The Second World War became that period in the history of mankind when people performed the most incredible feats and showed all their hidden talents. Naturally, those fighters whose abilities could be used in military operations were most valued. The Soviet command especially singled out snipers, who, using their skills, could destroy up to a thousand enemy soldiers with well-aimed shots during their service. Lists of the best snipers of World War II, with names and an indication of the number of enemies hit, often flicker in different versions on the Internet. In our article, we gathered those who brought victory closer with all their might, despite the difficulties of front-line life and serious injuries. So, who are they - the best snipers of World War II? And where did they come from, later transforming into an elite caste of fighters?
Shooting training in the USSR
Historians of many countries of the world unanimously declare that during the Second World War, fighters from the USSR proved to be the best snipers. Moreover, they surpassed the enemy and allied soldiers not only in terms of training, but also in the number of shooters. Germany was able to get a little closer to this level only at the end of the war - in 1944. Interestingly, to train their fighters, German officers used manuals written for Soviet snipers. Where did such a number of well-aimed shooters come from in the pre-war period in our country?
Since 1932, shooting training has been carried out with Soviet citizens. During this period of time, the country's leadership established the honorary title "Voroshilovsky shooter", confirmed by a special badge. They were divided into two degrees, the second was considered the most honorary. To obtain it, it was necessary to pass a series of difficult tests that were beyond the power of ordinary shooters. Every boy, and what to hide, and the girls too, dreamed of showing off the badge of the "Voroshilovsky shooter". For this, they spent a lot of time in shooting clubs, working hard.
In the thirty-fourth year of the last century, demonstration competitions were held between our and American shooters. The unexpected result for the US was their loss. The Soviet riflemen snatched the victory by a huge margin, which spoke of their excellent preparation.
Shooting training work was carried out for seven years and was suspended with the outbreak of the first hostilities. However, by this time the "Voroshilovsky shooter" badge was proudly worn by more than nine million civilians of both sexes.
Sniper caste
Now it's no secret to anyone that snipers belong to a special caste of fighters who are carefully protected and transferred from one area of the military conflict to another in order to demoralize the enemy. In addition to the psychological impact on the enemy, these arrows are distinguished by real destructive power and have very impressive "death" lists. For example, the best snipers of World War II from the USSR had long lists of five to seven hundred killed. This takes into account only confirmed deaths, but in reality their number could exceed one thousand soldiers per shooter.
What makes snipers so special? First of all, it is worth saying that these people by their nature are really special. After all, they have the ability to stay motionless for a long time, tracking down the enemy, the utmost concentration of attention, calmness, patience, the ability to make quick decisions and unique accuracy. As it turned out, the required set of qualities and skills was fully possessed by young hunters who spent their entire childhood in the taiga, tracking down the beast. It was they who became the first snipers who fought with conventional rifles, showing simply stunning results.
Later, on the basis of these shooters, a whole unit was formed, which turned into the elite of the Soviet army. It is known that during the war years, sniper meetings were held more than once, designed to increase their effectiveness as a result of the exchange of experience.
At the moment, some foreign historians are trying to challenge the results of Soviet soldiers listed in the list of the best snipers of World War II. But it is quite difficult to do this, because each target is documented. In addition, most experts are sure that the number of real successful shots exceeds the number indicated in the award lists by two or even three times. After all, not every hit target in the heat of battle could be confirmed. Do not forget the fact that many documents take into account the result of a particular sniper only at the time of submission to the award. In the future, his exploits may not have been fully tracked.
Modern historians claim that the top ten snipers of World War II were able to destroy more than four thousand enemy soldiers. There were also women among the excellent shooters, we will talk about them in one of the following sections of our article. After all, these brave ladies skillfully bypassed their colleagues from Germany in their results. So who are they - these people, called the best snipers of World War II?
