to infantry combat are there such great contradictions as in the issue of the use of snipers. Some consider it necessary to have a full-time platoon of snipers in each company, or at least in the battalion. Others predict that snipers operating in pairs will have the greatest success. We will try to find a solution that satisfies the requirements of both points of view. First of all, one should distinguish between “amateur snipers” and “professional snipers.” It is advisable that each squad have two non-staff amateur snipers. They need to be given a 4x optical sight for their assault rifle. They will remain regular shooters who have received additional sniper training. If using them as snipers is not possible, they will act as regular soldiers. As for professional snipers, there should be two of them in each company or six in the company control group. They must be armed with a special sniper rifle with initial speed bullets over 1000 m/sec., with an optical sight with a 6-fold increase in high aperture. These snipers will typically "free hunt" the company area. If, depending on the situation and terrain conditions, the need arises to use a platoon of snipers, then this will be easily feasible, since the company has 24 snipers (18 amateur snipers and 6 professional snipers), who in this case can be united together.” . Note that this concept of sniping is considered one of the most promising.
Allied soldiers and lower-ranking officers, who suffered most from sniper terror, developed various methods of dealing with enemy invisible shooters. And yet the most effective way there was still the use of their snipers.
According to statistics, during the Second World War it usually took 25,000 shots to kill a soldier. For snipers, the same number was on average 1.3-1.5.
Regarding the topic of the army fascist Germany, then I can remind you of the history of such figures as The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -
A person who masters this rare profession is especially feared and hated by his enemies. As a self-sufficient combat unit, a talented sniper is capable of inflicting significant damage to enemy personnel, destroying a significant number of enemy soldiers, and causing disorganization and panic in the ranks of the enemy, eliminating the unit commander. Obtaining the title of “the best sniper” is very difficult; for this you need to be not only a super-sharp shooter, but also have enormous endurance, endurance, inner calm, analytical abilities, 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 with a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight as the main weapon, and a powerful repeating pistol as an additional weapon, the modern sniper organizes high-tech caches with food and ammunition at his positions for long-term battery life.
There are many known names of the most successful snipers from the times of various wars and local conflicts that took place in the world in last century. Some of these riflemen single-handedly destroyed so much enemy manpower during the fighting that the number of killed could range 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”, fought in the 39-40s of the last century against the Soviet Union in the Soviet-Finnish War. The number of victims of Simo Haya, who was a hunter before the war, according to fully confirmed data is more than 500 people, and according to unconfirmed information voiced by the Finnish command - more than 800 soldiers and officers of the Red Army.
Simo Haya developed his own technique successful work even against a large enemy unit attacking the area of the sniper position. First of all, the Finn fired at the rear ranks of the advancing enemy with a Mosin rifle, trying to inflict painful wounds on the soldiers in the abdominal area, thus 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 came within direct shooting distance with well-aimed shots to the head.
Simo Haya was out of action on March 6, 1940 after a severe bullet wound that tore the lower part of his skull and tore out his jaw. The best sniper, who miraculously survived, was treated for a long time. Simo Haya lived a long life; he died in 2002, at 96 years old.
Snipers - special people. You can be a good shooter, but not be a sniper. This requires extraordinary endurance, patience, enormous preparation and waiting for days for just one shot. Here we present ten best snipers in the world, each of them is unique and inimitable.
Thomas Plunkett
Plupnket is an Irishman from the British 95th Fusiliers. Thomas became famous for one episode. It was in 1809, Monroe's troops were retreating, but a battle took place at Cacabelos. Plunket managed to “remove” the French general Auguste-Marie-François Colbert. The enemy felt completely safe, because the distance to the shooter was 600 meters. Then the British shooters used Brown Bess muskets and more or less confidently hit the target at a distance of up to 50m.
Plunkett's shot was a real miracle; with his Baker rifle he exceeded the then best results 12 times. But this was not enough. The shooter decided to prove his skill and accurately hit the second target from the same position. He killed the general's adjutant, who rushed to the aid of his commander.
