With kill counts that reach into the hundreds and tactics that would make most
normal soldiers squirm, it's no surprise that history remembers these snipers.
"We'll wait days for one shot, one kill." According to Military.com, Marine Sergeant
Carlos Hathcock taught himself how to shoot and dreamed of becoming a United States Marine
his entire life. And at the age of 17, he joined. As a sign of what was to come, he
won the Wimbledon Cup sharpshooting competition just before he was deployed to Vietnam in 1966.
Hathcock's exploits in Vietnam are legendary. As noted by Business Insider, he racked up 93
confirmed kills as a sniper, with the unconfirmed number possibly being closer to 300. Not only
that, but he also set a record for the longest kill shot in history — a 1.4-mile shot in
1967 — that stood until 2002. And he always kept a white feather tucked into the band of his hat,
so the Viet Cong eventually took to calling him the "White Feather Sniper." The Los Angeles Times
reports that Hathcock was so feared by the Viet Cong they actually put out a $30,000
bounty on him. When the enemy puts out a hit on you, you know you're doing something right.
Hathcock was a patient, thoughtful sniper. He liked to go out in the early morning or
late afternoon as the sun was coming up or going down, reasoning that people were low
energy at those times, just waking up or tired after a long shift. He also employed a technique
he called "worming," sometimes taking days of crawling to get within range of his target.
Henry Norwest's career with the Canadian military didn't start off with thunder and glory. According
to CBC News, he enlisted to serve in World War I under the name Henry Louie in 1915, and listed
his profession as "Cow Puncher". But Norwest, who was French and Cree Indian, was discharged just
three months later for drunkenness. The Canadian Encyclopedia reports that Norwest briefly worked
as a mounted police officer before re-enlisting under his real name. He spent months training in
England before being deployed to France. On the battlefield, Norwest immediately showed
a talent for sniping, and by the end of his first year of service, he'd notched 100 kills.
Norwest was an unusually aggressive sniper. Instead of finding a hidden location with a
wide field of view, he preferred to worm his way into the no man's land between
trenches. But once he identified a target, he could be superhumanly
patient — he once waited two days to take out a rival sniper. Norwest,
who was called "Ducky" by his comrades, often talked openly about being killed in battle,
seemingly believing that this particular fate was inevitable. Sure enough, towards the end
of the war, after logging 115 kills, Norwest's premonition came true; he was shot by an enemy
sniper. When his fellow soldiers buried him, they wrote a final message on his marker:
"It must've been a damned good sniper that got Norwest."
Chris Kyle may be the most recognizable sniper to Americans, in part thanks to
his bestselling memoir "American Sniper" and the film adaptation starring Bradley Cooper.
"Tango down."
Kyle graduated basic training in 1999 and quickly found his way into the elite SEALS unit. What
makes Kyle's sniper career so interesting — aside from his lethality — is the fact that he
used a wide variety of weapons in his kills. Most snipers prefer to stick with one gun,
but Kyle used different rifles — five, to be exact, according to Range365. And because he
was a big, powerfully-built man, he often used heavy rifles that offered more power.
Serving in Iraq, Kyle earned the nickname "The Devil of Ramadi" as he notched 150
confirmed kills, including an incredible 2,100-yard shot that Kyle described as a
"straight-up luck shot." Ultimately, Kyle served four tours in Iraq and survived several injuries,
including two gunshot wounds and at least six explosions. Tragically,
he was murdered in 2013 at a shooting range by a mentally ill veteran. He
was just 38 years old but will be remembered as one of the greatest snipers in history.
According to MensXP, two things make Zhang Taofang's sniper legacy remarkable — aside
from his extremely high number of confirmed kills. First, he had zero training as a sniper
and appeared to more or less figure it out all on his own overnight; second, he had to shoot
his targets using an old rifle without a scope or even a pair of binoculars to sight with.
Taofang didn't start off as a legend, either. In the book "Sniper in Action," it's noted that
Taofang's first attempt at sniping was a miserable failure — he took twelve shots in rapid succession
and missed every one. Not only did he fail to hit his targets, but he also exposed his
position by lumping together so many shots in such a short time. But Taofang regrouped, changed his
technique, and transformed himself into one of the deadliest shots in sniping history.
He also learned his lesson in terms of wasting ammunition and revealing his position — Taofang
killed seven American soldiers in Korea with just nine bullets immediately after that initial
failure. And according to Variety, he killed 214 enemy forces with just 435 bullets in 32 days.
Today, Taofang is a hero in China, which views the Korean War much differently than America.
Vasily Zaitsev is one of the few World War II snipers you may have heard of,
thanks in part to the fictionalized version of his story told in the film "Enemy at the Gates",
which stars Jude Law as Zaitsev and Ed Harris as his — possibly fictional — Nazi counterpart.
"Do you know how to shoot?"
"A little."
While the veracity of the story of Zaitsev's sniper duel with a German sniper is debated,
his actual accomplishments as a sniper are not. History Hit
notes that, of his 242 confirmed kills, Zaitsev was credited with 225 kills in a
little over a month during his service in World War II. What's interesting is
that Zaitsev had to earn his way to being a sniper. Trained as a hunter from childhood,
he was initially assigned to regular infantry. It wasn't until he began sniping German officers
with his Mosin-Nagant rifle that he was given a sniper rifle and set to work. From here,
Zaitsev went on a rampage, killing 40 Germans in his first 10 days at the siege of Stalingrad.
But Zaitsev's legacy goes beyond how many Nazis he took out. He revolutionized sniper tactics,
taking inspiration from the work of fellow sniper Simo Häyhä . Zaitsev would scout out
hiding places ahead of time, wait patiently for a target, then reposition to stay one step ahead of
pursuers. As noted by Sofrep, he also developed team tactics, with several groups of snipers and
a scout working in concert — a strategy called "sixes" that is still used by modern armies.
