Simo Häyhä | The Deadliest Sniper In Military History

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments

You're in the sniper's sight

👍︎︎ 6 👤︎︎ u/ASSBLASSTERMASSTER69 📅︎︎ Oct 18 2019 🗫︎ replies

Heard about him in one of FrankieonPCin1080p's Battlefield War Story videos. Quite fascinating.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/H8ersgivemeSTR 📅︎︎ Oct 20 2019 🗫︎ replies

Finnish war veteran Simo Häyhä. My father met him 1995 in a national veteran's day party and he said to my father: "remember us… remember us" meaning all finnish war veterans.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/Muskelmage 📅︎︎ Oct 26 2019 🗫︎ replies
Captions
When World War II broke out in 1939, the Soviet Union decided to invade Finland while everyone else was preoccupied with the war in Europe. But a sniper named Simo Hayha came to Finland's defense. Hayha allegedly eliminated a staggering 505 enemy soldiers, which if accurate would make him the single deadliest sniper in history. Today, we're looking at the man Simo Hayha, and his unbelievable marksmanship. But before we get started, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel. Simo would have wanted it that way. All right, let's get sniping. As you might imagine, the invading Soviet soldiers grew to be straight up terrified of Hayha. Having to patrol the blanched Finnish wilderness with the knowledge that Hayha could be out there waiting dipping them with a spectacular long distant shot earned him the nickname Belaya Smert, which is Russian for White Death. However, Hayha's fellow Finnish soldiers had a completely different name for him. They called him Taika-ampuja-- Magic Shooter. Isn't Magic Shooter something for salad making? Anyway. While that nickname may have been as accurate as Hayha himself, we have to admit it is somewhat less intimidating than White Death. Simo's exact sniper count varies depending on the source. Some suggest he downed as many as 542 Soviet soldiers with his rifle. But no one claims he eliminated any less than 505. This makes him the most effective sniper in any war, with Soviet sniper Ivan Sidorenko sitting at a close second with 500 kills. However, Hayha's count may even be higher. Rather than stay at a comfortable distance behind his sniper rifle for the entire war, Hayha may have also cut down several hundred enemy combatants with a submachine gun. If true, that would put his count at approximately 800. Simo, that is a frightening number. Impressive sure, but holy cow, you're really good at your job. The Winter War lasted for a single winter, as his name suggests, which means Hayha was putting in serious work. In order to achieve his staggering record, Hayha was eliminating an average of five to six enemy soldiers every day. Of course, some days were better than others. Hayha racked up a terrifying 40 confirmed kills in a single day, scoring 25 and 20 on two other record days. The cloud of perpetual death in which he lived saw him promoted from corporal to second lieutenant-- the biggest rank jump in the history of Finland's military. Hayha did not use a scope to forge his legendary sniper count. He preferred to use the plain old iron sight on his rifle. Yeah, no scope. He's just an all around old fashioned bad ass. Beyond being hardcore, there was a strategic reason for this beyond just showing off. Hayha recognized that scopes gave his enemies an easy target. In addition to making the target slightly bigger, scopes would glint in the sunlight, allowing Hayha to spot enemy snipers before they spotted him. At the time, every Finnish citizen was required to do one year of military service, and Hayha had done his 14 years earlier back in 1925. That was the extent of his military experience. He did join the Finnish Civil Guard as a reservist, which is essentially the equivalent to the US National Guard, but he stuck to his civilian life of hunting and farming right up until the Soviets decided to invade in 1939, at which point he was summoned back to service. If his hunting record was anything like his war record, we suspect the deer around Hayha's home had a nickname for him, too. After he completed his year of mandatory service in 1925, Hayha was given the option to purchase his service weapon-- a standard bolt action rifle. He bought the gun and spent the next decade and a half mastering it. When he was called back to duty during the Winter War, Hayha brought his old bolt action rifle, turning down a more modern rifle with advanced optics. The extreme cold, which ranged anywhere from minus 20 to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit, caused frequent weapon malfunctions among his fellow soldiers. But Hayha's experience with his bolt action BFF allowed him to keep the gun functional throughout the winter. While only having minimal military experience, Hayha how wasn't