1 SNIPER vs 150 SOLDIERS | Most Hardcore American Sniper (TRUE STORY)

His 8 times power scope scanned the street  before the crosshairs settled on the chest of a boy. He couldn’t have been older than 12.  Just a normal kid.

Except for the fact that the back of the bike he was pushing was loaded with  crates clearly marked as 7. 62mm ammunition. On his back he carried at least a half dozen  AK-47s, brand new from the looks of them, likely just out of the box after shipment from  the Kalashnikov factory in Russia, down south to China and across the border into North Vietnam.

From there a human conveyor belt moved the weapons south through neighboring Cambodia and Laos,  before being carried into the south across several dozen supply routes. Once inside  the country, the Viet Cong and their NVA handlers relied on men, women, and even  children like this for final delivery. United States Marine Sergeant Carlos Hathcock  sighed a long, weary sigh.

But even as he did, the crosshairs on his scope never moved off the boy's  chest, staying locked onto him as he continued his slow pedaling down the dirt road. He hated the men  who had turned a boy loose to do a soldier's job, and he hated what he had to do next. But it  didn’t matter if it was a soldier or a child delivering them, once they reached that platoon of  NVA infiltrators and their Viet Cong allies those rifles would kill just as many Americans.

Hathcock's perch was located high up on a finger of mountain that jutted out into  the valley below, with the coast to the east and sprawling farmland all around him. The  farmers were already working their rice paddies, none casting so much as a glance in the young  boy's direction. From his position, Hathcock and his fellow snipers were able to provide overwatch  for Marine platoons moving through the area.

The boy was approximately 1800 yards away, easily  within reach of his . 50 machine gun. Hathcock had pioneered the use of the M2 Browning as a sniper  weapon, to the surprise of even his own immediate leadership.

The Ma Deuce, as it was nicknamed,  had a cyclic rate low enough to allow for single shot firing, and when mounted atop its tripod it  provided an incredible stable firing platform. The seven hundred grain bullets would stay  steady in flight for almost 3,000 yards, and at closer range helped fight the effects  of wind far better than his usual . 30-06.

Once or twice he'd seen a man stand up  again after getting struck by his . 30-06. Nobody ever got back on their feet after  falling victim to a well-placed .

50 round. Now he moved the crosshairs onto his target. Hathcock's .

50 machine fired with an ear splitting roar that echoed across the valley. Bullseye. The heavy round smashed right into the front wheel of the boy's bicycle, causing him  to flip directly over the front and come crashing down on his head.

The AK-47s went flying and  the boxes split open as they hit the ground, fresh ammunition spilling all over. Hathcock breathed a sigh of relief, the boy would run and a patrol would come for  the weapons later, with Hatchcock ready to deter anyone foolish enough to try and pick them up. But then his heart dropped.

The boy didn’t run. Instead, with the well-practiced ease of a veteran  soldier, he picked up one of the AKs and slid a magazine into the empty well. The gun soon barked  out its loud retort in Hathcock’s direction.

That was the downside of using the . 50 cal as a sniper,  it’s big muzzle flash wasn’t difficult to spot. There was only one way this could end now. 

Hathcock thought back to his own child, back home in North Carolina - he'd be one year old soon. Hathcock awoke with a start. His mind was reeling from the lingering memory, but his body did not  so much as twitch as he woke from the fretful sleep.

Out here, any noise, and movement  at all could mean death- especially when you were miles away from friendly forces. He intentionally shifted just enough to be audible to his spotter, Lance Corporal Burke,  who never moved his eyes from his binoculars. He was surveying the valley below.

This  wasn’t his old perch near the coast, they'd left that behind days ago, moving out into  the wilderness of Vietnam to hunt charlie. They'd hitched along with a Marine patrol heading  out in this general direction, marched for two hours before getting caught in a firefight Hatchcock and Burke had said their goodbyes to the Marines, who would be back in a  week to pick the men up. Until then, they were on their own, a single radio linking  them back with command headquarters if things got hairy.