In some ways, Lyudmila Pavlichenko is a feminist icon: According to Sky History,
she was originally inspired to take up shooting when she heard a boy bragging
about how good a shot he was. She fell in love with the sport and quickly excelled.
When Germany invaded Russia in 1941, she volunteered for military service and
resisted efforts to guide her into nursing and other jobs believed more suitable to a woman.
Good thing for the Soviets she did. According to Range365, Pavlichenko was initially assigned to
an area near Odessa. In less than three months, she killed 187 German soldiers, earning her a
promotion. She was then deployed to Crimea, where she continued to take out the enemy at
an amazing rate. Remarkably, she's credited with killing 36 enemy snipers as part of her total.
Pavlichenko's final confirmed kill total was 309 enemy soldiers, and her exploits earned
her one of the most badass nicknames to come out of World War II: Lady Death. Smithsonian Magazine
reports that after being injured by a mortar, Pavlichenko embarked on a publicity tour. Notably,
she visited the United States and met President Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. But she also had
to endure the sexist and patronizing U.S. media, which spent more time commenting
on the cut of her uniform and her figure than her deadly heroism in defense of her country.
"Oh, there's a big surprise!"
You don't normally think of Canadians as a bloodthirsty group, and guys named
"Francis" don't have a reputation for being good at killing. But back in World War I,
Francis Pegahmagabow put the lie to both those assumptions. As reported by Range365,
Pegahmagabow was a member of the indigenous First Nations and volunteered to serve in the First
World War in 1914. The Canadian Encyclopedia notes that Pegahmagabow — nicknamed "Peggy"
by his friends — was raised in the traditions of the Anishinaabe tribe,
which included plenty of hunting experience. At night, he used those skills to infiltrate no
man's land — the empty space between the trenches — and wait patiently for signs of German soldiers.
Remarkably, he racked up close to 400 kills as a sniper despite using the Ross Rifle,
which is often considered the worst gun ever issued to an army in history,
according to The National Interest. The Ross jammed constantly, and soldiers came to regard
it as a better club than a gun. But snipers cherished it for its long range and accuracy.
Interestingly, Pegahmagabow didn't just kill
indiscriminately — he also took 300 German soldiers alive and
ended the war as the highest-decorated indigenous soldier in Canadian history.
Despite an epic number of confirmed kills, Fyodor Okhlopkov {fee-YOH-dor AHK-lop-kuv} isn't
well known even inside the former Soviet Union. And that's because of simple racism:
As noted by History Collection, Okhlopkov was an ethnic Yakut from the eastern portion of Russia,
in what is today the Republic of Sakha. In the book "Russia's Heroes," historian
Albert Axell said the Yakuts are known for their self-reliance and were traditionally
skilled at tracking and hunting; they were also known to be expert sharpshooters.
Okhlopkov took up sniping in a serious way after a German sniper killed his brother, Vasily. He vowed
to "open an account" and start adding Germans to it — and didn't stop. He would reportedly hunt at
night, looking for the coals of cigarettes and other small clues to point him to the enemy.
As noted by War History Online, he would also employ automatic weapons, and his commanding
officers often sent him with a machine gun to clear out German resistance. His overall kill
total is estimated to have been north of 1,000, but most of those kills are not considered part
of his official sniper tally of 429. Ohklopkov was finally awarded the honor of Hero of the Soviet
Union and the Order of Lenin in 1965. As reported by War History Online,
Ivan Sidorenko was an unlikely sniper. Born into a poor family, he enrolled in an art school just
before World War II. When he was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1939, he was assigned to a
mortar unit and given exactly zero training as a sniper. He was issued the standard army weapon:
the Mosin-Nagant rifle. Military Times explains that this rifle was modified by the Soviets to
accommodate a scope, making it suitable as a sniper rifle. Although often regarded as too
long and heavy, it was actually incredibly accurate — as Sidorenko soon proved it.
According to Range365, Sidorenko was self-trained. In his downtime as part of the mortar unit,
he took it upon himself to go out and hunt for German soldiers and is credited with over 500
kills. One reason he was able to rack up so many official kills was because he didn't just
target individual soldiers — he also went after fuel supply vehicles using explosive rounds.
Sidorenko's impact was even greater, though, as he began training other snipers, eventually sending
more than 250 additional snipers out into the war. Even if they were half as good as their teacher,
that would make Sidorenko one of the most formidable enemies the Germans ever faced.
Although we tend to think of World War II as a single, monolithic conflict, there were distinct
wars separate from the global conflagration. The Winter War between the Soviet Union and
Finland is one such battle, and although it only lasted 105 days between 1939 and 1940, it was long
enough for a humble farmer named Simo Häyhä to become the deadliest sniper in modern history.
According to HistoryExtra, Häyhä was born in 1905 in a region of Finland
that is today part of Russia. A farmer, he enjoyed hunting, skiing, and shooting,
which just happen to be the precise skill set required to be a deadly sniper during
the Winter War. His habit of hunting birds and foxes required him to learn how to hide,
remain perfectly still, and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike. By all accounts, Häyhä was
unemotional about his work, fearlessly working alone and once stating that he
didn't hate the enemy — he simply did his job to the best of his ability.
Häyhä served just 98 days before an injury sent him to the hospital. In those 98 days,
it’s said the he killed an absolutely terrifying 542 Russians. That's slightly
more than five kills every single day, at a time and location when there was very little
sunlight to work with. This impressively deadly resume earned him the nickname "White Death."