Sergeant Grace
Grace was a sniper with the 4th Georgia Infantry Division. It was he who killed the highest-ranking military officer in the Union army during the North-South War in the United States. On May 9, 1864, at the beginning of the Battle of Spotsylvania, General John Sedgwick led the Union artillery. Confederate snipers began hunting the general from a distance of about a kilometer. The staff officers immediately lay down and asked the general to take cover. He said that no one would be able to get in from such a distance and the officers were acting like cowards. According to legend, Sedgwick had not even finished speaking when Grace’s bullet entered under his left eye and blew his head apart.
Charles Mawhinney
Charles was fond of hunting since childhood. It was there that he honed his shooting skills, which would come in handy in 1967 when he joined the Marines. Mawhainni went to Vietnam as part of the United States Marine Corps.
Usually the shot was fatal at a distance of 300-800 meters. Charles became the best sniper of the Vietnam War, hitting his targets from a distance of a kilometer. This legend has 103 confirmed defeats. Due to the difficult military situation and the risk of searching for dead enemies, another 216 casualties are considered probable.
After finishing his service in the Marine Corps, Charles did not advertise his achievements. Only a few colleagues knew about his work. Another 20 years later, a book was published in which Mawhainni's sniper talents were described in detail. This forced Mawhainni to come out of the shadows. He became a mentor at a sniper school and always said that safari, hunting the most terrible animals, can never be compared in danger to hunting a person. After all, animals don’t have weapons...
Rob Furlong
Rob Ferlang holds the record for the longest confirmed successful shot. The corporal hit his target from a distance of 2430 meters, which is equal to the length of 26 football fields!
In 2002, Furlong participated in Operation Anaconda, as part of a team of two corporals and three master corporals. They spotted three armed al-Qaeda militants in the mountains. While the enemy set up camp, Furlong took one at gunpoint with his MacMillan Tac-50 rifle. The first shot missed the target. The second bullet hit one of the militants. But at the moment the second bullet hit, the corporal had already fired the third shot. The bullet had to cover the distance in 3 seconds, this time is enough for the enemy to take cover. But the militant realized that he was under fire only when a third bullet pierced his chest.
Vasily Zaitsev (23.03.1915 - 15.12.1991)
The name of Vasily Zaitsev became famous in the world thanks to the film “Enemy At The Gates”. Vasily was born in the Urals in the village of Eleninka. On Pacific Fleet served from 1937 as a clerk, then as head of the financial department. From the first days of the war, he regularly submitted reports of transfer to the front.
Finally, in the summer of 1942, his request was granted. Zaitsev began his work near Stalingrad with a “three-line”. In a short time, he managed to hit more than 30 opponents. The command noticed a talented shooter and assigned him to the sniper squad. In just a few months, Zaitsev had 242 confirmed hits. But the real number of killed enemies during the battle for Stalingrad reached 500.
The episode from Zaitsev’s career highlighted in the film took place in general. Indeed, at this time a German “super sniper” was sent to the Stalingrad area to fight Soviet snipers. After his murder, a sniper rifle with an optical sight was left behind. An indicator of the level of a German sniper is a 10x magnification of the scope. A 3-4x scope was considered the norm for that time; it was very difficult to handle a larger one.
In January 1943, as a result of a mine explosion, Vasily lost his sight, and only with the enormous efforts of doctors was it possible to restore it. After that, Zaitsev led a sniper school and wrote two textbooks. It is he who owns one of the “hunting” techniques that is still used today.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko (12.07.1916-10.10.1974)
Since 1937, Lyudmila was involved in shooting and gliding sports. The beginning of the war found her diploma practice in Odessa. Lyudmila immediately went to the front as a volunteer, she was only 24 years old. Pavlichenko becomes a sniper, one of 2,000 female snipers.
