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Top 10 Snipers in History
joetravolta ^ | 11/13/2009 | joetravolta

Posted on 05/18/2010 9:41:57 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld

It was night and low visibility, but I saw a guy with an AK-47 lit up by the porch light in a doorway about 400 meters away. I watched him through the sights. He looked like just another Iraqi. I hit him low in the stomach and dropped him.’ – Specialist James Wilks, 25, from Fort Worth, Texas. Concealment is key to becoming a great sniper. Highly trained marksmen who can shoot accurately from incredible distances with specialized training in high-precision rifles. In addition, they are trained in camouflage, field craft, infiltration, reconnaissance and observation, making them perhaps the most feared military presence in a war. Below is my list of top ten snipers in history and some of the greatest shots ever fired.


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: banglist; chat; history; military; militaryhistory; rifle; snipers
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To: sonofstrangelove

Why isn’t Conneticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on that list? : )

One other note, Chuck Mawhinney actually has more kills than Hathcock, but like Waldron never wrote a book, was not a career military man and stayed pretty much to himself. I think he has the most kills of any Marine.

Hathcock’s shots were simply amazing. I think that his greatest contribution though is probably the Marine sniper school at Quantico and the creation of Sta platoons.


21 posted on 05/19/2010 5:06:13 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: James C. Bennett
I guess then the sriteria is quantity? In that case my Uncle is the winner. He killed over 2,000 Japanese on Okiniwa.
22 posted on 05/19/2010 5:10:31 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$ (If you can read this you are the resistance. (Oh and the GOP can bite me for $$$))
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To: sonofstrangelove
Vasily Zaytsev

Mosin Nagant ping! from a guy who can pave his driveway in hot 7.62x54 brass!

23 posted on 05/19/2010 9:04:03 AM PDT by backwoods-engineer ("It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." --Jefferson)
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To: P8riot

Model 70, 30-06?


24 posted on 05/19/2010 9:30:18 AM PDT by gundog (Outrage is anger taken by surprise. Nothing these people do surprises me anymore.)
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To: sonofstrangelove
No love for Lee Harvey?

HARTMAN: Anybody know who Lee Harvey Oswald was? Private Snowball?

SNOWBALL: Sir, he shot Kennedy, sir!

HARTMAN: That's right, and do you know how far away he was?

SNOWBALL: Sir, it was pretty far! From that book suppository building, sir!

HARTMAN: All right, knock it off! Two hundred and fifty feet! He was two hundred and fifty feet away and shooting at a moving target. Oswald got off three rounds with an old Italian bolt action rifle in only six seconds and scored two hits, including a head shot! Do any of you people know where these individuals learned to shoot? Private Joker?

JOKER: Sir, in the Marines, sir!

HARTMAN: In the Marines! Outstanding! Those individuals showed what one motivated marine and his rifle can do! And before you ladies leave my island, you will be able to do the same thing!

25 posted on 05/19/2010 9:33:14 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: backwoods-engineer
Mosin Nagant ping! from a guy who can pave his driveway in hot 7.62x54 brass!

Also known as 7,62x53r, if you happen to be using a Finnish M 28-30 reworked Moisin-Nagant...

Same round, just a different designation. Plus the .308 barrels of M28-30s like a .308 diameter bullet.


26 posted on 05/19/2010 4:09:01 PM PDT by archy (q)
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To: balch3
Simo was a bad, bad man.

Mr. Häyhä seemed to me to be polite, gracious and charming when we had the pleasure and honor of meeting him shortly after the 60th-year commeration of the Finnish-Soviet Winter War, the Talvisota.


27 posted on 05/19/2010 4:25:02 PM PDT by archy (q)
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To: Frantzie
Stalin’s fault that the Finns fought like animals to avoid the same fate of 6 million Ukranians that Stalin murdered? The same Stalin that Pete Seeger and the NY Times fawned over?

Until the Nazis came to the Ukraine and became even more hated than Stailin.

Bad mistake, on the Nazi's part. Lyudmilla Palvichenko was Ukrainian, and she and her rifle put over 300 of them out of the picture.


28 posted on 05/19/2010 4:47:27 PM PDT by archy (q)
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To: Frantzie
The Winter War between Finland and the USSR was incredibly brutal. I think Finland lost 20 to 25% of their population but the Soviets walked into a nightmare.

