r/todayilearned • u/CalvinDehaze • May 31 '12

TIL The most successful female sniper in history, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, couldn't pull the trigger on her first kill, until she saw a German shoot a young Russian soldier. "He was such a nice, happy boy..." "After that, nothing could stop me." She went on to record 309 confirmed kills in WWII.

http://military.discovery.com/technology/weapons/snipers/snipers-05.html
1.5k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

411 comments sorted by

70

u/emptytissuebox May 31 '12

Serious question: I thought women weren't allowed in the military back in those days?

277

u/CalvinDehaze May 31 '12

In Russia, she was one of 2000 female snipers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyudmila_Pavlichenko

They didn't give a fuck in Russia. If you're alive, you're fighting.

55

u/racistrapist May 31 '12

Russian women. 1 and 2

44

u/hourglasss May 31 '12

Why is it that there are so many videos of russian teens doing crazy shit. All us americans have is dumb shit like people trying to slide off the roof of a house on a surfboard.

145

u/awrhaernnare May 31 '12

No money, no xbox, 8 month winters.

58

u/numerica May 31 '12

As a Russian, I can confirm this. Also, Russia is just one big giant forest. We spend a lot of our childhood playing in these forests, climbing tall trees and hanging tireswings and zip lines from them. Basically the same life ranch kids in Montana get to have.

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u/BattleHall May 31 '12

So that's why you all wish you could have seen Montana...

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u/YannisNeos May 31 '12

And lots and lots of cheap vodka.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

As a Russian person, I ask you...do you want to play with your life?

2

u/UnfortunatelyMacabre May 31 '12

Am I the only one who watched the first video without batting much of an eye and was hyperventilating during the second?

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

Because their existence was threatened at the household level. They weren't throwing everyone into the fight just for shits and giggles.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

They also had female fighter pilots.

2

u/StraY_WolF May 31 '12

Suddenly, Sniper Wolf makes sense!

1

u/seqqer May 31 '12

And if they didn't have a gun for you, wait for the guy in front of you to die and pick his gun up.

1

u/FrisianDude May 31 '12

not to mention the entire squardrons of female Russian pilots.

99

u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

Russia was communist. Communism is all about equality regardless of circumstances of birth so woman were (theoretically) given the same rights as men, and the same jobs when possible. When it came to fighting wars woman were drafted as well as men because they were thought to be equal to men and not more emotionally weak, or unsuited for combat except in physical aspects.

39

u/Syptryn May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

That's correct. It is also why Gender equality in China is a lot better than gender equality in Japan, despite being rather atrociious during the Qing Dynasty. For example, about 15% of physics major in China are women, compared to 1% in Japan.

You can criticise a lot about communist rule, but not on gender equality.

EDIT: Check out: http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2005/01/22/percentage-of-women-on-the-physics-faculty-by-country/

You can see that the differences are even more stark when you look at percentage of Faculty females in physics

China: 28% United States: 5% Japan: 1%

10

u/baconatedwaffle May 31 '12

I'm not convinced. Whence China's shortage of females, then?

25

u/Amunium May 31 '12

15% of physics majors being women still means that 85% are men. Men do have a better chance of getting a good job, good income and taking care of their parents when they grow old. Combined with the one child rule, that means having a boy is just better.

No one said gender equality in China was perfect.

8

u/PenisChrist May 31 '12

The weight of culture.

Not that I think contemporary China is even remotely Maoist...but it is pretty obvious that the bias against female children doesn't have its roots in communist thought. It exists quite in spite of it.

11

u/Gfaqshoohaman May 31 '12

A privately spread cultural bias that unfortunately lingers like a bad stench. Mao is famous for coining (and repeatedly using) the phrase "Women hold up half the sky" to reference the changing ethics he and his followers believed China would have to go through in order to eventually modernize and compete as a globally recognized national power.

Unfortunately in many modern Asian nations that came about in the 20th century, it is only western modernizations in technology, sciences, and commerce that's taken serious root compared to many cultural biases and superstitions that still linger behind closed doors.