She hit her first targets in the battles near Belyaevka. She took part in the defense of Odessa, where she managed to defeat 187 enemies. After that, she defended Sevastopol and Crimea for eight months. During this time, she also trains snipers. Throughout the war, Lyudmila accumulated 309 fascists. After being wounded in 1942, she was recalled from the front and sent with a delegation to Canada and the USA. After returning, she continued training snipers at the Vystrel school.
Corporal Francis Pegamagabo (9.03.1891-5.08.1952)
Another hero of World War II. Canadian Francis killed 378 German soldiers, was awarded a medal three times and seriously wounded twice. But after returning home to Canada, one of the most effective snipers of the War was forgotten.
Adelbert F. Waldron (14.03.1933-18.10.1995)
Wardon holds the record for confirmed victories among US shooters. He has 109 victories.
Carlos Norman (20.05.1942-23.02.1999)
Norman fought in the Vietnam War. Carlos has 93 confirmed victories. In the Vietnamese army, killed enemy snipers were valued at $8; Norman was offered $30,000.
Simo Häyhä (17.12.1905-1.04.2002)
Simo was born on the border of Finland and Russia into a family of farmers, and as a child he fished and hunted. At the age of 17 he joined the security detachment, and in 1925 he entered the Finnish army. After 9 years of service, he completed sniper training.
During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, he killed 505 Soviet soldiers in less than 3 months. There are some discrepancies in its performance. This is due to the fact that the corpses of those killed were on enemy territory, in addition, Simo shot perfectly with both a pistol and a rifle, and hits from these weapons are not always taken into account in the overall standings.
During the war he received the nickname "White Death". In March 1940 he was seriously wounded; a bullet shattered his jaw and disfigured his face. It took a long recovery. It was not possible to go to the front during World War II due to the consequences of his wounds, although Häyhä asked to do so.
Simo's effectiveness is primarily due to his talented use of the peculiarities of the theater of war. Häyhä used an open sight, because optical sights become covered with frost in the cold, give off glare by which the enemy detects them, and require more from the shooter high position head (which also increases the risk of being noticed), as well as a longer aiming time. In addition, he poured water on the snow in front of the rifle so that after the shot snowflakes would not fly up and unmask the position, he cooled his breath with ice so that there would be no clouds of steam, etc.
Snipers have always been the elite of any country's armed forces, as they possessed a whole set of qualities that had to be either innate or acquired through years of training. We will tell you about the five best shooters in history.
Carlos Hascock
Carlos Hascock during the Vietnam WarCarlos Hascock was a famous American sniper during the Vietnam War. Having joined the army at the age of 17, he was greeted very coolly by his future fellow soldiers. Everyone doubted that the guy in the hat was capable of anything, but their doubts came to an end after the first shooting at the range. The young man did not miss a single time. 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, North Vietnam put a huge bounty on his head. Hascock's notable feature was the white feather he always wore in his hat, despite his fellow soldiers' concerns about camouflage.
One of Carlos' most famous shots was the killing of a Vietnamese sniper when the bullet went through the optical sight 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 injury. He died in his bed, just short of his 57th birthday. Hascock is rightfully considered one of the most famous soldiers 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 for both Finland itself and the Soviet Union. During the few months of the Winter War, which lasted from 1939 to 1940, Häyhä killed between 500 and 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 of snipers using such rifles. The reliable distance at which the Finnish sniper’s bullets reached opponents is 450 meters.
The name of Simo Häyha raised the morale of Finnish soldiers even in the most difficult situations for them, and he himself quickly became a national hero of Finland. In addition to his small height (152 cm), which helped him with camouflage, Häyhä used various tricks: for example, he kept snow in his mouth so that the steam from his mouth would not give it away to his enemies while breathing, or he froze the crust in front of the barrel of his rifle with water so that when shooting Don't kick up the snow.