Reinforcements would never reach them  in time of course, but at least they might recover their remains. Hathcock was more assured by the  artillery battery tasked specifically to him, since those shells could be splashing  down in mere minutes with one radio call. The men slept in shifts and didn’t make  conversation when they were both awake.

If there was anything to report, then they would  speak. Until then, Burke simply continued scanning the valley with his binoculars- Elephant Valley,  the Marines called it, so named after spotting Viet Cong forces using a train of elephants to  move supplies. One artillery barrage later and the elephants were gone, but the name remained.

A cool fog was rolling in, not unusual for the wet season of Vietnam, but soon the  morning sun would be high in the sky, and the jungle would turn into a steaming hell  hole. Hathcock didn't mind the heat though, or even the insects so much. He'd grown up tearing  through the woods of Arkansas, crawling through brush and mud on his belly, pretending to be  stalking Japanese forces in Guadalcanal with his .

22 rifle. At eight years old, Carlos Hathcock  was already an expert shot, and he'd used that . 22 to bring home squirrels and rabbits, helping  put meat on the table for his poor family.

Both men tensed up at exactly the same  time, and without speaking a word, they both turned their attention directly west.  There, in the distance a faint sound was growing slowly louder. It was unmistakable, the grunting  and complaining of heavily laden men tromping through the underbrush.

There were no American  patrols due in this area for the next week, and farmers hadn't returned to work this part  of the river that split the valley in two. It could only be one thing… An enemy patrol. As the sound echoed towards them through the fog, two things immediately became clear. 

First, the men were talking and laughing, complaining as soldiers are wont to do, without  care of being heard. That meant they didn’t know the Americans were here. That was good.

But there was bad news too. From the sound, he could tell this was an enemy force  much larger than they had expected to run into. This was at least a platoon, but likely  bigger as more and more voices became audible.

The Marines counted fifteen, then thirty, then  sixty. They finally stopped counting at 150. This was an entire company of enemy infantry,  clearly moving to reinforce an NVA position or, more likely, launch a surprise attack on a  nearby American firebase.

And such a significant enemy force could mean a lot of Marines dead. Burke and Hathcock moved silently, Burke edging a few meters away to give Hathcock room behind  his . 30-06.

There was no need to exchange words, both men had worked together enough and  each understood the situation- this was why Burke was Hathcock's favorite spotter. He  wasn't just a crack shot, he was intelligent. The enemy formation moved into the valley, out  of the cover of the jungle and Hathcock scanned the formation, looking at the soldiers  one by one.

They nearly all looked young, no older than 17 or 18, with fresh uniforms and  brand new helmets. Even their Kalashnikovs were brand new. The only wear on their gear was  from their recent trek through the jungle.

Leading the formation was an officer,  distinguished by his pistol at his hip, a sign of rank. He was a little older than his men though,  in his mid twenties at most. And then somewhere in the middle of the group was who Hathcock  assumed was the company commander, yet another young man who surely hadn’t even reached thirty  yet.

The entire ensemble was freshly formed from recruits in the north, indoctrinated by communist  propaganda, and sent into combat in the south. They were as inexperienced and green as could be. “Take the one in the back, I'll get the one in the lead.

Then work your way in, keep them boxed  up. ” Hathcock spoke in a barely audible whisper, despite there being no chance the formation  of enemy troops who were approximately six hundred meters away would hear them over their own  ruckus. Burke didn't respond, and Hathcock didn't need him to.

He would wait for the sharp crack  of Hathcock's rifle before opening fire himself. It took two minutes for the company to arrive  at the center of the valley, the nearest trees and the safety of cover several hundred meters  away. Hathcock set his sights on his target, and aimed at the man’s head just below where  his helmet stopped offering any protection.

He wasn't worried about his . 30-06  penetrating the cheap NVA helmets, but one never knew- an irregularity in production  might have left this one specific bullet a little short on powder, robbing it of  kinetic energy. No sense in risking it.