Of course, the list of Soviet snipers includes far from ten people. According to the archives, their number may be more than one hundred skilled shooters. However, we decided to bring to your attention information about the ten best Soviet snipers of World War II, the results of which still seem fantastic:
- Mikhail Surkov.
- Vasily Kvachantiradze.
- Ivan Sidorenko.
- Nikolai Ilyin.
- Ivan Kulbertinov.
- Vladimir Pchelintsev.
- Peter Goncharov.
- Mikhail Budenkov.
- Vasily Zaitsev.
- Fedor Okhlopkov.
A separate section of the article is devoted to each of these unique people.
Mikhail Surkov
This shooter was drafted into the army from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where he spent his whole life in the taiga, hunting the beast with his father. With the onset of the war, he picked up a rifle and went to the front to do what he did best - hunt and kill. Thanks to life skills, Mikhail Surkov managed to destroy more than seven hundred Nazis. Among them were ordinary soldiers and officers, which undoubtedly allowed the shooter to be included in the list of the best snipers of World War II.
However, the talented fighter was not presented for the award, since most of his victories could not be documented. Historians attribute this fact to the fact that Surkov liked to rush into the epicenter of the battle. Therefore, in the future it turned out to be quite problematic to determine from whose well-aimed shot this or that enemy soldier fell. Mikhail's brother-soldiers confidently said that he had destroyed more than one thousand fascists. Other people were especially struck by Surkov's ability to remain invisible for long hours, tracking down his enemy.
Vasily Kvachantiradze
This young man went through the whole war from beginning to end. Vasily fought in the rank of foreman and returned home with a large track record of awards. On account of Kvachantiradze - more than half a thousand German fighters. For his accuracy, which ranked him among the best snipers of World War II, by the end of the war he was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR.
Ivan Sidorenko
This fighter is considered one of the most unique Soviet shooters. Indeed, before the war, Sidorenko planned to become a professional artist and had great prospects in this area. But the war ordered in its own way and the young man was sent to a military school, after which he went to the front in an officer rank.
Immediately, the newly minted commander was entrusted with a mortar company, where he showed his sniper talents. During the war years, Sidorenko destroyed five hundred German soldiers, but he himself was seriously wounded three times. After each time, he returned to the front, but in the end, the consequences of the injuries turned out to be very difficult for the body. This did not allow Sidorenko to graduate from the military academy, but before leaving for the reserve he received the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Ilyin
Many historians believe that it is Ilyin who is the best Russian sniper of World War II. He is considered not only a unique shooter, but also a talented organizer of the sniper movement. He gathered young soldiers, trained them, forming from them a real backbone of shooters on the Stalingrad front.
It was Nikolai who had the honor to fight with the rifle of the Hero of the USSR Andrukhaev. With it, he destroyed about four hundred enemies, and in total, in three years of hostilities, he managed to kill almost five hundred fascists. In the fall of 1943, he fell in battle, receiving the posthumous title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Ivan Kulbertinov
Naturally, most of the snipers in civilian life were hunters. But Ivan Kulbertinov belonged to hereditary reindeer herders, which was rare among soldiers. Yakut by nationality, he was considered a professional in shooting and, according to his results, outperformed the best snipers of the Wehrmacht of World War II.
Ivan got to the front two years after the outbreak of hostilities and almost immediately opened his death account. He went through the entire war to the end and almost five hundred fascist soldiers were on his list. Interestingly, the unique shooter never received the title of Hero of the USSR, which was awarded to almost all snipers. Historians claim that he was twice nominated for an award, but for unknown reasons, the title never found its hero. After the end of the war, he was presented with a nominal rifle.
Vladimir Pchelintsev
This man had a difficult and interesting fate. It can be said that he was one of the few people who could be called professional snipers. Even before the forty-first year, he studied shooting and even achieved the high rank of master of sports. Pchelintsev had a unique accuracy, which allowed him to destroy four hundred and fifty-six fascists.