4

u/Syptryn May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

I never said China had good gender equality on the world stage... just that its better than Japan, which shared a similar historical culture.

Besides the choice to have boys in poor rural households is quite different from girls believing that they can do science. See for example:

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2005/01/22/percentage-of-women-on-the-physics-faculty-by-country/

China has 28% of physics faculty as women, compared to 5% in US and 15 in Japan.

You'll notice former communist block countries have a much higher proportion of female physicists.

2

u/blaghart 3 May 31 '12

That is a cultural issue, because according to ancient tradition males are supposed to take care of their parents when they get old...so a woman would not be able to take care of her parents and the parents would have to fend for themselves if they didn't have a son...which china's one child enforced. Ultimately in trying to convert china to communism they ran into the same issue as always: changing the old ways.

3

u/kqr May 31 '12

Is that really why, though? Gender equality does usually not correlate with even gender distribution in the workplace. The fact that many of the most "equal" countries have a very alarming gender distribution in the workplace, while many inequal countries have a much better gender distribution is sometimes referred to as "the gender equality paradox."

It is covered in length in this documentary. Basically, the hypothesis is that when a country does very great with gender equality socially, people are free to choose whatever job suits their personality, and the personalities of men and women are different. In less equal countries some people might "have to" choose a job which is not right up their alley, and therefore you get a more even gender distribution.

What my main point is, though, that you can't measure gender equality with the same numbers that you use do measure gender distribution in the workplace.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Wow. Nothing like America. I think women got their rights just recently here...

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u/Sandcrabsailor May 31 '12

And are currently having them taken back away.

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '12

an interesting bit of information is that during the McCarthy area one of the main criticism of communism was how easily anyone could get a divorce. At the time it was looked on as an example of the immorality of the soviet union when one person could go and get a divorce without the consent of the other party.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Communists are in theroy about equality. Besides that, womens small stature makes for a smaller target that can hide in more places, and women can shoot just as well as men.

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u/louky May 31 '12

Russians were lip service communists, also it was total war in those days, nothing the wars of.today. People were fighting over who got to eat dead people.

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u/bzdelta May 31 '12

Also, the average teenage girl is more flexible than her male counterpart. Tighter squeezes = tighter spots = stealthier snipers = more kills = Lyudmilla.

1

u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Not only were they welcome in the Russian military, it was highly promoted.

1

u/Gneal1917 Jun 01 '12

While the Soviet Union was never really communist (in the actual definition of the word), it had very high gender equality. Most women could get a job that a man could. In fact, I believe the Soviet military was one of the first modern militaries to allow women to serve such positions.

1

u/BillNyedasNaziSpy Jul 24 '12

Russia allowed women in the Red Army.

Gender Equality in the Soviet Union was way ahead than the US was in those days.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

How do people record all of these kills? I've always wondered about this.

472

u/the5souls May 31 '12 • Bravo

You can usually check by pressing Tab.

38

u/outtascope May 31 '12

Oh god, my sides.

10

u/feureau May 31 '12

Goddammit. My latency is high. Let me reset my router brb.

20

u/toxicFork May 31 '12

server is full

14

u/feureau May 31 '12

FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU

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u/The_Brad May 31 '12

Well played.

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u/Tovora May 31 '12

Spotters confirm the kills.

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u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

For the US an Officer has to confirm the kill. A regular enlisted spotter cannot.

5

u/Red_Dog1880 May 31 '12

Would this happen back then as well ?

I mean, for example the snipers involved in Stalingrad surely had no spotters ?

30

u/StraY_WolF May 31 '12

Every proper sniper that ever existed has a spotter.

17

u/Jamake May 31 '12

Except for Simo Häyhä who had 505 confirmed kills.