Hathcock gently squeezed the trigger. Reaching its target in approximately one third of a second, the round impacted a  quarter inch from Hathcock's aiming point, entering the skull and penetrating into the brain.  There had been an irregularity in manufacturing- unusual given extreme quality controls of American  ammunition- resulting in a microscopic fault along the bullet's body that caused it to fracture  violently after punching through the thick bone of the skull.

This caused the heavy bullet  to break into many smaller pieces, each still traveling at over 2,000 feet per second, and  slicing through brain matter in all directions. He was dead before he hit the ground. At almost the exact same moment, Burke's target at the rear of the formation took  a round through the ear, sending him reeling violently onto his left side.

The reaction from  the rest of the company was at first, confusion, then panicked shouts. Their inexperience showed,  as groups began to do different things. One group had the sense to drop prone on the ground and  scan the jungle, looking for enemy shooters.

Another remained dumbfounded, still standing  and turning this way and that, unsure of what to do. Yet another broke in a panic, and began  running for the jungle they'd recently exited. “Don't let them get to the trees!

” Burke grunted his acknowledgment, turning his rifle left towards the fleeing soldiers. The  men were easy targets, exposed at a three quarters angle to the snipers, giving them an almost  perfect shot as they retreated in a panic. The two snipers fired at a furious rate, dropping fleeing  soldier after fleeing soldier, until finally, the rest of the group stopped in its tracks with the  treeline still about three hundred meters away.

They began running for an earthen dyke that  kept the river from flooding farmer's fields. This was the only cover anywhere in sight, and  the main body of the company had now retreated over its edge. The group of fleeing men now made  a mad dash back in the direction they'd come, exposing them to even more sniper fire.

Soldier after soldier dropped, but the group finally made it to the safety of the dyke. The enemy formation of what was once 150 soldiers, minus approximately ten now, huddled on the other  side of the dyke, the deep river at their feet, and Hathcock and Burke's deadly precise fire  to their front. The safety of the treeline was hundreds of meters away, and even if they  attempted to move along the river dyke, as some did, it eventually exposed  them to the Marine's high position, as those who tried it quickly found out.

Some  tried to return fire, but it was difficult to spot the sniper's positions in the dense jungle  above them. Eventually the NVA stopped trying to return fire after witnessing a few of their  buddies' heads exploding like overripe melons. They should have called in support artillery  fire, or taken turns laying down suppressing fire to move towards the snipers attacking  them, but whether due to sheer terror at the deadly precise shooting, or inexperience  caused by the assassination of the most senior looking officers by the snipers, the NVA did  nothing.

They sat behind the dyke and waited, their only hope being the cover of night. Hathcock relaxed off his rifle and waited too, taking out a pack of cheese spread to eat.  C-rations were too bulky for snipers out in the field, so for these week-long trips  they ate nothing but jelly, peanut butter, and cheese spreads, sometimes with large,  flat crackers, but often just on their own.

Burke and Hathcock took turns resting,  occasionally putting two or three rounds into the top of the dyke to remind the NVA that they were  still there. The sun rose, baking the valley below and the sweltering heat was made even worse by the  extreme humidity. The Marines had plenty of water on them for their week-long excursion, but the NVA  force only had what they'd brought in their packs, and that would soon be running out.

The cool,  inviting fresh water of the river directly below them was a powerful temptation, but that too was  out of reach- anyone who dared to try to refill a canteen was quickly dispatched from above. And so the Marine snipers waited in their shaded position, while the NVA  below baked in the hot sun. Sunset must have been a great relief for  the soldiers behind the dyke, both from the physical heat and the knowledge that soon the  cover of darkness would mask their movements and give them the possibility of escape.

“Almost feel sorry for those hamburgers down there, baking in the sun all day. ” Burke, as usual, did not remove his eye from his scope as he spoke. Hathcock grunted his agreement.

“Arty good to go? ” “Prepped and ready,” Burke responded, “just gotta give them the call. ” “Alright.