Surprisingly, a year after the start of the war, he was delegated to the United States along with Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who was later named the best female sniper of World War II. They spoke at the International Student Congress about how boldly the Soviet youth is fighting for the freedom of their country and called on other states not to surrender under the onslaught of the fascist infection. Interestingly, the shooters were honored to spend the night within the walls of the White House.
Petr Goncharov
Not always fighters immediately understood their calling. For example, Peter did not even suspect that fate had prepared for him a special fate. Goncharov went to war as part of the militia, then he was accepted into the army as a baker. After some time, he became a convoy, which he planned to serve further. However, as a result of a surprise attack by the Nazis, he managed to prove himself as a professional sniper. In the midst of the unfolding battle, Peter raised someone else's rifle and began to accurately destroy the enemy. He even managed to knock out a German tank with one shot. This decided the fate of Goncharov.
A year after the start of the war, he received his own sniper rifle, with which he fought for another two years. During this time, he killed four hundred and forty-one enemy soldiers. For this, Goncharov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and twenty days after this solemn event, the sniper fell in battle, not letting go of his rifle.
Mikhail Budenkov
This sniper went through the entire war from the very beginning and met the victory in East Prussia. In the spring of 1945, Budenkov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for four hundred and thirty-seven hit targets.
However, in the first years of service, Mikhail did not even think of becoming a sniper. Before the war, he worked as a tractor driver and ship mechanic, and at the front he led a mortar crew. His marksmanship attracted the attention of his superiors, and he was soon transferred to the snipers.
Vasily Zaitsev
This sniper is considered a true legend of the war. A hunter in peacetime, he knew everything about shooting firsthand, so from the first days of his service he became a sniper. Historians claim that in just one Battle of Stalingrad, more than two hundred enemies fell from his well-aimed shots. Among them were eleven German snipers.
There is a well-known story about how the Nazis, tired of the elusiveness of Zaitsev, sent to destroy his best sniper in Germany of the Second World War - the head of the secret school of shooters Erwin Koenig. Vasily's brother-soldiers said that a real duel was fought between the snipers. It lasted almost three days and ended with the victory of the Soviet shooter.
Fedor Okhlopkov
This man was spoken of with admiration during the war years. He was a real Yakut hunter and tracker, for whom there were no impossible tasks. It is believed that he managed to kill more than one thousand enemies, but most of his victories were difficult to document. Interestingly, over the years of service in the army, he used as a weapon not only a rifle, but also a machine gun. In this way, he destroyed the soldiers, aircraft and tanks of the enemy.
The best Finnish sniper of World War II
"White Death" - this is the nickname given to the shooter from Finland, who destroyed more than seven hundred Red Army soldiers. Simo Häyhä worked on a farm in 1939 and did not even think that he would become the most productive sniper in his country.
After a military conflict arose between Finland and the USSR in November 1939, units of the Red Army invaded the territory of a foreign state. However, the fighters did not expect that the locals would put up such tough resistance to the Soviet soldiers.
Simo Hyayuha, who fought in the thick of things, especially distinguished himself. Every day he destroyed sixty or seventy enemy soldiers. This forced the Soviet command to launch a hunt for this well-aimed shooter. However, he continued to remain elusive and sowed death, hiding in the most inappropriate, as it seemed to the officers, places.
Later, historians wrote that Simo was helped by his small stature. The man barely reached one and a half meters, so he quite successfully hid almost in full view of the enemy. He also never used an optical rifle, because it often glared in the sun and gave out an arrow. In addition, the Finn was well versed in the features of the local terrain, which gave him the opportunity to take the best places to observe the enemy.
At the end of the Hundred Days War, Simo was wounded in the face. The bullet passed right through and completely smashed the facial bone. In the hospital, his jaw was restored, after which he lived safely to almost a hundred years.
