Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

For most soldiers, combat means bullets whizzing past as they battle to survive in a firefight against enemy forces. But for an elite group, combat is very different. It’s slower, and every bullet counts. These skilled fighters lie in wait, hidden and watching until their target comes into view. And then they strike. A good sniper can turn the tide of a war with just one shot - and some have racked up shocking body counts. These are the ten most lethal snipers in history. 

#10. Chuck Mawhinney 

Growing up in the mountains of Oregon, Chuck Mawhinney was always destined for military success. Not only was he the son of a World War II Marine, but from an early age he was out there in the woods practicing his aim with a rifle on the local deer. By the time he graduated high school in 1967, he was an expert marksman and wasted no time enlisting in the US Marines just like his father. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 The Vietnam War was ramping up, so it wasn’t long before he was shipped off to Southeast Asia. And it didn’t take his instructors long to see they had a talent on their hands. He was quickly sent to Scout Sniper School, and spent sixteen months in Vietnam. He soon became known as one of the best snipers in Marine Corps history, setting a then-record of 103 kills - although many people say he may have taken out upwards of three hundred enemy soldiers. 

Regarded for his accuracy, the only miss he’s known to have made is shortly after his trusty rifle was serviced. After he was sent home, he kept his accomplishments secret and didn’t tell anyone about his time as a sniper - until a fellow service man wrote about his exploits in a Vietnam memoir. Now known as one of the all-time great snipers, Mawhinney still speaks to new classes at sniper school more than sixty years after his time in the war. 

#9. Henry Norwest 

Many of the best snipers come from isolated locations where they have time to practice their trade in the wild. That was also the case with Henry Norwest, the most feared sniper to come out of Canada in World War I. The son of indigenous Metis parents, he worked as a ranch hand, a rodeo cowboy, and even a Mounted Policeman before joining the Canadian military in 1915. 

But it wasn’t a smooth ride - he was kicked out of the military for drunken fighting before re-enlisting under another name. This one would stick - and he would soon become one of Canada’s greatest military heroes. Norwest grew up hunting in rural Alberta, and that made him a deadly sniper. He knew camouflage and could use the natural terrain to hide, and moved stealthily as he stalked his enemy and got the drop on them. 

 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

That allowed him to rack up a shocking 115kills witnessed by other soldiers, and he soon became the military’s go-to man for reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines. He earned the Military Medal in 1917, but the legendary sniper wasn’t invincible. On August 18th, 1918 a German sniper was just a little bit faster, and Henry Norwest became one of Canada’s many WWI casualties. The next WWI hero came from all the way across the world. 

#8. Billy Sing

 Born in Queensland, Australia to a Chinese father and English mother, Billy Sing grew up on a farm. But things weren’t easy for a mixed-race boy - there was a lot of anti-Chinese racism in Australia, and Sing learned skills to help him defend himself. He worked as a timber-hauler and joined local shooting clubs, winning prizes for marksmanship as a teenager. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 At just 18, he answered the call after war was declared and joined the Australian Imperial Force - impressing a recruiter who disregarded the rule that only white Australians were eligible to enlist. It would be the smartest decision that recruiter ever made. Sing was deployed in the Gallipoli campaign in modern day Turkey. The mountainous regions were ideal for snipers, and Sing’s expert marksmanship led to him becoming notorious among the Turkish enemy forces.

 A famous sniper nicknamed Abdul the Terrible was sent out to hunt Sing, but Sing out dueled him in a sniper battle and shot him dead. While Sing was injured several times and sickened by poison gas, he fought in the war until 1918 and racked up at least 150 kills - but historians say he may have sniped as many as 300. His injuries in the war led to his retirement, and in the aftermath of the war he lived a quiet life until his death in 1943. 

#7. Chris Kyle

 Growing up in Texas, Chris Kyle learned to hunt at the age of eight and spent his childhood shooting deer and birds. He worked briefly as a professional rodeo rider before enlisting in the elite Navy SEALS, graduating in March 2001 - only six months before the world would change leading to the United States entering two wars in the Middle East. Kyle was assigned to Seal Team-3, where he would become an elite sniper. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 But in the Iraq War, he would frequently face gut-wrenching choices - often having to decide whether to shoot someone who looked like a civilian but could actually be a suicide bombing in disguise. The war took its toll - but it couldn’t slow him down. Over his four tours in Iraq, Chris Kyle would rack up a shocking 160 kills, a confirmed record for a US military member. He received a Silver Star and multiple Bronze Stars for his valor, and was discharged honorably in 2009. 

He would go on to write an auto biography, American Sniper, where he talked frankly about the impact of the war. He also worked with other veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, something that would eventually lead to his own death, when he was fatally shot by a disturbed veteran in 2013. A year later, a film based on his life was released and went on to become the top-grossing film of the year. 

#6. Vasily Zaitsev 

the Russian front was one of the most brutal locations of World War II, a notorious killing field that spelled the end for countless Russian soldiers and invading Germans alike. But in Stalingrad, one Russian soldier would become a legend. Vasily Zaitsev grew up in a family of peasant farmers and was shooting deer and wolves from a young age. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 His initial work in the military was anything but glamorous as he worked as a clerk, but this humble clerk would soon turn out to be a deadly shot. Zaitsev volunteered to be transferred to the front lines, and was assigned to a rifle regiment. The army soon discovered that he could shoot from locations that seemed impossible. He would be stationed under rubble or even in water pipes, sniping German troops before they even knew he was there. Prior to the Battle of Stalingrad, he had only been credited with 25 kills, but during the battle he killed a stunning 225 enemy soldiers until a mortar injured his eyes. 