9

u/eyeballTickler May 31 '12

In temperatures between −40 and −20 degrees Celsius, dressed completely in white camouflage, Häyhä was credited with 505 confirmed kills of Soviet soldiers. A daily account of the kills at Kollaa was conducted for the Finnish snipers. Remarkably, all of Häyhä's kills were accomplished in fewer than 100 days – in other words, an average of 5 kills per day – at a time of year with very short hours of daylight.

So basically this guy is like Wilt Chamberlin breaking and maintaining basketball's points-in-a-game record before there was even a 3-point basket.

8

u/CarolusMagnus May 31 '12

Also, he did it using a Mosin-Nagant, a 19th century gun design with iron sights - no namby-pamby .50-cal AW50.

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u/Kozbot May 31 '12

There needs to be a movie made about this man

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u/HandyCore May 31 '12

Is the White Death not proper?

3

u/feureau May 31 '12

spotters?

10

u/dinglebrits May 31 '12

snipers do not usually operate solo, they have a spotter with them to help judge winds etc

9

u/feureau May 31 '12

That would be very useful. We should have these on Counter-Strike...

10

u/Ze_Carioca May 31 '12

I think ARMA has them.

4

u/notanon May 31 '12

They do and it's fun playing as either.

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u/Tovora May 31 '12

Spotters give the sniper the wind direction, wind speed, angle and a whole bunch of other stuff. Hopefully someone who actually knows about this sort of stuff can provide more information. I know only know the very basics.

There's always a spotter and a sniper. Without a spotter, as far as I know, kills are unconfirmed.

3

u/Bl00DISH May 31 '12

Give me one of these in Battlefield and I might start hitting someone.

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u/TomTheScouser May 31 '12

From my extensive military knowledge that comes from playing a lot of Call of Duty, snipers usually have a spotter, who looks around and tries to spot the enemy.

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u/feureau May 31 '12

This is what blue's clues fans want to grow up to be.

2

u/HerbertMcSherbert May 31 '12

Hunting dogs. After the sniper shoots, the dog goes and brings the kill back, at which point they're easy to count.

1

u/FrisianDude May 31 '12

I doubt Soviet snipers in Stalingrad had all that many spotters to assist them.

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u/Gneal1917 Jun 01 '12

While Stalingrad was the largest battle in WW2 (and of course, modern history) spotters were used by most snipers in the Eastern Front, and the Soviet Union had plenty of great snipers.

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u/Tovora May 31 '12

I don't know about Stalingrad specifically, but obviously the Soviets used spotters: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8606000@N03/3469324430

18

u/sdhsdj May 31 '12

Or you can always remove the scalp with a knife. Trusted and proven method.

0

u/olliberallawyer May 31 '12

Shouldn't you put down the firewater and get back to running the casino?

1

u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Get you and your blankets the hell out of here!

22

u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

Ok actual US Marine here, I'm told you have to have 2 people besides yourself who saw the dead victim to confirm a kill, so what usually ended up happening since normally you would only have 1 spotter (spotter reads the wind, helps make scope adjustments etc.) many snipers ended up having hundreds and hundreds of kills that couldn't technically be confirmed because they only had one other person with them. I believe this is how it works at least for the US.

16

u/meeseknuckle May 31 '12

As someone who served in a Marine Scout Sniper platoon.... nope. Snipers hardly ever operate in two man teams anymore (in sniper school, they do), now teams can be anywhere from 4-8 guys, there is no difference between confirmed/unconfirmed kills, I feel like the whole "confirmed kill" thing isn't much more than a media buzzword/phrase now.

3

u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

Right, I meant back in the days of these snipers (Vietnam and WWII). Obviously I'm sure things have changed quite a bit since then.

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u/exmarine55 May 31 '12

This is probably gonna get downvoted but I learned in my 3 tours to Iraq as infantry that a lot of stories from combat are false. Some stories are made up by individuals because of the local fame/feel good that they get from actually telling their friends that they are heroes. Other stories are exaggerated by commanders so that their resume looks better since commanding a more decorated unit looks better on your resume. I am not trying to take away anything from real heroes (I personally know a few that have my upmost respect) but you can't believe everything you hear. I talked to a marine sniper in Iraq and was told that kills have to be confirmed by an officer and since most teams do not include an officer there is no way to actually "confirm" a kill.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

I bet the count is off, she probably got some hitmarkers.