possessed by the Lord of incredible aim. He developed his skill from being a competitive sharpshooter, having grown up a few miles away from the Civil Guard shooting range, which held annual contests. Hayha regularly participated in these competitions, packing his house full of trophies. Among his accomplishments was the ability to hit a target with his rifle 16 times in a minute at a range of 500 feet-- a talent best described as supernatural. Hayha was deployed to the Kollaa battlefield, where he and 31 other soldiers were tasked with holding off an invading force of 4,000 Soviet troops. Despite having fewer men on the roster than a college football team, Hayha's group managed to hold their ground for the entire winter. That's some good goal line defense right there. He and his fellow Finns had a few other advantages beyond his angel of death status as a sniper. For instance, the Soviet troops all wore bright green uniforms, which made them stand out like decorated Christmas trees against the snowy white landscape. What also didn't help the Soviets was they lacked officers with any leadership skills, mainly because Stalin had them all executed when he purged the USSR of any potential political opponents. And even though the Soviet invasion of Finland was technically successful, they only managed to capture a relatively small amount of border territory, leaving the rest of the country intact. All told, the Soviets suffered nearly 400,000 casualties during the Winter War compared to the 66,000 suffered by Finland. Most snipers shoot while lying flat on their stomachs because it gives enemies a smaller target to aim at. Hayha fired from a sitting position because he felt the position was better for his aim. He didn't worry too much about making himself a bigger target, as he was just a biscuit over 5 feet tall and would conceal himself in snow banks and put snow in his mouth to hide his breath. Additionally, Hayha would pack snow in front of his rifle barrel or poor water on it to freeze it so that smoke would not rise from it after he fired and give away his position. And in perhaps the biggest departure from sniper etiquette, rather than going for the head, Hayha aimed for the center mass of his targets, which is effective in wartime, but won't do him any favors on the Black Ops 4 leaderboards. Hayha's reputation as the John Wick of Finnish snipers eventually drew the ire of the Soviet commanders, who finally grew tired of his nonsense and began targeting him directly. Because getting anywhere near Hayha was out of the question, they began hammering his general location with artillery strikes. When those didn't work, the Soviets sent teams of counter snipers to take him out. But Hayha, being the sniper's sniper, dispatched them with bone chilling ease. Finally, one Soviet sniper got lucky and blasted Hayha in the jaw with an exploding round. Despite being described by one friend as having half of his head missing, Hayha refused to die. And after days of reconstructive surgery, he finally regained consciousness the day after the Winter War had ended. Despite getting a portion of his face blown entirely off his dome in a time when medicine was still largely experimental, Hayha survived World War II and went back to hunting and farming. The Finnish government actually gave him a farm in 1961, presumably both to reward him for his service and they probably wanted to stay on his good side. Hayha took up dog breeding and continued hunting, winning the Ruokolahti Hunting Society's Game Cup five years in a row. In 1970 he moved into a small apartment, where he lived out the rest of his days before passing away at age 96 in 2002. That's right, the deadliest sniper in World War II lived long enough to have witnessed the rise of popularity of N Sync Simo Hayha left his quiet farm life in the winter of 1939 to become the most effective sniper in history, racking up over 500 confirmed kills without even using a scope before returning home to live out the rest of the 20th century in peace. What do you think of the White Death? Let us know in the comments, and check out some of these other videos of our weird history.
Info
Channel: Weird History
Views: 6,686,569
Rating: 4.8770304 out of 5
Keywords: simo häyhä, simo hayha the white death, simo hayha movie, weird history, sniper, war, soldiers, best sniper, simo häyhä death, interesting facts, world history, ranker, true story, simo, trained assassins, trained sniper, war stories, real life sniper, red army, the white death, finland, world war 2, world war II, documentary, european history, military, infographics show, tooky history, military sniper, american sniper, audie murphy
Id: fvCrE5NCsts
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 8min 32sec (512 seconds)
Published: Sun Feb 17 2019
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.