Finland had around 350,000 men, mostly reservists, with a scattering of volunteers and had three dozen tanks and bit over a hundred aircraft. the Soviets invaded on 30 November 1939 with nearly a half million men, 5000 tanks and more than 3000 aircraft- and kept pouring in additional reinforcements of men and machionery, with over a million reinforcements arriving as follow up forces. Some were "the cream of the crop" Naval Infantry and graduating classes of officer cadets.

By January, things were not going good for Ivan; particularly at Suomussalmi and Ratte and Kollaa's *Killer Hill*- where Simo Häyhä fought.

The Finnish butcher's bill was pretty close to 27,000 lost, plus around 50,000 seriously wounded and out of action until the war's end in February 1940- as was Simo Häyhä.

But the Russian casualties were certainly MUCH higher than the *official line* propaganda reports. And years later, when Nikita Kruschev was the Soviet Premier, he looked back on his days as a pmilitary commisar with troops during the Finnish *exercise* and remarked that the loss of a million men had not been worth it.

In 1959, after more successful adventures in East Germany and Budapest, the Soviets considered visiting Finland again; the prospect of some nice Baltic ports was just too attractive. The Finns had no great defense budget, no massive standing army or conscript pool, and knew that if another invasion came, they were not in a good p[oistion to do much about it.

They opened their national armories full of equipment left over from the 1918 Civil War and the 1939 Talvisota to U.S. arms merchant Sam Cummings of Interarmco. Cummings piched the most collectable and interesting specimens, and in turn the Finns received 300,000 former British Sten guns letover from WWII. The Finnish industrial base began churning out Sten magazines and 9mm SMG ammo, and for some reason the Soviets, with long memories of the crop of the Red Army wounded and freezing to death in the -40 degrees temperatures in the Finnish forests, and decided not to come a calling again.

The Red flag of the Soviet Union no longer flies, save over a few student unions in the USA. That of free Finland still does.


29 posted on 05/19/2010 5:25:30 PM PDT by archy (q)
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To: sonofstrangelove
The Top Ten Snipers in History

10.Thomas Plunkett
9.Sgt, Grace
8.Charles "Chuck" Mawhinney
7.Rob Furlong
6.Vasily Zaytsev
5.Lyudmilla Pavlichenko
4.Corpral Francis Pegamagabow
3.Adelbert F. Waldron
2.Carlos Norman Hathcock II
1.Simo Häyhä

There's some pretty room for variance here based on definition- not all of some shooter;s hits may be logbooked, and there's a legitimate line of thought that fatally taking out an enemy with a single round is not as efficient asa really serious wound- which removes him from active service, as well as those who evacuate him for medical treatment, uses up medical supplies and ties up the services of top-quality medical persionnel; surgeons and surgical staff.

Too, kills are not the only criteria, or a sniper with a radio may never fire a shot but may destroy a battalion or more by calling in an airstrike or directed artiller fire. And at least one on that list used a machinepistol in semiauto-fire mode almost as much as he did his long rifle. It was simply the better choice of weapobn for the conditions and close ranges involved, particularly at night.

If we're talking about truly great, numbers of kills is certainly not the only criteria. Which should remind us of this guy....

YORK, ALVIN C.

Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company G, 328th Infantry, 82d Division.

Place and date: Near Chatel-Chehery, France, 8 October 1918.

Entered service at: Pall Mall, Tenn.

Born: 13 December 1887, Fentress County, Tenn.

G.O. No.: 59, W.D., 1919.

Citation:

After his platoon had suffered heavy casualties and 3 other noncommissioned officers had become casualties, Cpl. York assumed command. Fearlessly leading 7 men, he charged with great daring a machinegun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machinegun nest was taken, together with 4 officers and 128 men and several guns.

30 posted on 05/19/2010 6:02:21 PM PDT by archy (q)
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To: archy
Thanks for the link. The Finns are smart, tough, proud and independent people. I read some of the accounts of the battles and the Russians/Soviets were massacred. Sad how evil leaders (almost always communists) can destroy so many lives. I never knew about 1959.
31 posted on 05/19/2010 8:00:44 PM PDT by Frantzie (McCain=Obama's friend. McCain/Graham = La Raza's Senators)
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To: Frantzie

The ruskies never messed with the finns after that for a reason. For any Finlander: Outstanding.


32 posted on 05/19/2010 8:06:03 PM PDT by Texas resident (Outlaw fisherman)
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To: sonofstrangelove

#1: Paul Tibbets.

Single plane, single bomb, ignored by the japanese as — what damage could one bomber possibuly do?

Surprise!


33 posted on 05/21/2010 5:08:06 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine .. now it is your turn..)
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