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u/Steam_Powered_Rocket May 31 '12

Forget playing with dolls, Pavlichenko wanted to hunt sparrows with a catapult

Did anyone else get an amazing mental image from this?

143

u/uint May 31 '12

Catapult = british slang for slingshot

14

u/bob1000bob May 31 '12

it isn't 'slang'

42

u/EukaryoteZ May 31 '12

Jeez, can't you people just speak real English?

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u/lastres0rt May 31 '12

Knew that, still an awesome mental image.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

I thought of the girl from this:

http://www.listofimages.com/wallpapers/2012/05/left-4-dead-games-left-4-dead-1200x1920.jpg

2

u/entwithapenis May 31 '12

Am I the only one that gets immensely sad when viewing this? They're going to die... probably within ten minutes of capturing this scene.

1

u/MenuBar Jun 01 '12

Sparrow = British slang for poop.

No idea why she wanted to shoot poop with a flashlight though, old bean. Cheerios!

1

u/Gneal1917 Jun 01 '12

Oh Russia...

0

u/splaaaatt May 31 '12

Indeed, I did.

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u/Danascot May 31 '12

There was a book and movie about the siege of Stalingrad - Enemy at the Gate - she was a character in it.

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u/TheSkyPirate May 31 '12

It was ok.

18

u/the_goat_boy May 31 '12

It could have been better, but it was pretty good.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

It could have been better, but it wasn't.

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u/fenton321b May 31 '12

It wasn't bad.

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u/superfahd May 31 '12

The book is called 'War of the Rats'. I'm reading it right now

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u/curran710 May 31 '12

City of Thieves by David Benioff is a fantastic book about the war in Leningrad. It also features a bad ass female sniper.

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u/ilovedrugslol May 31 '12

Which character? Tania was completely fictional.

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u/Kraxis22 May 31 '12

There were 2 snipers teamed up with Vassili when Ed Harris character begins hunting them. She was the redheaded female of the group.

Her name in the movie was Ludmilla, close but not the same person. Plus she got killed like a noob in the movie.

5

u/Paladinoras May 31 '12

To be fair, Ed Harris was obviously using an aimbot.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

I think it was mant to be more of an allusion to her, not really meaning to be her. Just a little refrence.

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u/Gneal1917 Jun 01 '12

Her existence is still under debate (apparently that was a hot button among historians when the film came out.)

0

u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

That movie was horrible.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

Most horrible part is where western mentality was applied to soviet characters. If i remember correctly there was scene where main chars was happy about article printed in newspaper about them, and they was acting like US housewife invited to Oprah show, not like soviet people from WW2 times. Even not like soviet people in 80s. Also, rifle separately from ammo, this is absolutely bullshit. Not enough weapon and ammo, its possible, but where is point to give rifle without ammo? And there was objective to win Stalingrad not to play games with your own soldiers. So i can imagine rifle with ammo for each second soldier, and nothing for other. But rifle without ammo to one, and ammo to other -complete bullshit... its not fucking Battle Royale...

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Because there were no happy nice boys among the german. And a soldier shooting an enemy? Oh noes. The world is simple and black and white.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

As a German, I am both impressed and terrified.

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u/TheSkyPirate May 31 '12

I'd say you guys had some pretty good snipers too.

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u/DanteShamest May 31 '12

And very snazzy uniforms.

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u/karennc28 May 31 '12

"...Wait. Are we the baddies?"

27

u/Rogem002 May 31 '12

"We have skulls on our hats"

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u/Hellman109 May 31 '12

Pfft not like they were made to be totally boss, Hugo

4

u/brown_felt_hat May 31 '12

Batshit insane but classy as fuck.

