"The most lethal American sniper in history."

[JaneDoe]

CHRIS KYLE!
I'm a big fan of this guy, for his bravery against terrorists in Iraq. This guy was worth almost an entire army. He will always be worthy of honor and merit.



Was a veteran of the United States Navy SEALs of the United States Navy. He is considered, by the American Department of Defense, as the most lethal sniper in the history of the country with 160 confirmed deaths. Chris served for four seasons in the Occupation of Iraq, having been awarded several times for acts of heroism, merit and bravery in combat. He received a Silver Star and four Bronze Stars, a medal of commendation, two medals of achievement and several other personal decorations and awards.


Chris was discharged from the United States Navy in 2009 and wrote an autobiography, American Sniper, published in 2012 and made into a film in 2014. On February 2, 2013, Chris was shot and killed by a 25-year-old former soldier. soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder

[Cuz]

A Real warrior and legend, great writeup may he Rest In Peace. I wish i knew what that kind go greatness felt like

[JaneDoe]

A Real warrior and legend, great writeup may he Rest In Peace. I wish i knew what that kind go greatness felt like

He will always be remembered . Great man.

[Fluidic Kimbo]

He will always be remembered . Great man.

Everyone will remember me when I perpetrate the world's first mass shooting on rollerskates.

[Capebuffalo]

Kyle was a great sniper. But Carlos White Feather Hathcock was the best.

[charger69]

Kyle was a great sniper. But Carlos White Feather Hathcock was the best.

None of them are a match for Charger and his machete. LOL


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[Capebuffalo]

None of them are a match for Charger and his machete. LOL


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A lot can be said about a man that brings a knife to a gun fight.

[charger69]

Hey Cape- how have you been? You were going to have some tests or something. How did they come out?


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[Capebuffalo]

Hey Cape- how have you been? You were going to have some tests or something. How did they come out?


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Hardening of the heart due to bp they said. Put me on another med to soften it or keep it from getting harder I guess.
Still living the dream.

[Beetlegeuse]

I'd hoped not to get into this shit because the fascination with the killing is school-boyish and detailing all the reasons why my counter-explanations hold water is necessarily long, detailed and boring. Nonetheless, here it is.

Yes, it's long as fuck. So sue me.

Don't take this as a denigration of Chris Kyle because that man was heroic in so many ways that have nothing to do with sniping (he was a combat veteran SEAL, for fucks sake!) but you can't judge snipers strictly by body count, and you can't compare body counts from one war or era to any other, for a number of reasons. But to call Kyle America's deadliest sniper is both sophistic and wrong-headed.

First of all, sniping is a very misunderstood art. A sniper's first mission is not to shoot people, it's to act as an observer or scout. He's the commander's forward-deployed eyes and ears. The Marines even call the job description Scout Sniper. Note that the "Scout" part gets top billing. I think the best example of the scout/sniper distinction comes from The Great War.

During the trench warfare of WWI, British snipers saw a number of cats hanging out around a particular portion of the German trenches. And they dutifully included this information in their scouting reports. When the Intel boffins received this information it made them suspect that there might be a concentration of German officers bivouacked in that location because German enlisted men were not allowed to keep cats, but officers were partial to them because they help keep the rats beaten back. So they tasked an aerial reconnaissance mission to bring back photo intel of that spot. The photos confirmed that a number of Bosch officers likely had taken up residence there so the Brits laid on a concentrated artillery barrage on that spot in their honor.

On that day the snipers probably were responsible for killing a number of German officers ... without firing a single shot.

Also, the shooting is by far a secondary consideration to the fieldcraft. Snipers are trained in things like picking locks and how to throw tracking dogs off their scent because those are skills that allow them to move undetected and position themselves where the opponent believes is impossible for anyone to get to. Which not only means no one thinks to take precautions against a shot from that position, they also probably won't bother to search there after the shot.

You can teach a monkey how to pull a trigger. What you can't teach a monkey is how to spend three days crawling 1200 yards across an open field, traveling so slowly that no one can detect him moving.

