Sniper rifle is one of the most popular weapons in first person shooters. It's a real thrill to stalk your enemy and wait for the perfect moment to pull the trigger. One shot, one kill.

Before video games were invented, the only way to (legally) go on a killing rampage was joining the army and going to war. Snipers were needed in every major modern war and some people were very good at this. Let's find out who were the deadliest snipers in history.

The superstars of sniping history

Vasily Zaytsev was a Soviet sniper during World War II, notable particularly for his activities between November 10 and December 17, 1942 during the Battle of Stalingrad. He killed 225 soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht and other Axis armies, including 11 enemy snipers. Zaytsev had made 242 verified kills total, including one famous shot fired over the Volga River, but the real number may be much higher; some argue it might have been as many as 500.

He is notable for having participated in the Battle of Stalingrad. There, the Russians set up a snipers' training school in the Metiz factory; it was run by Zaytsev. The snipers Zaytsev trained were nicknamed zaichata, meaning "leverets" (baby hares). Conferences were arranged to spread the doctrine of "sniperism" and exchange ideas on technique and principles that were not limited to marksmanship skills. It is estimated that the snipers Zaytsev trained killed more than 3,000 enemy soldiers.

On February 22, 1943 Zaytsev was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.

Zaytsev was fictionalized in the film Enemy at the Gates (Jude Law played Zaytsev), which drew its inspiration from approximately three pages of the nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad, written by historian William Craig.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a Ukrainian Soviet sniper during World War II. Her recruiter urged her to become a nurse, but she insisted on becoming a soldier. Pavlichenko had a shooting certificate from a gun club in Kiev that she earned at age 14. She was assigned to the Red Army's 25th Infantry Division and became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army.

As a sniper, she made her first two kills near Belyayevka, using a Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle with a P.E. 4-power scope. Pavlichenko fought for about two and a half months near Odessa, where she recorded 187 kills. When the Germans gained control of Odessa, her unit was pulled to be sent to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. In May 1942, Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Army Council for killing 257 German soldiers. Her total confirmed kills during World War II was 309, including 36 enemy snipers. That makes her the greatest female sniper of all time.

She was sent to Canada and the United States for a publicity visit and became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a U.S. President when Franklin Roosevelt welcomed her at the White House. While visiting in Canada along with Vladimir Pehelintsev (fellow sniper) and Nikolai Krasavchenko (Moscow fuel commissioner), they were greeted by thousands at Toronto's Union Station.

Having attained the rank of Major, Pavlichenko never returned to combat but became an instructor and trained Soviet snipers until the war's end. In 1943, she was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and was commemorated on a Soviet postage stamp.

This guy is one of the reasons to fear Finns. Simo Häyhä was a Finnish soldier, and has the highest recorded number of kills as a sniper in any major war.

He's credited with more than 500 confirmed kills during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union (1939-1940). All of Häyhä's kills were accomplished within 100 days, working in temperatures between -20 and -40 degrees Celsius (-4 and -40 degrees Fahrenheit). Häyhä's record of an average of 5 kills a day, almost one kill per daylight hour of the short winter day, is unique, and he was called unstoppable by the Soviet Army. Unsurprisingly, he was nicknamed "Belaya Smert" (White Death) by the Soviet troops.

How do you kill so many enemy soldiers and stay undetected? His answer to this question was: "Practice". Employing some tricks will help too. Here are some of the tactics used by Häyhä:

• He prefered iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target (the sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to prevent visibility risks (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily), and aid concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position).
  
• He would freeze the snow in front of him so that the shot wouldn't puff the snow, thus revealing his position.
  
• He kept snow in his mouth so that when breathing he wouldn't reveal his position.
  

On March 6, 1940, Häyhä was shot in the jaw while on the frontline and went into a coma. He regained consciousness on March 13, the day peace was declared.

Shortly after the war, Häyhä was promoted straight from corporal to second lieutenant. No one else has ever gained rank in such a quick fashion in Finland's military history.

Photo	Name	Conflict	Service branch	Kills
	Simo Häyhä	W.W. II	Finland	542
	Ivan Sidorenko	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	500
	Nikolay Yakovlevich Ilyin	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	496
	Ivan Kulbertinov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	487
	V. N. Pchelintsev	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	456
	Mikhail Budenkov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	437
	Fyodor Matveevich Okhlopkov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	429
	Fyodor Djachenko	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	425
	Vasilij Ivanovich Golosov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	422
	Afanasy Gordienko	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	417
	Stepan Petrenko	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	412
	Erwin Konig (possibly fictional)	W.W. II	Germany	400
	Vasili Zaitsev	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	400
	Francis Pegahmagabow	W.W. I	Canada	379
	Semen D. Nomokonov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	367
	Abdukhani Idrisov	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	349
	Philipp Yakovlevich Rubaho	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	346
	Matthäus Hetzenauer	W.W. II	Germany	345
	Victor Ivanovich Medvedev	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	331
	E. Nicolaev	W.W. II	U.S.S.R.	324

You can find a more detailed list here:
http://www.snipercentral.com/snipers.htm

Resources
If you want to learn more about sniping history and snipers in general, visit:
Sniper Central
Wikipedia page on Soviet snipers

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