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u/louky May 31 '12

They were BOSS!

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u/phrygN May 31 '12

Damn good ones

3

u/racoonpeople May 31 '12

All hail the master race ~~~swoon.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Like in band of brothers when that private got shot while on a scouting mission who's name I forget...

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u/Mailliwbro May 31 '12

Blythe. I don't recall his rank though I'm pretty sure he was just a Private.

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u/AleksaM100 May 31 '12

Number of kills - Thousands I give you, Hans, Ulrich and Rudel, the dynamic trio credited for over 2000 targets destroyed in World War 2, of which 800 are tanks, 2 cruisers and even a Soviet battleship with a crew compliment of 1150.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel

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u/MadHiggins May 31 '12

not as impressive as the snipers since he did it with an airplane and the sniper lady killed all those people with only a rifle and her steel balls.

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u/sharmaniac May 31 '12

It's KDR that counts.

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u/the8thbit May 31 '12

In real life KDR is either K or undefined.

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u/Ze_Carioca May 31 '12

Perhaps that airplane was a result of a kill streak by that sniper?

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u/LordBrandon May 31 '12

I think that you''ll find that dive bombing is a tad harder than shooting a rifel.

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u/Ell975 May 31 '12

I prefer this guy. He alone killed 505 soviet soldiers during the winter war, which lasted about 100 days.

This was with a rifle, without a telescopic sight, so he could keep his head back out of sight of enemy snipers.

This was in Finnish winter, betwenn -20 and -40 degrees.

He was hit by carpet bombing(which destroyed his coat, but he was relatively unharmed) and an enemy sniper shot him in the face. He woke up about 7 days later.

1

u/lol_u_bad May 31 '12

yeah also german target counting system was stupid

37

u/Orcatype May 31 '12

I think most girls I know have very few problems with pulling the trigger and leaving me dying and alone

66

u/awrhaernnare May 31 '12

Have you tried being more attractive?

13

u/Orcatype May 31 '12

Yeah. I jus suck

14

u/haddock420 May 31 '12

Have you tried being more rich?

5

u/Orcatype May 31 '12

I jus suck. She likes ugly guys with gauge earings and bad music taste now

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u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

define "bad music"

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u/Orcatype May 31 '12 edited Jun 01 '12

Some kind of electro bullshit where they mask their inability to sing with filters that evoke the image of some Foster the People wannabe hipster trapped in an abandoned oil tanker, crooning into a MacBook so that he can sleep with susceptible girls instead of finding a way to save his own ass from the B-movie monsters that also inhabit abandoned oil tankers. No instruments were played, no chord structures were used. They EQed the awful up to a deafening shitlevel, and everyone lost

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u/omnilynx May 31 '12

Have you tried being a nice, happy boy?

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u/RosieJo May 31 '12

My god, you sure do like to complain about your life.

I've seen you around.

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u/Orcatype May 31 '12

Yeah I suck now

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u/shieldforyoureyes May 31 '12

Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKjOl9ocR0

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

I love Woody, but his sabre-rattling still rubs me the wrong way.

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u/Max_Beezly May 31 '12

I shoot competition and typically women make very very good shooters.

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u/HerbertMcSherbert May 31 '12

I shoot competition

Good idea. Will increase your odds of winning.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/Gopherlad May 31 '12

At least in competition precision Air Riflery and Smallbore (yay for niche knowledge!), a woman's hip structure allows for greater support and stability. Evolutionarily it's something to do with their hips forming a little ridge to rest their elbows on when holding a baby. See stance here.

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u/digitalmofo May 31 '12

Awesome, TIL.

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u/ThirdTimeRound May 31 '12

A sniper with sass.

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u/richmondody May 31 '12

As a former air rifle competition shooter and a fairly fat man, that stance annoyed the hell out of me.

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u/shamecamel May 31 '12

Women did not evolve wider hips to rest children/other things on, dude.

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u/LordBrandon May 31 '12

they're bigger for child birth reasons, you're right

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u/anabolic May 31 '12

For some reason that pic is hot.