Nonetheless, it is the killing that puts snipers on the map.

Second, the methods of accounting used for "a confirmed kill" has changed over the years. During the War in Vietnam, a kill had to be confirmed by #1 an officer (not an enlisted man) #2 from a command unrelated to the sniper. The most productive snipers in Vietnam all had far more "probables" (which might mean the sniper and/or his spotter had examined the dead body, but there didn't happen to be an unconnected officer in the area to confirm it) than confirmed kills because of the way snipers tended to be employed. They often operated in complete isolation, miles from the next nearest American, so confirmation wasn't even remotely possible. For instance Chuck Mawhinney, US Army sniper in Vietnam, is credited with 103 confirmed and 216 probables. The rules have slackened considerably since then and even a drone now can confirm a kill. "Probables" now are few and far between.

3.A, a sniper is a very limited resource and command always will employ them parsimoniously The sniper doesn't get out of the fart sack in the morning, scratch his ass and tell himself "I think I'll go find me some fuckers to kill today." He more typically will receive at least a fragmentary operations order (FRAGO) telling him where to go and and what his mission objectives are. It's only been during Dubya's Global War On Terror that snipers so often have been employed in an overwatch role, a tactic that proved more useful in Dubya's GWOT because of the unique environments it takes place in and the unprofessional nature of the enemy.

3.B, your odds of catching a fish are directly linked to the number of fish in the water where you've dropped your line. By that same token, snipers can more easily run up their body count when they're employed in a "target-rich environment." Much of Dubya's GWOT has taken place in mountainous and/or desert locations. Both environments tend to offer incredibly long "fields of fire." So much so that one mile+ shots have become commonplace, particularly in the high mountains and thin air of Afghanistan. Contrast that to a war fought in a forest where you can't see a hundred yards or in a jungle where you struggle to see the beyond 10. Different wars typically result in much different opportunities and challenges for all concerned. But in general the further you can observe an enemy from, the more the situation favors the employment of the sniper.

3.C, professional soldiers are taught how to conduct their routine goings-on in a manner that limits both their observability and their exposure because this makes them less vulnerable to small arms fire (which includes sniping). For instance, when moving in hilly areas soldiers are taught to walk neither on the crest of the hill nor at the bottom of the valley but in a place in between called the military crest. Dubya's GWOT has been conducted primarily against belligerents with absolutely zero formal military training so if they've learned these skills, it's probably been at the expense of comrades who died from the schooling.

4. It was inevitable that sniping improve over time.

4.A, every piece of a sniper's kit (including the rifle) improves with time. As late as the US involvement in Somalia, the only sniper rifles the US's two ground fighting military services used were Remington 700s chambered in 7.62 NATO (.308 Win). Which, realistically, is about an 800-yard cartridge. Under ideal circumstances you can hit from further than that, and there was a confirmed kill at Ramadi in 2005 from 1,367 yards, but that was way out on the skinny end of the bell curve. Now those same services also use .300 WinMag (which adds some few hundred yards to the range of the 7.62) and .338 Lapua mag (still another few extra hundred yards) and the .50 BMG (good for a solid 2500 yards).

4.B, the US never established a permanent (continuously-operating) sniper school until the war in Vietnam. During every war from the American War for Independence through the "police action" in Korea, if a unit was issued a "sniper rifle," they'd likely just pick the guy with the best rifle range scores to carry it. He might get a couple of extra boxes of ammunition to train with but beyond that his training was very informal and mostly self-administered. But he trained and fought with his unit of assignment and the sniping itself was never considered his principle duty.

During all the peaceful lulls before Vietnam, the sniper corps always were summarily disbanded. Because becoming a skilled sniper is a very time-intensive endeavor. Hours upon hours upon days of crawling silently through dense undergrowth, then sitting silently and motionless for days more while waiting for the target to appear. Except in peace time there's always potatoes to be peeled and rocks to be painted and the military services were unwilling to spare that much manpower for something so seemingly unproductive as frolicking in the forest playing Dan'l Boone.