Eyes peeled, wait till it's full dark, that's when they'll make their move. But  let's make sure they don't get greedy on us. ” The long range radio rested next to Burke's  shooting position, on the other end was an entire battery of artillery waiting for  the call to open up from the two snipers miles away.

A platoon of Marines stood  ever ready to board their choppers and come in a hurry if Hathcock really needed them to He thanked god that the NVA below were so green, an experienced force would've  overcome its fear and aversion to casualties and quickly turned the tide on him. The sun lowered, casting the valley first in pink light, then purple. The tall mountains to the  west made nightfall come suddenly, almost all at once as the sun dipped below them.

On that side  of the mountains there was still light. On this side there was nothing but dark. .

. and death. The two snipers waited a minute, scanning with their scopes.

Then, Hathcock grunted at Burke who  picked up the radio. Forty five seconds later, somewhere in the night sky above them were  two low whistling sounds followed by dull pops- and then the valley was suddenly cast in  bright, orange-reddish light as illumination rounds slowly descended down towards earth on  parachutes. A line of NVA froze momentarily, already fifty meters out from behind the dyke,  running at a full sprint towards a few thatched huts at the edge of the treeline to the east.

“Don't let them get to the huts, turn 'em back! ” said Hathcock. Burke's M14 rang out, the semi-automatic action working to feed another  round into the chamber as soon as the previous was fired.

Hathcock worked the bolt of his rifle  with almost as much speed. The NVA had overcome their surprise and began running once again, two  of them almost immediately pitching over dead. Their rifles cracked again and again, aiming for  the fleeing men at the head of the formation.

The huts were still four hundred meters away  across open ground as another three fell over dead. Hathcock and Burke were firing furiously,  scoring on average one kill out of every four shots fired- not bad for long range shooting under  terrible light conditions against running targets. The entire group of fleeing NVA stopped almost  at once.

They had done the math- the safety of the dyke was 150 meters behind them, the huts were  just over 300 meters. It was a simple conclusion, and the formation turned around as if on cue and  sprinted back towards the dyke. Burke and Hathcock chased them all the way back with their rifle  fire, until finally the last survivor hopped over and into the safety of the earthen dyke wall.

By their estimation, approximately thirty men had tried to make the mad dash, while the rest  stayed put. The Marines had no clue how many they had killed in the last nearly twenty four hours,  but the formation must have been significantly thinned by now. If they had all run at once, no  chance the two snipers could've stopped them all, but like a frightened herd of prey animals, the  NVA troops feared the onslaught of highly accurate fire too much to risk it without guarantee it  wouldn't be their ticket getting punched next.

The two snipers put a few rounds onto rocks at the  top of the dyke on either end just to remind the men below not to try that again from either  direction. The shattering rocks sprayed the troops huddled on the other side of the dyke  with painful, razor-sharp fragments. Finally, the Marines relaxed, and once more returned to  their cycle of watch and rest, with the man whose job it was to watch calling in illumination  rounds once every twenty minutes or so, though with a high variability, so as to keep the  NVA from thinking they could try to flee again.

Hathcock had considered calling in some high  explosive rounds when they'd originally pinned the large formation down, but quickly discarded  the idea. He didn't trust the artillery boys to be that accurate, and in all likelihood the cannon  jockeys would end up pasting the entire valley, him and Burke included. He had alerted  command though, and they were putting together a force that would come take care  of whatever was left in another day or so.

Now it was his turn to take a forty minute  nap, so Hathcock took a swig of his canteen and settled into the bush, gazing up at the few  stars visible through the tree canopy. Out here without big city lights to compete with the stars,  you could see the arm of the milky way up above. Out in the open the NVA had a better view  for sure, but he didn't envy them one bit.

Clouds had rolled in, not thick enough to  mess with the illumination rounds but hinting at worst to come- as was usually the case in  Vietnam. A light fog had filled the valley, but the snipers continued to put sporadic  rounds into the dyke as they had all night long, discouraging any would-be escape attempt. Burke wiped some moisture off his scope.