Of course, war does not have a feminine face. However, Soviet girls made their invaluable contribution to the victory over fascism, fighting on different sectors of the front. It is known that among them there were about one thousand snipers. Together they were able to destroy twelve thousand German soldiers and officers. Surprisingly, the results of many of them are much higher than those who were called the best German snipers of World War II.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko is considered the most productive shooter among women. This amazing beauty signed up as a volunteer immediately after the declaration of war with Germany. In two years of hostilities, she was able to eliminate three hundred and nine fascists, including thirty-six enemy snipers. For this feat she was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR, the last two years of the war she did not take part in the battles.
Olga Vasilyeva was also often called the best female sniper of World War II. On account of this fragile girl, one hundred and forty-eight fascists, but in the forty-third year, no one believed that she could become a real sniper, who would be afraid of the enemy. The girl left a notch on the butt of her rifle after each well-aimed shot. By the end of the war, he was completely covered in marks.
Genya Peretyatko was deservedly ranked among the best female snipers of World War II. Almost nothing was known about this girl for a long time, but she destroyed one hundred and forty-eight enemies with well-aimed and accurate shots of her rifle.
Even before the start of the war, Genya was seriously engaged in shooting, she was her real passion. In parallel, the girl was fond of music. It is amazing that she skillfully combined both activities until the war intervened in her life. Peretyatko immediately volunteered for the front, and thanks to her abilities she was quickly transferred to snipers. After the end of the war, the girl moved to the United States, where she lived for the rest of her life.
German snipers
The results of the German shooters have always been much more modest than those of the Soviet soldiers. But among them were unique snipers who glorified their country. Many legends circulated during the war years about Matthias Hetzenauer. He fought for only one year as a sniper, having managed to destroy three hundred and forty-five Red Army soldiers. For Germany, this was simply a phenomenal result that no one managed to surpass.
Josef Allerberger was considered one of the best German snipers of World War II. He was able to confirm the elimination of two hundred and fifty-seven targets. His colleagues considered the young man a born sniper, who possessed not only accuracy and endurance, but also a certain psychology that allowed him to intuitively choose the right battle tactics.
A sniper is one of the most difficult and unusual military professions. Although the most ordinary guys go into it.
Find out the top five of the toughest male shooters, whose accuracy and resourcefulness terrified the enemy.
5. Carlos Norman (05/20/1942-02/23/1999)
Source: top5s.net
One of the most famous snipers in the history of the US military. He became famous for his participation in the Vietnam War. Considered one of the legendary figures of the US Marine Corps. On his combat account 93 enemy lives.
4. Adelbert F. Waldron (03/14/1933-10/18/1995)
Source: top5s.net
Famous American sniper. Participated in the Vietnam War. Waldron holds the record for the most confirmed wins by a U.S. shooter. He has 109 wins to his credit. In the 1970s, Waldron taught sniping at the SIONICS training camp in Georgia. One of the few who was twice awarded the Order for Excellent Military Service.
3. Vasily Zaitsev (03/23/1915 - 12/15/1991)
Source: top5s.net
Sniper of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front, Hero of the Soviet Union. During the Battle of Stalingrad between November 10 and December 17, 1942, he destroyed 225 soldiers and officers of the German army and their allies, including 11 snipers. Developed several sniper hunting techniques used by the current generation of snipers.
2. Francis Pegamagabo (March 9, 1891-August 5, 1952)
Source: top5s.net
Hero of World War II. Canadian Francis destroyed 378 German soldiers, was awarded the medal three times and seriously wounded twice. But after returning home to Canada, one of the most effective snipers of World War II was forgotten.
1. Simo Häyhä (17.12.1905-1.04.2002)
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. Hascock's notable feature was a white feather, which he always wore in his hat, despite his fellow soldiers' concerns 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. During several months of the Winter War, which lasted from 1939 to 1940, Häyhä 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 a national hero of Finland. In addition to his small stature (152 cm), which helped him in disguise, Hyuhya used various tricks: for example, he kept snow in his mouth so that the steam from his mouth would not betray it to enemies, or he froze the ice in front of the barrel of his rifle with water, so that when shooting don't kick up snow.