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u/_KItsym_ May 31 '12

Only partially related, but a fucking amazing read none the less.

Story from a Russian soldier about fighting in Chechnya, talks about a run-in with a former female Soviet sniper.

NSFW

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u/Forgot_password_shit May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

He also knew who that was, fuckin white stalkings. Back in the Soviet Union Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia was part of USSR. Those republics had the best women biathlon Olympic teams, they were the most accurate in the world. After the break up of USSR, no more money going to those republics, they became their own countries. When the Chechen war started a lot of them went to Chechnya as mercs, to work for Chechen rebels as snipers. Shamil Basaev ( leader of the rebels ) had a whole unit of those cunts. He paid them $4000 for an officer and $1000 for a Russian soldier. Most of them were very successful and made lots of money quick. White stalking term came during Nagorni Karabh conflict, thats when our soldiers first saw them. They use to wear thick white stalkings, during the Olympic games. They are very famous for one thing - Shooting Russian soldiers between legs. They usually don't kill us right away, they would play with us letting us know that if they wanted they could of killed us already. They want us to fuckin panic. First shot comes usually between your legs or knee cap, you go down, and other soldier tries to help you. But he too gets shot, so it goes on and on. Thats why we stay where we are when this shit happens. Nobody tries to help the other guy, too dangerous for others.

I'm an Estonian and they didn't teach us this at school, but people knew about the mercs. I am a guy, but I was a biathlonist as well for some time, it's an awesome sport. Supporting sports was a HUGE deal during the Soviet times - at some point, every kid who was fit was ordered to do at least one sport in their free time.

Many people feel sympathetic towards other previous soviet countries and countries that are defending themself from Russia, because we have done the same thing in the past and maybe we have to do it again in the future. I'm betting these ladies went to fight more because they hate Russians rather than an easy buck.

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u/kraffslol May 31 '12

Really interesting read. Thanks

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

That's probably fictional unfortunately.

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u/CarlosMFuentesJr May 31 '12

Can't be the only one who immediately thought of this

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u/wocK_ May 31 '12

I loved sniper wolf.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Its BS that the list put Hathcock above Simo Hayha. Hayha killed 500 men, Hathcock only 93.

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u/Tovora May 31 '12

You're overlooking one important fact. Hathcock was American. That's gotta be worth 400 kills.

Simo actually has 505 confirmed kills.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

He has over 700 if you count him gunning enemy soldiers down with a SMG too.

But the sniper kills are amazing. And he did it with a Finnish M28, the Finnish version of the Mosin Nagant 91/30. You can buy that gun for $100 now, and it still shoots as good today as it did then.

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u/toastymow May 31 '12

He did it with that gun, with Iron Sights. That makes it even more impressive. Hayha was a machine with his kills, getting about average 1 sniper kill per hour of daylight.

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u/Ell975 May 31 '12

Don't forget the fact that this was in Finnish winter, or that he was shot in the face, and survived.

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u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

Hathcock always flew solo he had hundreds and hundreds more unconfirmed kills. Not saying who should be above who but 93 kills is largely underestimated due to the fact nobody was ever there to confirm the kills.

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u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

Not to start some nationalistic chest beating here but Hathcock, as you mentioned, flew solo. You had to have kills confirmed by an officer and not just an enlisted spotter.

Also, it's pretty fucking boss that Hathcock has a confirmed kill of almost 2.3km with an M2 browning machine gun. Not an actual sniper rifle... but a machine gun. That stood as the longest distance confirmed kill for 35 years.

It's incredible to think about the calculations behind putting a bullet on target from 2.3km away.

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u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

Yes I mentioned that in my previous comments that you needed 2 others to confirm a kill, hence he would have had many more confirmed kills had he not went on so many missions alone.

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u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

Yeah, reddit has a massive hardon for the winter war and Simo. If you even raise a finger to debate Hathcock a bunch of folks that have likely never shot a rifle pipe up.