Which meant that every time a war ended, all the cumulative skill sets and institutional knowledge that those snipers had developed during that war went down he drain. And next time a war broke out, they had to start from scratch again.

Today that sounds insanely stupid but it is true nonetheless.

Oddly, the Nazis didn't help much because in most of the rest of the world there was a general revulsion to all things connected with Hitler and/or the Nazis. For instance, by the end of WWII it was clear that the configuration of the German "stalhelm" offered superior protection to the US's steel pot helmet but the US shied away from a similar design until 40 years after the war specifically because it looked "too Nazi." But when materials advancement forced them to abandon steel for something lighter and tougher, they finally adopted the Nazi look in the kevlar k-pot.

Well, guess who had the world's first truly highly-effective, truly professional, homogeneously school trained sniper corps? Yup, the Nazis. The US once even espoused the notion that sniping was a cowardly way to conduct a war. Which was another reason why the professionalism of the Nazi snipers was given the short shrift by history. But they were damned good and definitely had an impact on the battlefield disproportionate to their numbers.

And that view largely held sway until 1966. That was when (then) Brig. Gen. Herman Nickerson assumed command of the 1st Marine Division in Vietnam. He happened to cross paths with a Captain Ed Land, who was a member of the Marine Corps Rifle Team, and who had been running his own (small scale) sniper school at Camp Perry since 1961. Capt. Land somehow managed to convince BG Nickerson that a sniper program would be invaluable to his mission in Vietnam. Snipers save (friendly) lives. And BG Nickerson ordered Land to set up a school for him to prepare snipers for the Vietnam theater of operations. And have the school up and running yesterday.

When Vietnam wound down, the Corps picked up the Scout Sniper school from its Vietnam-era base of operations (in Hawaii, IIRC) and moved it lock, stock and personnel to Quantico, Virginia. So while the school has been refining its training and building its base of knowledge since 1961, it only has been a service-wide school since 1966. And the Quantico school has been in continuous operation since 1977. So as a service-wide training asset, the USMC Scout Sniper School has been in continuous operation now for 54 years.

In fairness I should note that the Army also started its "permanent" sniper course in 1966, but I have to give the Corps a slight edge in this regard because Ed Land already had a training syllabus and a functioning school when the Corp's service-wide school came online in '66.

Add all the elements of numbers 3 thru 4 together and what do you get? Schools with more than half a century's continuous experience at growing the very best-trained snipers they can, then arming them with the most precise and longest-range weapons and optics ever invented, fighting in regions where shots at extreme ranges are possible against an enemy who mostly are unlearned in how to minimize the risk posed by the sniper's long-range skills.

Add it all together and what you get the golden age of sniping.

Particularly in the early parts of the war in Afghanistan, Taliban were taught that it was an article of faith not to duck when receiving fire from the Infidels. Why? Because if Allah wants to to get shot, then shot you will get. If he does not, you will not. So your ducking is useless because it has no bearing on whether you will be killed. And if you duck that only can mean you trust in yourself more than the will of Allah. So do not duck.

Read the write-up on Canadian Corporal [uel=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Furlong]Rob Furlong[/url]'s 2657 yard shot in 2002 in Afghanistan.* He was armed with a McMillan Brothers Tac-50, a bespoke .50 BMG sniper's rifle. He was shooting ammunition he had bummed from an American smiper because theirs had slightly better range than the Canadian .50 ammo. He fired a number of "adjust fire" shots at his target, a Taliban walking down the road, at least one of which struck him either in the backpack he was wearing or an article he carried in his hand, or both. And despite the several "warning shots," not only did the Taliban not duck, he didn't even break stride. Until Furlong's final shot hit him in the boiler room.

If you are a sniper with a rifle that can hit at a mile and a half, in a place where you can see your targets from 2000+ yards, and they don't duck if you miss, you are in your nirvana.