His eyesight was saved by a talented Russian eye surgeon, and Zaitsev returned to the front and retired with the rank of Captain. After the war, he would briefly be imprisoned as a suspected spy in 1951 under Stalin - a shocking fate for a war hero - but he was eventually cleared and lived until 1991, dying only eleven days before the fall of the Soviet Union. He wasn’t the only famous Russian sniper- but this next one had something different. 

#5. Lyudmila Pavilchenko 

Women weren’t a common sight on the frontlines in World War II, but the invasions into Russian meant that all option were now on the table - and one Soviet woman became a legend of war. Pavilchenko was a tomboy who grew up in Kiev, and just like many of the men on this list, she showed talent with a rifle from an early age. 

When Germany invaded, she quickly headed over to the recruitment office - where they promptly tried to send her to the nurses’ division. It was only when she showed them her papers from multiple shooting classes that they let her join the rifle division, and she became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army. In 1941 she picked up a fallen soldier’s rifle and took her first enemy life, but it would be far from the last. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 The siege of Odessa was her finest hour, where she killed 187 enemy soldiers. She would soon become a Lieutenant, marry a fellow sniper, and eventually notch a kill count of 309 enemies - the highest number ever recorded for a woman. After being injured in combat, she worked as a propagandist and trainer and gained the nickname Lady Death. She would even visit the United States and meet with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Although she would survive the war, her husband fell in combat, something that haunted her until her death in 1974. 

#4. Abu Tahsin al-Salihi 

The man who would be known as the Sheik of Snipers started out as a humble Iraqi shepherd who carried a rifle to protect himself. By 1973 he was an expert shot, and he would put that to work when war broke out between Israel and the Arab States. 

The Yom Kippur War was one of the region’s most brutal conflicts, and al-Salihi was stationed in the Golan Heights where he became a feared sniper. He would next fight in the Second Kurdish-Iraqi War only a year later, and then again in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. But he was far from done. Surviving all these wars, he would fight against American forces in both the Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War.

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

  When Iraq fell into a civil war involving the terrorist group ISIS, the now sixty-something Sheik of Snipers picked up his rifle yet again- and in his finest hour, would rack up a stunning 384 confirmed kills of ISIS members. But his time as a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces would eventually run out and so would his luck. In 2017, he was killed in action in the battle of Hawija, bringing an end to almost fifty years of sniping. 

#3. Francis Pegahmagabow 

Born on a First Nation reserve in Ontario, Francis lost his father at a young age and was later abandoned by his mother. Raised by a First Nation elder, he learned traditional medicine and hunting as a boy - skills that would serve him well when he volunteered for service in World War I. 

Those skills won over the recruiters and led to him being admitted despite a policy that was in place that didn’t allow First Nations members to serve. He became known for his tent being decorated with traditional Native symbols - and for his scary accuracy with a rifle. But he would soon encounter one of the worst horrors of the war. He fought on the Western Front, and was caught in the middle when the Germans first deployed Chlorine gas. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 Despite being injured, he managed to takeout many German soldiers and was promoted. In addition to his work as a sniper, he made several trips into no man’s land to retrieve ammunition, and by the time the war ended in 1918, he had managed to take out 378 German soldiers - and assisted in capturing 300 more. Highly decorated after the war, his dedicated the rest of his life to First Nations affairs and was highly regarded as an activist when he died in 1952. 

#2. Fyodor Okhlopkov 

The Yakut people, a Turkic ethnic group in Russia, mostly live in rural areas. Fyodor Okhlopkov grew up poor and was working in mines and factories from the age of twelve. But it was his hobby of sharpshooting that would pay off for him when he was drafted into the Red Army in 1941. His regiment was mostly composed of Siberians, and he lost his brother early in the war. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 While he rose in the ranks, it wasn’t until he was injured in combat that he found his true calling in war. While he was recovering, his unit lost most of its men, and he was sent back to the front line as the new unit sniper. He would exact a terrible cost on the enemy. During the next two years, he racked up atleast 429 enemy kills, and would be nominated for the award of Hero of the Soviet Union. 

He barely survived a chest wound near the end of the war, and by the time he had recovered the war was nearly over. He didn’t actually receive the award he was nominated for until 1968, near the end of his life, but rose to prominent positions in the Communist party all the same. While his military career didn’t continue after his close call with death, he remains one of Russia’s greatest war heroes. But one sniper racked up an even higher kill count. 

#1. Simo Hayha 

The Winter War was a little-known conflict outside of the countries directly involved in it, since it was overshadowed by the growing fronts of World War II. But the Soviet invasion of Finland led to brutal fighting, and it was also the birthplace of the deadliest sniper of all time. Simo Hayha grew up in a small Finnish town near the Russian border where he learned farming, hunting, and skiing. Only a teenager when he joined the volunteer militia, he quickly racked up sharpshooting awards and was later drafted into the army. 

Top 10 Most Lethal Snipers in History

 He displayed an amazing talent for accuracy, once hitting a target sixteen times from 150 meters away in only a minute! The Soviets would soon find out about his talents the hard way. Dressed entirely in white clothing that made him blend into the frozen north, Hayha made short work of the invading Russian troops. Joseph Stalin had eliminated most of his military experts in the 1930s, and Russian troops weren’t camouflaged, which made them easy targets for the master shot. He became known as the White Death, an invisible soldier who brought death from the snow. Propaganda was made about him, making him seem like a mythical figure. 

But one thing was very real - his shocking death toll of over five hundred Russian soldiers, the greatest confirmed kill count of all time. Although he was seriously wounded in battle, he survived the war and went on to live a quiet life as a moose hunter and dog breeder. The man known as the White Death chose a very different path after war and died peacefully over 60 years after he fought on the battle fields in 2002 at the age of 96. For more on how to join their elite ranks, check out “How to Become a US Army Sniper” or watch this video instead.