The famous Finnish sniper lived a long life and died in 2002 at the age of 96.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko
The list could not help but include a sniper who frightened the Germans during World War II as much as the “White Death” frightened Soviet soldiers in its time. We are talking 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, ended up in the ranks of a rifle company.
As Pavlichenko herself admitted, the hardest thing is to kill for the first time. In total, the legendary “Lady Death” accounted for 309 killed soldiers and officers.
Vasily Zaitsev
Hero of the Soviet Union Vasily Zaitsev (left) during the Battle of Stalingrad, December 1942. The name of another Soviet sniper terrified German soldiers. We are, of course, talking 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 tense waiting, Vasily was able to calculate the sniper’s location by the brilliance of the optical sight and fire one accurate shot. The man killed was a major in the army of the Third Reich.
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 has proven this title in real combat, is Texas native Chris Kyle, who from the age of 8 decided that accurate shooting was his life’s work. By 2003, the young man had experience participating in special operations, and the command decided to send him to Iraq. There he showed himself to be a real master. A year later, when he had more than 150 people on his account, the nickname “Shaitan from Ramadi” was attached to him, and a reward of $20,000 was placed on his head. The American sniper is famous for his shot from a distance of 1920 meters, when the bullet overtook the Iraqi militia who was threatening the advance of American tanks.
Chris Kyle was killed in 2013 by another Iraq War veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. During his service, Chris Kyle defeated 255 opponents.
Illustration: depositphotos | BestPhotoStudio
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– josser
A good sniper can undermine the enemy's morale by taking out key figures. They can prevent the enemy from completing his task.
But the next ten people aren't just good snipers; these are great snipers. They are the best of the best. They are the Military Channel's top 10 snipers.
Navy SEAL snipers
After pirates failed to capture his ship, the Maersk Alabama, Captain Richard Phillips surrendered to the bandits in order to guarantee the safety of his crew.
The pirates kept Captain Phillips aboard a lifeboat for several days while attempting to negotiate with the US Navy. But eventually the boat ran out of fuel and the pirates agreed to allow the US Navy to attach a tow rope from the USS Bainbridge to the boat.
This was their fatal mistake.
This step allowed three US Navy SEAL snipers to take positions on the overhang of the Bainbridge's stern - just 75 feet (23 m; hereinafter - approx..).
Overcome by seasickness and in an excited state, the pirates became more and more aggressive. The command on the spot, concerned about the mortal danger threatening Phillip, gave the snipers the go-ahead to destroy the pirates to save the life of the captain.
The SEALs had to fire synchronized shots in order to take down both the pirates and the captain to remain alive. The snipers were on a ship sailing on the ocean, and their targets were in a boat bouncing on the waves, and they only had one chance to do everything right.
The snipers had their sights on the heads of two pirates in the control room window. But they were not sure about the whereabouts of the third pirate. The third sniper was expecting visual contact.
Once he gets it, they can all fire. And now, an opportunity - the third pirate, tormented by seasickness, sticks his head out of the boat window.
The third cat transmits - the target has been detected. All three snipers take their shots.
Rob Furlong
Canadian Corporal Rob Furlong (not pictured here) holds the record for the longest target hit by a sniper. He killed a member of an al-Qaeda mortar crew from a distance of 2,340 meters.
Not bad for a Canadian, huh?
Chuck Mawhinney
Even his own wife had no idea that Chuck Mawhinney (not pictured here) was one of the best snipers in the US Marine Corps in Vietnam until his friend wrote a book detailing Mawhinney's service.
The book “Dear Mother. Vietnam Snipers" shed light on Mawinney's record of 103 confirmed kills in Vietnam, with another 213 unconfirmed. This is a disgusting record, one that Mawhinney was in no hurry to make public, believing that no one would be enthusiastic about it.
Mawhinney left Vietnam in 1969, after 16 months as a sniper, when a military chaplain thought Mawhinney might be suffering from battle exhaustion. After a short period of service as a fire instructor at Camp Pendleton, Mawhinney left the Marines and returned home to rural Oregon.
