11 Deadliest Snipers in the History of Mankind (The First One killed 505 Men)

Extraordinary marksmanship has been a piece of war as far back as guns turned into the devices of decision. There are quite recently a few people who can get things done with a rifle that others can’t.

The ability to Shoot someone Silently is the reason why Snipers are sometimes referred to as “GHOSTS” and they sure are one.

The Following List contains 11 Deadliest Snipers that ever lived.The list is based on number of Confirmed Kills cause that’s what really matters Right?

Here are 11 Deadliest Snipers in History:

11. Stepan Petrenko

Stepan Petrenko
Stepan Petrenko

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1922–1984

Years Active: 1941–1945

Confirmed Kills: 422

About Him:

Born June 23, 1922 in the Zaderievka village area of the Chernihov Repkinsky region in a peasant family. Ukrainian. Member of the Communist Party (B) / Communist Party since 1943. He graduated from high school. He worked as an accountant on a farm. In 1941 he joined the Red Army. In the same year he had to go to the front. In 1942 he graduated from the Rubtsovsk military infantry school. He fought on the second Baltic Front.

The sniper rifle was awarded to him in August 1942. Prior to this he was known in his role as one of the rifle shooters.

During the war, SV Petrenko prepared 17 young snipers, each of whom also destroyed dozens of fascists. Thus the losses of the hand of SV Petrenko were considerable.

As the days went by hunting and had already destroyed 36 Nazis.

In a part of the village of Vidusovo, while standing on the defensive, SV Petrenko “hunted” 27 Nazis. Both in Gatchina. 17 – in Novosokolniki. 20 – in Polotsk. 22 – under Dvina 42. He was the winner against 12 German snipers.

The rules of S. Petrenko were – to be among the first to cross the river to reach the Soviet offensive. His exact fire, he held paratroopers on enemy bank, and when necessary, he fought hand to hand. In one of those battles, acting deftly with his rifle and grenades, he personally killed 23 Nazis. After being wounded, he continued to fight until he finished that battle.

In mid-September 1944, the sniper of the 59th Fusilier Regiment of the Guard Sergeant S. Petrenko, killed 422 Nazis.

10. Vasilij Golosov

Vasilij Golosov
Vasilij Golosov

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1911–1943

Years Active: 1941–1943

Confirmed Kills: 422

About Him:

As suggested, throughout the Second World War and the period preceding it, in terms of the sniping prowess of its troops, the Soviet Union was the world’s most advanced nation. Much military doctrine was devoted to the use of snipers, who were able to provide suppressive fire from long range and capable of eliminating enemy leaders on the battlefield. During the war, 261 Soviet marksmen — and women — each with over 50 kills — were awarded the title of distinguished sniper. Vasilij Ivanovich Golosov was one of those honored and makes this list with 422 confirmed kills, a figure thought to include 70 other snipers shot in battle.

Golosov was awarded the HSU posthumously on October 26, 1943.

09. Fyodor Okhlopkov

Fyodor Okhlopkov
Fyodor Okhlopkov

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1908–1968

Years Active: 1941–1945

Confirmed Kills: 423

About Him:

Fyodor Matveyevitch Okhlopkov was born 1908 in the remote village of Krest-Khaldzhay of what is now Tomponskiy Ulus of the Sakha Republic. He worked at a Kolkhoz farm, as a machine-operator, hunter and gold miner. In 1941, when the war against Fascist Germany broke out, Okhlopkov and his brother joined the army, and his brother was soon killed. Okhlopkov was at first a machine-gunner, then commander of a sub-machine gun company, and in October 1942 he became a sniper.

Okhlopkov is officially credited with 429 kills. For comparison, the far more famous Vasily Zaitsev is estimated to have killed “about 400” people (242 of them verified).

The army newspaper Defender of the Fatherland wrote about him during the war: “He has the keen eye of a hunter, the hard hand of a miner, and a big, warm heart.”
However, commanders didn’t pay much attention to the contributions of indigenous people from remote republics. After the war, Okhlopkov quietly went back to Yakutia to work at a Sovkhos.

But a veterans group petitioned the government, and in 1965 Okhlopkov was finally made Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded an Order of Lenin, on the 20th anniversary of the end of the war.

Only two years later, Okhlopkov died at the age of 59 years. He had been weakened by the many injuries he had sustained in the war.

08. Fedir Dyachenko

Fedir Dyachenko
Fedir Dyachenko

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1917–1995

Years Active: 1932–1945

Confirmed Kills: 425

About Him:

Fedir Trofymovych Dyachenko was a Ukrainian Soviet sniper during World War II, credited with as many as 423 (425) kills. He was born in the village of Velyki Krynky, now part of Hlobyne Raion of Poltava Oblast.