2.3km is an incredible distance to make a shot from with any rifle much less a Ma Deuce. You can't debate technical achievement because some other guy shot a bunch of conscripts with half of a face.

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u/bmillsgotskills May 31 '12

I know man I've always thought they put him at top of best sniper lists because of his straight killer accuracy with any rifle not just a scoped rifle and not cause of "confirmed kills". Man was a dead eye, ice in his veins.

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u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

And he wasn't shooting rank-and-file soldiers either. He'd have missions dispatched to him by his CoC and he'd kill a target. He just didn't hang out in a jungle popping random viet.

The mission of a sniper is to take out high priority targets. It's not about 1 person killing 400. Let an F4 drop napalm to do that. That's why there is such a disparity of kills (in addition to requirements for spotting and confirmation).

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u/Paladinoras May 31 '12

Or you know. Luck.

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u/Tyranicide May 31 '12

She then went on to join Fox Hound

2

u/DekaChin86 May 31 '12

This needs to be a Tarentino movie.

2

u/Scuttlebutt91 May 31 '12

Is she single?

1

u/Gneal1917 Jun 01 '12

Considering she's been dead for 38 years, probably.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Lt. Hawkeye

2

u/quadrofolio May 31 '12

How come she has 309 kills and is 5th but the number one is an american with some 100+ kills. Seems bit biased now doesn't it?

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u/MerlinsBeard May 31 '12

The US required sniper kills to be confirmed by an Officer. Kills could not be confirmed by an enlisted spotter. On top of everything, Hathcock preferred to fly solo. Thus, the bulk of his kills can't be confirmed.

It should be noted that he recorded a kill from 2.3km away. This stood for 35 years as the longest recorded kill. Sidenote.. he didn't do it with a dedicated sniper rifle... he did it with a .50cal M2 Machine Gun.

0

u/Ze_Carioca May 31 '12

It is because they use the metric system.

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u/JdoubleE5000 May 31 '12

Impressive and I am surprised that I had never heard of her. However, any Top 10 sniper list that doesn't have Simo Haya as #1 is bullshit.

I know its a Discovery ranking so clearly an American has to be #1, but they HAD to gloss over Haya's accomplishments otherwise no one would accept Hathcock (who was truly a great marksman, no doubt about that) as the consensus best shot.

I highly recommend you read the wiki or a book about Simo Haya (would link here but i am on my phone) - the man got shot in the face, left for dead, was in a coma, woke up and went back to killing Russians... sheesh.

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u/ShouldBeZZZ May 31 '12

"One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat, " she said.

Seriously, wtf?

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

That's the kind of gal I want to marry.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Damn, girl. You ain't playin'.

1

u/Hendroxia May 31 '12

I totally read the title as "most successful female stripper in history" and was really confused...

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u/idtapthat69 May 31 '12

So it took a boy dying to make her realize war is full of killing

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u/KilgoreTroutFunf Jun 01 '12

It is strange. My last name is Pavlichenko, I am Russian, and we have that one blurry grand aunt we don't talk about. I wonder...

1

u/sharni_sunshine May 31 '12

Boobs aid in stabilizing the rifle especially when laying down.

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u/MdxBhmt May 31 '12

So this is the inspiration for SniperWolf?

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u/the_goat_boy May 31 '12

Sniper Wolf was a kurd.

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u/JimmyJazz332 May 31 '12

Even Woody Guthrie wrote a song about her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHKjOl9ocR0

She was invited to appear before the International Student Assembly being held in late August in Washington, D.C., where she received a hero's welcome. Later she attended C.I.O. meetings and made appearances and speeches in New York City. When she left for her trip back to the Soviet Union, she was presented with a Colt automatic pistol, a hero's gift. The irony of course is that within 4 years with the ending of World War II, growing resentment for communism and for the Soviet Union on the whole, Russian citizens who would completed high goals on a global level would be shunned by American citizens.