“I just did what I was taught,” he told The Standard. – I was in a very hot place outside the USA for a long time. I didn't do anything special." Come on, don't be modest, Chuck. You're still in the top ten.
Snipers of the American Revolution
It would not be too much of a sin to say that the United States owes its independence to the sniper.
No, seriously, that's how it was.
The Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. And one of the main turning points in the battle was the death of British Army General Simon Fraser from a shot by sniper Timothy Murphy on October 7, 1777.
Murphy, one of Daniel Morgan's Kentucky Fusiliers, hit General Frazier at a range of about 500 yards using one of the famous Kentucky long guns.
The United States owes its independence to another sniper - this time due not to a well-aimed shot, but to the lack of one.
During the Battle of Brandywine, just months before Murphy killed Frazier, Captain Patrick Ferguson held a tall, distinguished American officer at gunpoint with his rifle. The officer's back was to Ferguson, and the sniper decided that it would be ungentlemanly to shoot in such a situation.
Only later did Ferguson learn that George Washington was on the battlefield that day.
Vasily Zaitsev
Several of our top 10 snipers were portrayed in movies or served as inspiration for movie characters, but none of them ultimately became more famous than Vasily Zaitsev, whose recordings formed the basis of the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates.
You know, if a recognizable actor with great looks like Jude Law plays you in a movie about your life, then you managed to leave your mark on history.
It is a pity that the fight at the center of the picture was fictitious.
Professional historians, as well as amateur researchers, tried to figure out whether the fight between the Russian ace sniper and his equivalent German shooter even took place. Documentary evidence on this issue is contradictory, and ordinary common sense says that the Soviet media invented the duel as a propaganda tool. She didn't need to fuss too much, though.
Zaitsev’s combat achievements speak for themselves: 149 confirmed killed enemy soldiers and officers, despite the fact that the number of unconfirmed killed could reach 400.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko
When Russian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was interviewed by Time magazine in 1942, she ridiculed the American media.
“One journalist even criticized the length of my skirt military uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts, besides, my uniform makes me look fat,” she said.
Surely the length of the skirt did not matter to the 309 Nazi soldiers whose deaths were attributed to Pavlichenko, or to the many Russians whom she inspired with her courage and skill.
According to the Financial Times, Pavlichenko was born on July 12, 1916 in southern Ukraine and had a boyish disposition from the very beginning. Forget about playing with dolls - Pavlichenko had to hunt sparrows with a slingshot; and of course, in this activity she was superior to most boys of her age.
When Germany declared war on Russia in 1941, Pavlichenko wanted to fight. But once she got to the front, everything turned out to be not as simple as it had previously seemed.
“I knew that my task was to shoot living people,” she recalled in a Russian newspaper. “In theory everything was smooth, but I knew that in practice it would be completely different.” She turned out to be right.
Although Pavlichenko could see the enemy from where she had spent her first day on the battlefield crouched, she could not bring herself to fire.
But everything changed when a German shot a young Russian soldier who was near Pavlichenko. “He was such a good, happy boy,” she said, “And he was killed right next to me. After that, nothing could stop me.”
Francis Peghamagabo
The exploits and achievements of World War I sniper Francis Peghamagabo sound like they were straight out of a comic book or a summer blockbuster.
Ojibois warrior Peghamagabo, who fought alongside the Canadians at the battles of Montsorrel, Passchendaele and Scarpe, is credited with 378 kills as a sharpshooter.
As if that weren't enough, he was also awarded medals for serving as a signalman under heavy enemy fire, leading a critical rescue mission when his commander was incapacitated, and for delivering his squad's missing ammunition under enemy fire.
