10 Top Snipers in the World

7/29/2019 10 Top Snipers in the World

1/5

10

Thomas Plunkettdied in 1851

Was an Irish soldier in the British 95th Rifles. What makes him on of the greats is that he shot a

very impressive French general, Auguste-Marie-Franois Colbert.

During the battle at Cacabelos during Monroes retreat in 1809, Plunkett, using a Baker Rifle, shot

the French general at a range of about 600 meters. Giving the incredible inaccuracy of rifles in the

early 19th century, this was either a very impressive feat, or one hell of a fluke. Well Plunkett not

wanting his army buddies to think he was a bit lucky decided to take the shot again before returning

to his line. So he reloaded his gun and took aim once again this time at the trumpet major who had

come to the generals aid. When this shot also hit its intended target, proving that Plunkett is just one

badass marksman, he looked back to his line to see the impressed faces of the others in the 95thRifles.

Just for comparison the British soldiers were all armed with Brown Bess muskets and trained to

shoot into a body of men at 50 meters. Plunkett did 12 times that distance. Twice.

9

Sgt Grace

4th Georgia Infantry

The date was May 9th 1864, when Sgt Grace, a Confederate sniper, achieved what was

considered to be an incredible shot at the time, and what is definitely the most ironic demise of a

target in history. It was during the battle of Spotsylvania when Grace took aim with his British

Whitworth Rifle. His target was General John Sedgwick (pictured above) and the distance was 1,000

yards. An extremely long distance for the time. During the beginning of the skirmish, the confederate

sharpshooters were causing Sedgwicks men to duck for cover. Sedgwick refused to duck and was

quoted saying What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open firealong the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldnt hit Elephants at this distance. His men

persisted in taking cover. He Repeated They couldnt hit elephants at this distance Seconds Later

Graces shot hits Sedgwick just under his left eye.

I swear you couldnt write it. Sedgwick was the highest ranking Union casualty in the civil war and

upon hearing his death Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant repeatedly asked Is he really dead.


2/5

8

Charles Chuck Mawhinney

1949-

103 Confirmed Kills

Was an avid hunter as a kid and joined the Marines in 1967. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps

during Vietnam and holds the record for number of confirmed kills for Marine snipers, exceeding that

of legendary Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock. In just 16 months he killed 103 enemies and another

216 kills were listed as probables by the military, only because it was too risky at the time to search

the bodies for documents. When he left the Marines he told no-one of his of his role during the

conflict and only a few fellow Marines knew of his assignments. It was nearly 20 years before

somebody wrote a book detailing his amazing skills as a sniper. Mawhinney came out of anonymity

because of this and became a lecturer in sniper schools. He was once quoted saying it was the

ultimate hunting trip: a man hunting another man who was hunting me. Dont talk to me about

hunting lions or elephants; they dont fight back with rifles and scopes. I just loved it. I ate it up.

A routinely deadly shot from distances between 300 800 yards, Mawhinney had confirmed kills

of over 1000 yards, making him one of the greatest snipers of the Vietnam war.

7

Rob Furlong

A former corporal of the Canadian Forces, he holds the record for the longest confirmed sniper

kill in history at 1.51 miles or 2,430 metres. Thats the length of about 26 football pitches.

This amazing feat occurred in 2002, when he was involved in Operation Anaconda. His Sniper

Team consisted of 2 Corporals and 3 Master Corporals. When a three man Al-Qaeda weapons team

moved into a mountainside position he took aim. Furlong was armed with a .50-caliber McMillan

Brothers Tac-50 Rifle and loaded with A-MAX very low drag bullets. He fired and missed. His second

shot hit the enemies knapsack on his back. He had already fired his third shot by the time the second

hit, but now the enemy knew he was under attack. The airtime for each bullet was about 3 seconds

due to the immense distance, enough time for an enemy to take cover. However the dumbfounded

militant realised what was happening just in time to take the third shot in the chest.

6

Vasily Zaytsev

March 23, 1915 December 15, 1991

242 Confirmed Kills

Zaytsev is probably the best known Sniper in history thanks to the movie Enemy At The Gates.

However the truth only goes as far as the battle of Stalingrad. There was no Nazi Counter-Sniper

Specialist in real life.

Zaytsev was born in Yeleninskoye and grew up in the Ural Mountains. His surname means hare.

Before Stalingrad, he served as a clerk in the Soviet Navy But after reading about the conflict in the

city he volunteered for the front line. he served in the 1047th Rifle Regiment. Zaytsev ran a sniperschool in the Metiz factory. The cadets he trained were called Zaichata, meaning Leverets (Baby


3/5

Hares). This was the start of the sniper movement in the 62nd army. It is estimated that the snipers

he trained killed more than 3,000 enemy soldiers

Zaytsev himself made 242 confirmed kills between October 1942 and January 1943, but the real

number is probably closer to 500. I know I said there was no counter-sniper, but there was Erwin

Knig. Was alleged to be a highly skilled Wehrmacht sniper. Zaytsev claimed in his memoirs that theduel took place over a period of three days in the ruins of Stalingrad. Details of what actually

happened are sketchy, but by the end of the three day period Zaytsev had killed the sniper and

claimed his scope to be his most prized trophy. For him to make this his most prized trophy means

that this person he killed must have been almost as good as Zaytsev himself.

5

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

July 12, 1916 October 10, 1974

309 Confirmed Kills

In June 1941, Pavlichenko was 24 and Nazi Germany were invading the Soviet Union. She was

among the first volunteers and asked to join the infantry. she was assigned to the Red Armies 25th

infantry Division. From there she became one of 2000 female snipers of the soviet.