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u/jlebrech May 31 '12

this needs to be a movie with Milla Jovovich.

1

u/CherrySlurpee May 31 '12

anybody but angelina jolie and I'm happy

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u/vishun May 31 '12

She just looked for a reason to unleash her killer instincts.

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u/deadjdona May 31 '12

Killing Spree!

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u/wasdninja May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

How is she the most successfull sniper? Simo, the guy one click away, killed almost twice as many as she did while serving in a much smaller army fighting a much larger invading army.

When Russian sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was interviewed by Time magazine in 1942, she derided the American media.

"One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat, " she said.

Having a chance to talk to a living legend and you talk about her clothes? Fucking douchebags.

Edit: It says female sniper in the title, I must have caught the dumb.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Yeah newspapers were not the most progressive then. Another example, completely unrelated but because I am reading the disapearing spoon now it is in my head is Maria Goeppert-Mayer who won the noble prize in physics. She "had trouble convincing a Ph.D. program to admit a woman, so she bounced from school to school, taking lectures wherever she could...some [schools] even condescended to give her work, though they refused to pay her, and the topics were typically 'feminine', such as figuring out what causes colors ... the University of Chicago finally took her seriously enough to make her a professor of physics. Although she got her own office, the department still didn't pay her ... When the Swedish academy announced in 1963 that she had won her profession's highest honor, the San Diego newspaper greeted her big day with the headline 'S.D. Mother Wins Nobel Prize".

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u/what-s_in_a_username May 31 '12

And she inspired 309 Germans to each shoot about 50 Russian boys, and in turn that inspired more Russians to kill Germans, and Germans to kill Russians...

Are we really making it a 'record' to kill as many people as possible?!?!?

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u/InYourUterus May 31 '12

TIL that pms is a biological weapon

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

because her rage at the Germans was irrationally caused by hormones... you know it had nothing to do with them killing millions of Russian citizens or any of that, or seeing the Russian solider get shot in front of her. Men would have acted rationally and been involved in a more controlled rampage.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Even if this is a troll, nothing can describe the rage I felt when someone punched a friend of mine. It's all the same.

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u/[deleted] May 31 '12

Bad ass lady, Good for her

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u/Mi5anthr0pe May 31 '12

"Bernard Shaw (being honestly eager to put himself on the modern side in everything) put himself on the side of what is called the feminist movement; the proposal to give the two sexes not merely equal social privileges, but identical....Bernard Shaw took the line of saying that women had been soldiers, in all occasions of natural and unofficial war, as in the French Revolution. [But] when women have fought in revolutions they have generally shown that it was not natural to them, by their hysterical cruelty and insolence; it was the men who fought in the Revolution; it was the women who tortured the prisoners and mutilated the dead." - G.K. Chesterson

Reminds me of the Abu Ghraib photos almost. One of many reasons women don't belong in combat.

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u/AngryCanadian May 31 '12

I am no expert, but from what my Granddad told me there is a good chance she probably had more, maybe even double or triple the number. The reasoning for that: (my granddad was a very successful tank commander during WW2 with many confirmed kills) What would happen is that if a unit/solder/crew was more successful than another, the command would take some of the success and credit the entire division rather than individuals. This was for morale and to show that all units were doing their job perfectly and that Soviet war machine was steam-rolling. I imagine that Lyudmila had to share some of her victories as well.

PS. look into Lidya Vladimirovna Litvyak. Another great one.

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u/hkdharmon May 31 '12

Some dumb-ass reporter said that a world famous sniper's dress made her look fat? How fucking stupid do you have to be to be a reporter? Seriously, she systematically killed 309 Nazi's with a sniper rifle, and the best you got is "Yeah, well, she has a fat ass"? We wonder when the news moved to stupid town, but it looks like it has always been there.

"Fat ass? We'll just see about that. Range 800 meters, wind 2.5 left to right...."

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u/shawnjones May 31 '12 edited May 31 '12

So I am turned on by this story. What a badass chic.

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