The Toronto Star suggested that Peghamagabo brought to the war the skills he had honed as a child on the Shawanaga Reservation near Georgian Bay, but historian Tim Cook had a different theory about why Peghamagabo and other Canadian First Nations went to war. war and fought so selflessly across the seas: “They felt that their sacrifice would give them the right to demand more rights in society.”
But this was not the case with Peghamagabo. Although he was a hero among his comrades in Europe, once he returned home to Canada, he was practically forgotten.
Adelbert F. Waldron III
Try searching for information about the top US snipers and you'll come across a couple of names. Carlos Hascock is a legend, but he doesn't have the highest body count. Charles Benjamin "Chuck" Mawhinney is undoubtedly a talented sniper, but he is not a champion either.
And who then? Staff Sergeant Adelbert F. Waldron III. He is one of the most successful snipers in US history, with 109 confirmed kills.
Excerpt from the book “In the Crosshairs. Snipers in Vietnam" by Colonel Michael Lee Lanning describes how good Waldron's shot was: "One day he was sailing down the Mekong River on the Tango when an enemy sniper on the shore struck the ship. While everyone else on the boat was struggling to find the enemy, who was firing from the shoreline 900 meters away, Sergeant Waldron took his rifle and with one shot took down the Viet Cong from the top of a coconut tree (and this from a moving platform). Such were the abilities of our best sniper."
Waldron is one of the few to have been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross twice, both of which he received in 1969.
He died in 1995 and was buried in California.
Simo Häyhä
Finn Simo Häyhä may be one of the most successful snipers of all time. But don't be too upset if you've never heard of it. Almost unknown outside his home country, Häyhä applied his skills to a war that American children never experienced in school.
When the Russians invaded Finland during the Winter War of 1939-1940, Häyhä hid in the snow and killed over 500 Russians in a short three-month period. He was known as the "White Death".
He was shooting the old fashioned way, without laser sights or .50 caliber ammunition. All Häyhä had was his senses and an ordinary rifle with open sights and a bolt action.
In the end, Finland lost the Winter War, but for Russia it was not a real victory. The Finns suffered 22,830 casualties compared to 126,875 casualties for the Russians, who had an invading army of one and a half million men.
As one Red Army general recalled, “We conquered 22,000 square miles of territory. Just enough to bury your dead.”
Carlos Hascock
Even if he doesn't hold the records for the number of confirmed hits or the longest shot, the legend of Carlos Hascock lives on. He is the Elvis of snipers, he is Yoda.
The most high reward the Marine Corps bears his name for marksmanship; as well as the shooting range at Camp Ligen (Marine Corps training center in North Carolina; approx.). The Marine Corps Library in Washington was dedicated in his honor. The Virginia unit of the Civil Air Patrol decided to name itself after him.
Hascock, sometimes called "White Feather" for the feather he wore in his hat, joined the Marines at age 17. The Corps didn't have to wait long to realize that the broke boy from Arkansas had talent. While still in training, he proved himself to be an excellent shooter and almost immediately began winning prestigious shooting competitions. But the military had their own plans for Hascock, which involved more than simply winning cups; in 1966 he was sent to Vietnam.
According to the Los Angeles Times, during his two tours of duty, Hascock volunteered for so many missions that his superiors were forced to keep him in the barracks so he could rest.
“It was a hunt that I enjoyed,” he once told the Washington Post. - Engage in a duel with another person. In Vietnam they didn't give you second place—second place was a body bag. Everyone was scared, but those who weren’t were lying. But fear can be used to your advantage. It makes you more alert, more sensitive, that's what I came up with. He pushed me to be the best."
And he was the best. During his two tours of duty, Hascock had 93 confirmed kills; actual total may be higher. Hascock's unconfirmed hits are believed to number in the hundreds. However, the numbers were so high that North Vietnam at one point offered a $30,000 bounty on his head.
Ultimately, neither the bounty nor the enemy sniper could do anything about Carlos Hascock. He died in 1999 at the age of 57 after a battle with multiple sclerosis.