Her first 2 kills were made near Belyayevka using a Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle with a P.E. 4-

power scope. The first action she saw was during the conflict in Odessa. She was there for 2 and a

half months and notched 187 kills. When they were forced to relocate, she spent the next 8 months

fighting in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. There she recorded 257 kills and for this feat she

was cited by the Southern Army Council. Pavlichenkos total confirmed kills during WW2 was 309. 36

of those were enemy snipers.

4

Corporal Francis Pegahmagabow

March 9, 1891 August 5, 1952

378 Confirmed kills

300+ Captures

Three times awarded the military medal and twice seriously wounded, he was an expertmarksman and scout, credited with 378 German kills and capturing 300+ more. He was an Ojibwa

warrior with the Canadians in battles like those at mount sorrel. As if killing nearly 400 Germans

wasnt enough, he was also awarded medals for running messages through very heavy enemy fire,

for directing a crucial relief effort when his commanding officer was incapacitated and for running

through enemy fire to get more ammo when his unit was running low.

Though a hero among his fellow soldier, he was virtually forgotten once he returned home to

Canada. Regardless he was one of the most affective snipers of world war 1.


4/5

3

Adelbert F. Waldron

March 14, 1933 October 18, 1995

109 confirmed kills

He holds the record for the highest number of confirmed kills for any American sniper in history.However it is not just his impressive kill record that makes him one of the best, but also his incredible

accuracy.

Excerpt from Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam by Col. Michael Lee Lanning,

One afternoon he was riding along the Mekong River on a Tango boat when an enemy sniper on

shore pecked away at the boat. While everyone else on board strained to find the antagonist, who

was firing from the shoreline over 900 meters away, Sergeant Waldron took up his sniper rifle and

picked off the Vietcong out of the top of a coconut tree with one shot (this from a moving platform).

Such was the capability of our best sniper.

2

Carlos Norman Hathcock II

May 20, 1942 February 23, 1999

Nicknamed Lng Trung du Kich (White Feather Sniper)

93 Confirmed kills

Hathcock has one of the most impressive mission records of any sniper in the Marine corps. Lets

forget about the dozens of shooting championships he won, during the Vietnam war he amassed 93

confirmed kills. The Vietnam army put a $30,000 bounty on his life for killing so many of their men.

Rewards put on U.S. snipers by the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) typically amounted to.say $8.

It was Hathcock who fired the most famous shot in sniper history. He fired a round, over a very

long distance, which went through the scope of an enemy sniper, hit him in the eye, and killed him.

Hathcock and Roland Burke his spotter were stalking the enemy sniper, (which had already killed

several Marines) which they believed was sent to kill him specifically. When Hathcock saw a flash of

light reflecting off the enemies scope he fired at it in a split second pulling off one of the most precise

shots in history. Hathcock reasoned that the only way that this was possible, would have been if both

snipers were aiming at each others scopes at the same time, and he fired first. However, although

the distance was never confirmed, Hathcock knew that because of the flight time, it would have been

easy for both snipers to kill each other. The white feather was synonymous with Hathcock (He kept

one in his hat) and he removed it only once for a mission. Keep in mind that he volunteered for thismission, but he had to crawl over 1500 yards of enemy territory to shoot an NVA commanding

general. Information wasnt sent until he was on-route. (He volunteered for a mission he knew

nothing about) It took 4 days and 3 nights without sleep of inch-by-inch crawling. One enemy soldier

almost stepped on him as he laid camouflaged in a meadow. At another point he was nearly bitten

by a viper, he didnt flinch. He finally got into position and waited for the general. When he arrived

Hathcock was ready. He fired one round and hit the general through the chest killing him. The

soldiers started a search for the sniper and Hathcock had to crawl back to avoid detection. They

never caught him. Nerves of steel.


5/5

1

Simo Hyh

December 17, 1905 April 1, 2002

Nicknamed The White Death705 confirmed kills (505 with rifle, 200 with submachine gun)

Was a Finnish soldier who, using an iron sighted bolt action rifle, amassed the highest recorded

confirmed kills as a sniper in any warever!!

Hyh was born in the municipality of Rautjrvi near the present-day border of Finland and

Russia, and started his military service in 1925. His duties as a sniper began during the winter war

(1939-1940) between Russia and Finland. During the conflict Hyh endured freezing temperatures

up to -40 degrees Celsius. In less than 100 days he was credited with 505 confirmed kills, 542 if

including unconfirmed kills, however the unofficial frontline figures from the battlefield places the

number of sniper kills at over 800. Besides his sniper kills he was also credited with 200 from a SuomiKP/31 Submachine gun, topping off his total confirmed kills at 705.

How Hyh did all this was amazing. He was basically on his own all day, in the snow, shooting

Russians, for 3 months straight. Of course when the Russians caught wind that a shit load of soldiers

were being killed, they thought well this is war, theres bound to be casualties. But when the

generals were told that it was one man with a rifle they decided to take a bit of action. first they sent

in a counter-sniper. When his body was returned they decided to send in a team of counter-snipers.

When they didnt come back at all they sent in a whole goddamn battalion. They took casualties and

couldnt find him. Eventually they ordered an artillery strike, but to no avail. You see Hyh was

clever, and this was his neck of the woods. He dressed completely in white camouflage. He used a

smaller rifle to suit his smaller frame (being 5ft3) increasing his accuracy. he used an iron sight topresent the smallest possible target (a scoped sight would require the sniper to raise his head for

sighting). He compacted the snow in front of the barrel, so as not to disturb it when he shot thus

revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so his breath did not condense and reveal

where his was. Eventually however his was shot in the jaw by a stray bullet during combat on March

6 1940. He was picked up by his own soldiers who said half his head was missing. He didnt die

however and regained consciousness on the 13th, the day peace was declared.

Documents

10 Top Snipers in the World