In summation, you cannot overstate the importance of half a century spent honing training methods and engagement techniques. Every sniper today stands on the shoulders of each and every school-trained and combat-experienced sniper who came before him. Because every mother's son of them contributed to the pool of knowledge and experience that was passed down to those who came after. By the same token, you can't overemphasize how important the work was of the "pioneers" of American sniping because they were making it up on the fly, pulling it out of their ass as they went. Whatever snipers like Chris Kyle might have accomplished, they owe a debt of thanks to the likes of Chuck Mawhinney and Carlos Hathcock for the solid foundation they stand on.

*This is a particular bug up my ass because Furlong's 2002 shot was reported at the time to have been the first shot in excess of Carlos Hathcock's 1967 2500-yard shot (fired from a Ma Deuce). However, Hathcock's kill shot was from a cold bore, the only round he fired. Furlong needed several shots to neutralize his target.

To date there has been only one confirmed shot at greater than 2500 yards that (reputedly) was from a cold bore, and that was the 2017 shot by a Canadian sniper in Iraq fired from 3875 yards, 2.2 miles. Except I have reason to believe that the bullet used in this case was DARPA's laser-guided self-steering .50-cal round. For reasons that are lengthy and outside the scope of this post, it is my considered opinion that that particular shot was used as a technology demonstrator, a DARPA field test of their invention.

So for my money, Hathcock's 1967 shot still reigns supreme. And the DARPA bullet works good.



About Carlos Hathcock. Unless you've read extensively about him, what you probably don't get about him is that his greatest contribution to the art of sniping was his fieldcraft; patience and durability combined with a natural gift for stealth. It was him I was alluding to above, crawling imperceptibly slowly for three days and nights across 1200 yards of open field (if you haven't already figured this out, snipers routinely piss in their pants because they have to drink water and stay hydrated but they can't risk standing up and unzipping their fly). And that's just one of many stories about what he was willing to endure just to get that shot. Enemy soldiers stepping within inches of where he lay camouflaged in the grass, deadly snakes crawling across his body while he was in sight of the enemy. When he was in Vietnam he weighed less than a buck and a half but routinely lost 20-30 pounds over the course of a mission. And usually came back covered from head to toe in insect bites.

Hathcock's family broke up and he was shuffled off to live with cash-poor Grandma in the hills of Arkansas. By the time he was old enough to manage a single-shot .22 rifle he was the family hunter. If there was meat on their table at night, it was because he had stalked it, killed it, skinned it and dressed it. He made a game of it, playing at being a soldier stalking the "Japs." Game or no, before his balls grew hair it was a matter of survival that he learn to move silently through the woods, and to make every shot count. And the die was cast.

Hathcock distinguished himself as a marksman when just 17 at Marine Corps boot camp. Ed Land made note of Hathcock at a number of shooting matches they both competed in in the early 1960s, and a couple of which Hathcock had won. When Staff Sergeant Hathcock went to Vietnam in 1966 as a military policeman, Captain Land invited him to attend and seated him in his second class at the USMC's brand-new scout sniper school.

It wasn't the number of kills but the impossibility of the odds that made Hathcock's exploits so noteworthy. Much of it sounds like it came from the plot of a James Bond film. In one case he was offered a mission after being told nothing except it was very important and very dangerous. He would only find out the who and the where after he had boarded the helicopter for parts unknown. He was flown low-level into North Vietnam and inserted a couple of kilometers from the camp of an NVA general who he was supposed to kill. And kill him he did, but only after the legendary three-day crawl, during which he was nearly stepped on by an NVA soldier and was crawled over by a deadly bamboo viper.

Apparently even the snake didn't see him.

Also, unlike today's snipers, Land's snipers were not favored with the finest gear the military could source. His first rifles were Winchester Model 70s chambered in .30-06 that Land begged/borrowed/stole from the "special service" rifles the Corps kept at Camp Perry. These were not military weapons but "recreational" rifles loaned to Marines to use while deer hunting in the camp's woodlands. And they were not in the best of condition. Land specifically remembered that the armorer's tag on the rifle issued to Hathcock read "Barrel: mild pitting throughout."

