British Royal Marine Sniper Has More Confirmed Kills Than Chris Kyle

A sniper for the British Royal Marines with 173 confirmed kills has been given the distinction of being “the world’s deadliest sniper.” While Chris Kyle claimed to have killed 255 insurgents during his tours in Iraq, only 160 of those kills have been confirmed.

The British Marine’s identity is being kept under wraps for fear that the reveal would make him a target by Islamic radicals. He is still currently serving, is a corporal, and is also married and a father.

Most of his kills have been made during a six month deployment in the Helmand province of Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007. The unnamed sniper at one point successfully hit 90 targets in a single day using an L115A3 rifle, which has an effective range of 1,200 yards.

According to sources, the British Royal Marine sniper is a humble man who refuses to boast about his accomplishments.

According to those who know him:

“He will never talk about it unless he is challenged directly, then he is never boastful of what has happened – but he is not ashamed either.”

“Every shot was judged and balanced, not indiscriminate. He always saw the men between the cross hairs as humans not as targets.”

British forces occupied a section of Helmand province and snipers were frequently employed in the area. A British soldier, in fact, holds the world record for the longest range kill by hitting his target more than a mile-and-a-half away.

British Marine and Army snipers are seldom identified due to the risk of becoming a target for a revenge kill by an extremist.

While the confirmed kills for both Kyle and the British Royal Marine sniper is impressive, it still doesn’t compare to the numbers achieved by Soviet snipers during World War II, some of whom logged more than 400 confirmed kills of German soldiers. The World record, though, belongs to a WWII Finnish soldier named Simo Hayha. His official kill count stands at 505, which he accrued in the years of 1939 and 1940 when his homeland was invaded by the Soviet Union.

[photo credit: Arctic Warrior]

British Royal Marine Sniper Has More Confirmed Kills Than Chris Kyle