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. 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, 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 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 is a 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 with a pistol, and therefore it was assumed that he used it and did not count such victims in the 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.
Who cares: a little history about the personalities who became famous thanks to the possession of the art of marksmanship.
Roza Egorovna Shanina (1924-1945)
She was known for her ability to accurately fire at moving targets, chalked up 59 confirmed enemy soldiers and officers killed (of which 12 were snipers). Participated in hostilities for less than a year, Allied newspapers called Shanina "the invisible horror of East Prussia." She died on January 28, 1945 during the East Prussian operation, protecting the seriously wounded commander of an artillery unit.
Thomas Plunket (?-1851)
Baker rifle
Plunket is an Irishman from the British 95th Infantry Division who became famous for one episode. It was in 1809, Monroe's troops were retreating, but a battle took place at Kakabelos: Plunket managed to "remove" the French general Auguste-Marie-Francois Colbert. The enemy felt completely safe, since the distance to the enemy was about 600 meters (then the British arrows used Brown Bess muskets and more or less confidently hit the target at a distance of about 50 m).
Plunkett's shot was a real miracle: using a Baker rifle, he exceeded the best results at that time by 12 times. But even this seemed to him not enough: he proved his skill by accurately hitting the second target from the same position - the adjutant of the general, who rushed to the aid of his commander.
Brown Bess musket firing, 3 rounds in 46 seconds:
Sergeant Grace
Grace is a sniper with the Georgia 4th Infantry Division who killed the highest-ranking Union military in the American Civil War.
On May 9, 1864, General John Sedgwick commanded Union artillery at the Battle of Spotsylvany. Confederate snipers opened the hunt for him from a distance of about a kilometer. Staff officers immediately lay down and suggested that the general go into hiding. However, Sedgwick expressed doubt that aimed fire was possible from such a distance, and stated that the officers were behaving like cowards. According to legend, he did not even finish talking when Grace's bullet hit him under his left eye and blew his head off.
Simo Häyhä
Born in 1905 (died in 2002) on the border of Finland and Russia in a family of farmers, as a child he fished and hunted. From the age of 17 he entered the guard detachment, and in 1925 he entered the Finnish army. After 9 years of service, he underwent sniper training.
During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, in less than 3 months, he killed 505 Soviet soldiers. There are some discrepancies in its performance. This is due to the fact that the corpses of the dead were in enemy territory, in addition, Simo shot perfectly with both a pistol and a rifle, and hits from this weapon 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 crushed his jaw and disfigured his face. It took a long recovery. In World War II, he failed to get to the front due to the consequences of injuries.
The effectiveness of Simo is primarily due to the talented use of the features of the theater of operations. Hyahya used an open sight, since optical sights are covered with frost in the cold and give glare, according to which the enemy detects them, require a higher head position from the shooter, as well as a longer aiming time. He prudently filled the snow with water in front of the firing position (so that a cloud of snow that unmasked the position would not rise into the air from the shot), cooled his breath with ice so that steam would not be noticeable, etc.
Vasily Zaitsev (1915-1991)
The name of Vasily Zaitsev became famous all over the world thanks to the film "Enemy At The Gates". Vasily was born in the Urals in the village of Eleninka. In the Pacific Fleet he served from 1937 as a clerk, then as head of the financial department. From the first days of the war, he regularly submitted reports on transfer to the front.
Finally, in the summer of 1942, his request was granted. He began his work near Stalingrad with a "three-ruler". In a short time, Zaitsev managed to hit more than 30 opponents. The command noticed a talented shooter and assigned snipers to the detachment. In just a few months, he had 242 confirmed hits on his account. But the real number of enemies killed during the battle for Stalingrad reached 500.