After Hathcock went to Vietnam, DoD got in bed with Remington, which had made the government a sweetheart deal on bolt-action rifles. Hathcock (and all the rest of the Marine snipers) were forced to trade in their .30-06 Winchesters for Remington 700s in .308. But Hathcock started creating his legend using a beat up old deer hunting rifle with a pitted barrel. Captain Land also said Hathcock's Model 70 struggled to shoot 2" groups at 100 yards. Which made his stalking skills especially useful because his rifle didn't shoot worth a darn!

On one occasion Hathcock found himself presented with an opportunity that his trusty Marine Corps .308 couldn't support. So he borrowed a Browning M2 .50-cal machine gun with a scope on it.



This is that very gun. The SeaBees (Navy construction engineers) ginned up the scope mount from aluminum bar stock. There were several like this one in country used in guarding static installations. Whenever the US built a fortified camp, they always would beat back the jungle as far as was practical to make it harder for "Charlie" to sneak up on them. This gave them such long fields of fire that they found it useful to "scope up" the ol' Ma Deuce.

Hathcock was given the mission of surveilling enemy traffic over a certain spot that was visible from what he referred to (in this video) as a mountain top. He even took the precaution of zeroing his range data using that gun and scope at what must have seemed like a ridiculous range, 2500 yards. Well low and behold, a Vietnamese soldier decides to reveal himself at literally that same spot. In the linked video, Hathcock notes that the man was bent over, possibly brushing his teeth or some such, when he let go the shot. But he knew immediately he had pulled the shot and was going to miss high. Except that while the bullet was in flight, the soldier stood up.

And that's how Hathcock scored a cold bore shot from 2500 yards with a tripod-mounted .50 BMG machine gun. All of which proves yet again, luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

On another occasion Hathcock got into a duel with an NVA counter-sniper who specifically had been sent on a mission to kill him. While they circled each other hoping to gain the tactical advantage, and the NVA sniper had taken one shot at him, which struck his spotter's canteen. When Hathcock finally took his one and only shot it produced a scene copied by every cheesy sniper movie since. He shot the NVA sniper in the eye, but only after the bullet had passed through his rifle's telescopic sight. Which means he had to be looking through the scope and directly at Hathcock when he was firing. It also means that if Hathcock had hesitated another half second, he might well have been the loser in the fight.

Hathcock was medivaced out of Vietnam and his career as a field sniper cut short in 1969 because he was badly burned when the armored personnel carrier he was riding in hit a land mine. And his injuries were worsened by his attempts to rescue the APC's wounded crewmen, for which he later was awarded the Silver Star medal. He instructed at Ed Land's sniper school for another ten years but in 1975 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and in 1979 his condition required that he be medically discharged.

By the time he left Vietnam, Carlos Hathcock was formally credited with 93 confirmed kills. The US conducted offensive operations in Vietnam until January of 1973 so absent the land mine incident he potentially could have had another 27 months in country to run up the tally even more.

Still, Hathcock estimated his "probables" to be in the neighborhood of 200-300. Given his gift for understatement, the higher number is generally believed closer to correct. Even if it's only the lower number, given the greater accuracy of the modern accounting methods, Hathcock almost without question killed at least half again more of the enemy than Chris Kyle did (as a sniper). Possibly twice as many.

Chris Kyle is a legendary sniper because of how brilliantly he executed his duties as a sniper. Carlos Hathcock is a legend period because he is foundational to the modern art of sniping. And because he did things as a sniper that no one apart from Carlos Hathcock would have ever imagined possible.

[JaneDoe]

Kyle was a great sniper. But Carlos White Feather Hathcock was the best.