Dyachenko was one of the most effective snipers in the Red Army during World War II. He was granted the status of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944.

He retired from the Soviet Army in 1962 with the rank of Major. He lived in Leningrad, working as a senior engineer at the Kirov Plant. Dyachenko died on 8 August 1995 and is buried in the city’s Kovalevsky Cemetery.

07. Mikhail Budenkov

Mikhail Budenkov
Mikhail Budenkov

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1919-

Years Active: 1941–1945

Confirmed Kills: 437

About Him:

Mikhail Budenkov, was born in the village of Slavtsevo region now Melenkovsky Vladimir. He graduated from the seven high school classes. About 3 years worked on the farm “The road to socialism.” Between 1936 – 1937 he studied at sudomehanikov in Moscow. He worked for about 2 years in the Moscow Channel “Bulgakov” as a steam mechanic. In 1939 he returned to his homeland, where he worked as a tractor driver. In September 1939, he joined the Red Army. The military service performed it in the Brest garrison.

The baptism of fire took place in the second world war. Starting for the fight came to Moscow. He was hurt. In January 1942, after treatment, he returned to the front. In September 1942 he was appointed commander of the detachment, and in his spare time he took a sniper rifle and headed to the front of the “hunt”.

Soon, at his own request, he was transferred to a rifle company, specialized in sniper. In the first year, it destroyed more than 100 soldiers and officers.

In December 1943, on the Kalinin front, Sergeant Budenkov took command of the company, when his commander fell. The soldiers managed to dominate the commander’s descent and quickly echoed it. For six days Nazi counter-attacks were rejected, surviving only eight. Having no connection with the battalion, being wounded, they did not back down. In this battle Budenkov personally destroyed more than 50 fascists and destroyed five machine guns, so he was decorated with the Order of the Red Flag.

In mid-1944, during the fighting in Latvia, Budenkov, with his sniper rifle, always went where it was most difficult. Near the city, with precision it destroyed several settlements, resisting the advance, at one point of pistol, managing to capture the enemy machine gun and winning in a counterattack, destroyed about 100 enemies.

To obtain an exemplary performance of the assignments of command, valor, courage and heroism, demonstrated in the struggle against the Germans, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on March 24, 1945, Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

In December 1945, Lieutenant of the Guard Mikhail Budenkov was discharged and returned home.

In 1947, he graduated from a one-party school in the city of Vladimir; Later lived in Melenki. He worked in the linen factory “red fabric” head of the fuel supply department and as deputy director. He participated actively in the public life of corporate enterprises and cities. He passed away in 1995. In the city of Melenkovsky, in the house where he lived, was located a commemorative plaque.

06. Matthäus Hetzenauer

Matthäus Hetzenauer
Matthäus Hetzenauer

Country: Nazi Germany (Born: Austria)

Life: 1924–2004

Years Active: 1943–1945

Confirmed Kills: 452

About Him:

Matthäus Hetzenauer was an Austrian sniper in the 3rd Mountain Division on the Eastern Front of the World War II, who was credited with 345 kills. His longest confirmed kill was reported at 1,100 meters (3,600 ft). Hetzenauer was also a recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross was awarded to recognise extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership.

He utilised both a Karabiner 98k sniper variant with 6x telescopic sight and a Gewehr 43 with ZF4 4x telescopic sight. He saw action against Soviet forces in the Carpathians, Hungary and Slovakia. On 6 November 1944 he suffered head trauma from artillery fire, and was awarded the Verwundeten-Abzeichen three days later. Gefreiter Hetzenauer received the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross on 17 April 1945. Generalleutnant and Divisions commander Paul Klatt had recommended Hetzenauer because of his numerous sniper kills, which totalled two enemy companies, without fear for his own safety under artillery fire and enemy attacks.

Hetzenauer was captured by Soviet troops the following month, and served 5 years in routinely appalling conditions in a Soviet prison camp. He died on 3 October 2004 after several years of deteriorating health.

05. Vladimir Pchelintsev

Vladimir Pchelintsev
Vladimir Pchelintsev

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1920-

Years Active: 1941–1945

Confirmed Kills: 456

About Him:

Soviet snipers, as is evidenced on this list, dominate the statistics for kills during the Second World War. This can be ascribed not only to their skill and prowess with a rifle but also to their knowledge of the terrain in which they fought and ability to blend in with the landscape to hide themselves from the enemy (helped by the fact that the Germans were for much of the time advancing into areas with which the Soviets were more familiar). Among these skilled and savvy men, Vladimir Nikolaevich Pchelintsev was one of the elite, having dispatched 456 men during the fighting.

04. Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin

Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin
Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1925–1943

Years Active: 1941–1943

Confirmed Kills: 469

About Him:

The 2001 Hollywood movie ‘Enemy at the Gates’ based on William Crag’s book ‘Enemy at the Gates- the Battle for Stalingrad’ was made about Vasily Zaytsev, famous Russian sniper and Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU) during WWII. The film portrays the events of Battle of Stalingrad between 1942 and 1943, Starring Jude Law, Ed Harris and Rachel Weisz. Though Zaytsev was not one of the top Soviet snipers, he scored an estimated 225 kills, including 11 snipers within two months during the Battle of Stalingrad between 1942 and 1943.

Zaytsev was a son of a peasant, born in 1915 in Chelyabinsk. When he started the war in 1942, he started in the Rifle Regiment. His commanders noticed his marksmanship as a rifleman when he killed 30 Germans. When a good sniper starts to take a large toll, the opposition party generally would deploy their own sniper to counter and eliminate the menace. Hence the sniper duel scenario arises. However the film exaggerated the duel between a German top sniper and Zaytsev.

Zaytsev sustained serious injuries including an injury to his shooting eye in January 1943. His eyesight was saved by a skilled surgeon but he was not allowed to return to battle field as a sniper. He was made a sniper trainer. Zaytsev trained 28 snipers and wrote a couple of textbooks on the art of sniping. He finished the war as a Captain and after war worked in a textile factory in Kiev, Ukrain. He died on December 15, 1991.

Though a movie has never been made about deadly marksman Sergeant Major Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin, his 494 kills made him equally important in Red Army. Ilyin was a sniper in the 50th Guards Rifle Division and fought at Stalingrad. He was a locksmith before the war. He achieved 216 kills at Stalingrad and received the title HSU on February 8, 1943. This great sharpshooter died in action on August 4, 1943.

03. Ivan Kulbertinov

Ivan Kulbertinov
Ivan Kulbertinov

Country:  Soviet Union

Life:

Years Active: 1941–1945

Confirmed Kills: 489

About Him:

Ivan Kulbertinov, was born in 1917 in the village of Tian Olyokminsky family ulus Yakutia Evenk, dedicated to the hunt. Without formal education, his family wandered through the taiga, dedicated to hunting. In July 1942, at the age of 25, Ivan headed the battle. Fought near Moscow, Eagle Course, Kiev, Vinnitsa, fought from the North – West and Central of the 1 Ukrainian Front.

His stories as a sniper began on 27 February 1943. Here is an excerpt from Kulbertinov’s memoirs: “I had been stalking for two days, every vein, every nerve was tense looking at the barn, where the Germans were established, I see a Car with ammunition and the Germans began to unload the same.I waited until they removed the boxes from the wagon and fired my rifle, loaded with perforating bullet, at that moment raised a huge column of fire, smoke, dust.A dozen Germans Died of the explosion.

During the art of war Kulbertinov trained 35 young snipers, advising: “Imitate less, seek your own methods of struggle, find new positions and new ways of camouflaging yourself. Do not be afraid to go after the enemy lines, remember : Do not cut with an ax, where you can use a needle “.

Kulbertinov’s glory as a sniper at the front grew every day. Near Chernigov, near a dead German officer, he found a letter where he had written: “Great bear losses, Russian sniper. He chases us at every step, he does not lift his head, he sneaks up and waits for us without food Nor water, nor come out of his cave. ” The sniper was Ivan Kulbertinov.

During the fighting on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War I. Kulbertinov eliminated 487 Nazi and official soldiers. For courage and heroism he was awarded the Order of the Red Flag of the Third Degree, World War 1 and 2nd Degree, Red Star and Medals, to the rank of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, for a number of reasons, only many years later this title was granted posthumously. He died in 1993, at the age of 76, being buried in the town of Tien Olekminskiy Ulus

02. Ivan Sidorenko

Ivan Sidorenko
Ivan Sidorenko

Country:  Soviet Union

Life: 1919–1994

Years Active: 1939–1945

Confirmed Kills: 500

About Him:

Born to a peasant family in Glinkovsky District, Smolensk Oblast, Russia, Sidorenko attended ten grades of school, and later studied at the Penza Art College at Penza, south-east of Moscow. In 1939, he dropped out of college, and was conscripted into the Red Army for training at the Simferopol Military Infantry School, in the Crimean Peninsula.

In 1941, he fought in the Battle of Moscow, as a Junior Lieutenant of a mortar company. During the battle, he spent a lot of time teaching himself to snipe. His hunts for enemy soldiers were successful, prompting Sidorenko’s commanders to order him to train others—who were chosen for their eyesight, weapons knowledge, and endurance. He first taught them theory, and then slowly started taking them out on combat missions with him. The Germans soon began fielding snipers of their own in Sidorenko’s area of operation, to counter the new threat posed by him and his men.