The episode from Zaitsev’s combat biography covered in the film took place in reality: at that time, a German “super sniper” was sent to the Stalingrad region to fight Soviet snipers, when he was killed, it turned out that optics with 10x magnification were installed on his rifle. increase. A 3-4x sight was considered the norm for shooters of that time, since it was difficult to cope with a large one.
In January 1943, as a result of a mine explosion, Vasily lost his sight, and only through the great efforts of doctors was it possible to restore it. After that, Zaitsev led the school of snipers, wrote two textbooks. It is he who owns one of the methods of “hunting”, which is used to this day.
Ludmila Pavlichenko (1916-1974)
Since 1937, Lyudmila has been engaged in shooting and gliding sports. The beginning of the war found her at her diploma practice in Odessa. Lyudmila immediately went to the front as a volunteer - she became one of 2,000 female snipers (a thousand of our female snipers, according to official data alone, destroyed more than 12,000 Nazis during the war).
She hit her first targets in the battles near Belyaevka. Participated in the defense of Odessa, there destroyed 187 enemies. After that, she defended Sevastopol and Crimea for eight months. At the same time, she trained snipers. During the entire war, Lyudmila Pavlichenko eliminated 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 Shot school.
Some data on the performance of our snipers during WWII:
Real accounts of snipers are actually more than confirmed ones. For example, Fedor Okhlopkov, according to estimates, destroyed more than 1000 (!) Germans in total, also using a machine gun.
The top ten Soviet snipers destroyed (confirmed) 4200 soldiers and officers, and the top twenty - 7400.
Sniper of the 82nd Infantry Division Mikhail Lysov in October 1941 shot down a Ju87 dive bomber from an automatic rifle with a sniper scope. Unfortunately, there is no data on the number of infantrymen killed by him.
And the sniper of the 796th rifle division, foreman Antonov Vasily Antonovich, in July 1942 near Voronezh shot down a twin-engine Ju88 bomber with 4 shots from a rifle! There is also no data on the number of infantrymen killed by him.
Charles MawhinneyCharles Mawhinney, born in 1949
From childhood he was fond of hunting. In 1967 he joined the Marine Corps. As part of the US Marine Corps, Mawhinni went to Vietnam.
The usual working distance for a sniper shot was 300-800 meters. Charles became the best sniper of the Vietnam War, hitting his targets from a distance of a kilometer. On his account - 103 confirmed defeats. Due to the difficult military environment and the riskiness of finding the dead, another 216 casualties are considered likely.
Charles Mauhinney today.
Rob Furlong, born in 1976
Rob Farlange not so long ago held the record for the range of a confirmed successful shot. He hit his target from a distance of 2430 meters!
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 fighters in the mountains. While the opponents set up camp, Furlong took one of them at gunpoint with his McMillan 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 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 when the third bullet had already pierced his chest.
Craig HarrisonCraig Harrison
A new record in sniper shooting - 2477 m - was set in Afghanistan by a British sniper who shot down two Taliban machine gunners. He fired an 8.59 mm L115A3 Long Range Rifle sniper rifle, which has a nominal range of about 1100 m. However, Corporal Garrison, a veteran of the Royal Cavalry Regiment, destroyed an enemy machine gun crew at a range more than a kilometer in excess of the standard.
The sniper fired from a nearby car: he saw two machine gunners open fire on the soldiers and his commander, and destroyed the enemy with two shots. “The first shot hit the machine gunner in the stomach. When he fell, the second Taliban tried to raise his weapon, but was shot in the side,” says the corporal. “The conditions for shooting were ideal, calm weather, excellent visibility.”
The bullet took about three seconds to reach its target.
This rifle, which has caused the deaths of many Taliban, is called the “Silent Killer” in Afghanistan.
The corporal killed 12 Taliban and wounded seven, his helmet had already been hit by a bullet once, both of his arms were broken by a roadside bomb, but after recovering, he returned to serve in Afghanistan. Craig is married with a child and is from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