Was The 'American Sniper' Of The Vietnam War

[Capebuffalo]

I read about this lady a while back. Yes a lady.
Pavlichenko fought for about two and a half months near Odessa, where she recorded 187 kills.[11] She was promoted to Senior Sergeant in August 1941, when she reached 100 confirmed kills. At age 25, she married a fellow sniper whose name was Alexei Kitsenko.[7] Soon after the marriage, Alexei was mortally wounded by a mortar shell. He died from his injuries after a few days in the hospital.[9] When the Romanians gained control of Odessa on 15 October 1941, her unit was withdrawn by sea to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula,[11] where she fought for more than eight months.[10][8] There she trained almost a dozen snipers, who killed over a hundred Axis soldiers during the battle.[8] In May 1942, newly promoted Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Army Council for killing 257 Axis soldiers. Her total of confirmed kills during World War II was 309,[12][10] including 36 enemy snipers.
In June 1942, Pavlichenko was hit in the face with shrapnel from a mortar shell. After her injury, the Soviet High Command ordered that she be evacuated from Sevastopol via submarine.[13] She was too valuable to lose as she was the perfect example of Soviet womanhood.[8] She spent around a month in the hospital; she did not go back to the Eastern Front after her injuries.[9] Instead she became a propagandist for the Red Army.[7] Due to her high kill count, she was nicknamed "Lady Death".[14][7][3] She also trained snipers for combat duty till the end of the war in 1945.[3]

[Beetlegeuse]

By the time Operation Barbarossa reached the gates of Stalingrad, the Red Army already was suffering from a shortage of manpower. And because of the symbolic importance of "Stalin City" (Stalin gorod) they began aggressively recruiting women as snipers.

Soviet snipers ran up huge scores -- especially in battles like the seige of Stalingrad -- because they had been ordered not to retreat. Kill Germans until either you are killed or they cease coming. Not that they wouldn't have fought fiercely anyway. Patton once said something to the effect that 'you might kick my ass clean across Mexico, but come the border of Texas, you've got a by-god fight on your hands.' IOW, it's natural to fight all the harder to defend home(land) and hearth.

But them other guys, them pesky Nazis, they wouldn't stop advancing because they served an equally ruthless dictator who would have had them shot for cowardice if they failed to march straight into the jaws of certain death. Which created a target-rich environment for the Soviet snipers.

One of the things Hollyweird almost always gets wrong is that the standard method for dealing with a sniper ... is artillery. Artillery has been the infantryman's best friend (or worst enemy, if it's the enemy's) ever since there've been cannon. And by WWI the mortar had evolved into man-portable artillery piece that followed the lowly infantryman everywhere he went.

Trying to advance on a sniper's position is just playing to his strength. Let the mortarmen deal with it. Which is one reason so many snipers in WWII are noted to have been killed by artillery. And why sniper-on-sniper confrontations were exceedingly rare.

Stalin didn't give a fig about the snipers' casualty rate, he wanted his namesake city saved from Hitler. I've read sources stating that 80% of women Russian snipers were killed in the line of duty.

[Capebuffalo]

By the time Operation Barbarossa reached the gates of Stalingrad, the Red Army already was suffering from a shortage of manpower. And because of the symbolic importance of "Stalin City" (Stalin gorod) they began aggressively recruiting women as snipers.

Soviet snipers ran up huge scores -- especially in battles like the seige of Stalingrad -- because they had been ordered not to retreat. Kill Germans until either you are killed or they cease coming. Not that they wouldn't have fought fiercely anyway. Patton once said something to the effect that 'you might kick my ass clean across Mexico, but come the border of Texas, you've got a by-god fight on your hands.' IOW, it's natural to fight all the harder to defend home(land) and hearth.

But them other guys, them pesky Nazis, they wouldn't stop advancing because they served an equally ruthless dictator who would have had them shot for cowardice if they failed to march straight into the jaws of certain death. Which created a target-rich environment for the Soviet snipers.