Sidorenko became assistant commander of the Headquarters of the 1122nd Rifle Regiment, fighting as part of the 1st Baltic Front. Though he mainly instructed, he occasionally fought in battles, taking one of his trainees with him. On one of these excursions, he destroyed a tank and three tractors using incendiary bullets. However, he was wounded several times, most seriously in Estonia, in 1944; as a result of which he remained hospitalized until the end of the war. While recuperating from this wound, Sidorenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, on June 4, 1944. Sidorenko was prohibited from seeing combat again, by his superiors, as he was a valuable sniper trainer.

By the end of the war, Sidorenko was credited with five hundred confirmed kills,and had trained over two hundred and fifty snipers.Ranked a Major, he was the most successful Soviet sniper of the Second World War, and used the Russian Mosin–Nagant rifle, equipped with a telescopic sight.

After the war ended, Sidorenko retired from the Red Army, and settled down in Chelyabinsk Oblast, in the Ural Mountains, where he worked as the foreman of a coal mine. In 1974, he moved to the Republic of Dagestan, in the Caucasus.He died on February 19, 1987 in Kizlyar, Dagestan.

01. Simo Häyhä ( The White Death)

 Simo Häyhä
Simo Häyhä

Country: Finland

Life: 1905–2002

Years Active: 1925–1940

Confirmed Kills: 505

About Him:

Simo Häyhä was born in 1905 in the farming town of Rautjärvi. Once the Soviet Union was formed and Finland had gained its independence, the town in which he lived found itself to be only a very short distance from the Russian border. His childhood was filled with plenty of hard work on the farm, which coupled with the Finnish wilderness made him a very tough – yet patient – man. A few years later in 1925, Häyhä served a mandatory one-year service in Finland’s army. While one year may not be a long time, he obviously made the best of it: by the time he was honorably discharged, he had been promoted to the rank of “Upseerioppilas Officerselev” (corporal).

Later on, Häyhä joined the Finnish Civil Guard, a military organization comparable to the National Guard in the United States. During his time with the Civil Guard, he received a great deal of training, which included target shooting. Shooting was always an interest for Häyhä, and any spare time he had was spent outdoors shooting at whatever targets he could find. His first rifle was a Russian-built Mosin-Nagant bolt action M91, and was later introduced to the better-performing M28/30 and the 9mm Suomi submachine gun. Thanks to both his training and natural enjoyment of shooting, Häyhä was eventually able to hit a target 16 times per minute at about 500 feet away, making him an excellent sniper—a skill that would later serve him very well.

In 1939, the Soviet Union attempted to invade Finland. Being a member of the Civil Guard, Häyhä was called into service, serving under the 6th Company of JR 34 on the Kollaa River. Commanded by Major General Uiluo Tuompo, the Finns faced both the 9th and 14th Soviet Armies, and at one point were fighting against as many as 12 divisions – about 160,000 soldiers. Also at one point in the same area, there were only 32 Finns fighting against over 4,000 Soviets!

Despite being outnumbered, however, the Finns were still victorious at the end of the day. The invading Soviets weren’t as organized as one would expect: they spoke many different languages, and they weren’t used to the harsh Finnish winters either. In fact, the winter of 1939-40 was very snowy, and had temperatures ranging from -40 to -20 degrees Celsius.

The Finns were also smart in their tactics, the most notable of which were known as “Motti”-tactics. Since the Soviets would invade by the roads, the Finns would hide out in the surrounding wilderness. They would then let the invaders cross the border, and attack them from behind!

Simo Hayha’s involvement in the Winter War was very extraordinary. With his Mosin-Nagant M91 rifle, he would dress in white winter camouflage, and carry with him only a day’s worth of supplies and ammunition. While hiding out in the snow, he would then take out any Russian who entered his killing zone. Hayha preferred to use iron sights on his gun instead of scopes, as scopes had a tendency to glare in the sunlight and reveal his position. He would put snow in his mouth to hide his breath from being seen in the cold air. While he may sound like an ordinary sniper, this was far from the case: over the course of 100 days during the winter he racked up over 500 kills, earning him the nickname “The White Death”. The Soviets feared him so much that they mounted numerous counter sniper and artillery attacks to get rid of him, all of which failed miserably. However, on March 6th, 1940, he was hit in the jaw by an explosive round from a counter sniper. He fell into an 11-day coma, awakening on the day that the war ended.

Hayha was given numerous awards, and was also promoted from corporal to second lieutenant, a jump in the ranks that had never been seen in Finland’s history. Despite being slightly disfigured, he recovered from his injury, and went on to live until the age of 96. He allegedly attributed his deadly sniping skills to “practice”.

Despite gaining around 22,000 square miles of Finish soil, the Soviets lost the Winter War, with 1,000,000 of their original 1,500,000 troops having been killed by the defending Finns. A Russian general later remarked that the land they had conquered was “just enough to bury their dead”.

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