One of the things Hollyweird almost always gets wrong is that the standard method for dealing with a sniper ... is artillery. Artillery has been the infantryman's best friend (or worst enemy, if it's the enemy's) ever since there've been cannon. And by WWI the mortar had evolved into man-portable artillery piece that followed the lowly infantryman everywhere he went.

Trying to advance on a sniper's position is just playing to his strength. Let the mortarmen deal with it. Which is one reason so many snipers in WWII are noted to have been killed by artillery. And why sniper-on-sniper confrontations were exceedingly rare.

Stalin didn't give a fig about the snipers' casualty rate, he wanted his namesake city saved from Hitler. I've read sources stating that 80% of women Russian snipers were killed in the line of duty.

White feather vs The Cobra. That’s a hell of a story.

[Beetlegeuse]

775 confirmed kills in one picture, 1945



Female snipers* of the 3rd Shock Army, 1st Belorussian Front. The ‘Shock’ armies were created with the specific structure to engage and destroy significant enemy forces, and were reinforced with more armored and artillery assets than other combined arms armies. Where necessary the Shock armies were reinforced with mechanized, tank and cavalry formations and units.

The snipers in the picture:
First row – Guard Staff Sergeant, VN Stepanova: 20 kills, Guard Sgt JP Belousova: 80 kills, Guard Sgt AE Vinogradova: 83 kills.
Second row – Guard Lieutenant EK Zhibovskaya: 24 kills, Guard Sgt KF Marinkin: 79 kills, Guard Sgt OS Marenkina: 70 kills.
Third row – Guard Lieutenant NP Belobrova: 70 kills, Lieutenant N. Lobkovsky: 89 kills, Guard Lieutenant VI Artamonova: 89 kills, Guard Staff Sergeant MG Zubchenko: 83 kills.
Forth row – Guard Sergeant, NP Obukhova: 64 kills, Guard Sergeant, AR Belyakova 24 kills.

Total number of confirmed kills: 775. Photo taken in Germany, May 4, 1945.

Because of chronic problems in finding the manpower to fulfill military and industrial tasks, the Soviet government recruited some 7.75 million women, of whom 800,000 served in the military. Sniping was a precision role, which many women soldiers performed with expertise. It is estimated that in 1943 there were more than 2,000 female snipers in the Soviet armed forces. Female snipers have been credited with more than 12,000 confirmed kills.

The Soviet Union used women for sniping duties extensively, and to great effect, including Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya and Ukrainian Lyudmila Pavlichenko (who killed over 300 enemy soldiers). The Soviets found that sniper duties fit women well, since good snipers are patient, careful, deliberate, can avoid hand-to-hand combat, and need higher levels of aerobic conditioning than other troops. Women were regarded as having the skills and nerves required for accurate marksmanship. Notwithstanding male skepticism, Major General Morozov, “the father of the sniper movement”, attributed superior female marksmanship to the fact that “a woman’s hand is more sensitive than is a man’s. Therefore when a woman is shooting, her index finger pulls the trigger more smoothly and purposefully”.

The most successful Soviet use of snipers during the Second World War was during their defensive stage of the war (1941–1943), after which the advantage of defense shifted to the German side and German snipers became a real danger to the advancing Soviets. Soviet military doctrine used snipers for providing long-distance suppressive fire and for eliminating targets of opportunity, especially leaders, because during World War II, Soviet military leaders and combat theorists found that military organizations had difficulty replacing experienced non-commissioned officers and field officers during times of war. They also found that the more expensive and less rugged sniper rifles could match the cost-effectiveness of a cheaper assault rifle given good personnel selection, training, and adherence to doctrine.

#30#

I said years ago that eventually everything that is known will be somewhere in the Internet. This photo goes to that point.

*It's sickening that even native English speakers speak such shit English. They're not "female" snipers, they're women snipers. Female in this case is used as an adjective, not a noun, an adjective modifying "snipers," as in "snipers of women." "Women snipers" are snipers who have two X chromosomes. "Female sniper" makes no reference to the sex of the sniper.