“Little rain would be good. Bet those hot dogs  down there are wishing for it right about now. ” Hathcock took a swig from his  canteen.

“I bet they are. Rations must be out by now, water probably too. ” “All the water they need right at their feet.

” Burke grinned wickedly. He was right, the river  ran clear and strong just a few dozen feet from the NVA men. Of course, anyone foolish enough to  try to reach it would present a perfect silhouette target to the snipers.

Two or three had tried it  the day before, possibly driven mad by thirst, and paid the price. Their corpses had lain  in the sun all day, and begun to stink. Hathcock curled his nose as  the wind changed direction, blowing from the NVA to their position.

“Seems  quite a few of them got sick yesterday. ” Burke shook his head slowly. The smell in the  air was not the smell of rot, but living human stink.

With nowhere to go, some of the men, a lot  by the smell of it, had simply soiled themselves. Hathcock felt bad for them, but he had  a job to do just as they did. For now, there was nothing to do but wait.

The day came and went, the Marines safely perched under the cover of trees in  shade a few degrees cooler than the valley below. The sun had risen and chased the morning  clouds away, and now was once again cooking the NVA below in its intense heat. However,  the horizon promised to bring more clouds, and possibly real rainfall.

Hathcock estimated  they'd arrive around sunset, and he was right. The NVA men, must have been near their breaking  point. The constant fire on the dyke frayed their nerves, the bodies of their comrades amongst them-  those who had leaned up a little too high, or gotten a little too curious.

They hadn't had water  for over twenty four hours now, but nightfall brought a bit of fresh hope, though the force  had apparently remembered last night's lesson. The first illumination rounds were not  as useful as they'd been last night. Thick clouds had rolled in, and the flares took  approximately 15 seconds to drop below them and bathe the valley in their glow.

That  fifteen second delay was an opportunity, and as the flares began to drop lower through the  clouds and shed more light, Hathcock could see man-shaped shadows making a break for it. “They're running, shoot, Burke! ” “I can't get a good target!

” “Don't matter none just shoot into their formation! ” The Marines opened up, their accuracy improving as the flares descended lower through the clouds.  Desperation seemed to have spurred some ingenuity in the NVA force or perhaps one of the officers  had finally gotten his act together.

While a group of thirty men ran for the safety of the far  huts, the rest of the formation opened up on the general vicinity of the snipers. Their rounds  were high though, smacking through the trees and foliage. It did not deter the Marines at all.

Eventually though, the fire became more accurate, some rounds impacting into the fallen tree  trunks the snipers were using for cover. “Wallop them a bit and get their  heads down, then we move out! ” Burke didn't respond, he allowed his rifle  to do the talking for him.

The men fleeing for the huts had turned around once again, and  the snipers encouraged the retreat by leaving them alone. Instead they started putting rounds  into the tops of heads peering up above the dyke, trying to shoot at the sniper's now revealed  position. A few rounds in the brain case later, and the NVA force got the idea.

Firing ceased from  both sides, though the Marines still put a round or two onto the top of the dyke for good measure. “Let's move to that ridge on the east. Next time they make a run for it they'll be  coming right down our gun barrels.

” The two snipers quickly gathered their equipment  and began the long trek to the eastern ridge, just past the huts the NVA had been trying to  reach. On the way they put more rounds into the dyke and the NVA force occasionally returned  fire. When that happened, one sniper would move while the other put highly accurate fire into  the forces on the dyke.

An hour of this finally convinced the NVA to stop firing, and the night  settled into relative peace broken only by the sound of insects and the continuous popping sound  of illumination flares delivered by artillery. Hathcock had a plan. When they'd first arrived  they had zeroed in the very same huts the NVA had been trying to reach with battalion artillery. 

Burke had radioed in their situation, and now 3 SH-3 Sea King helicopters full of Marines  stood ready and waiting to mop up the NVA force. Hathcock knew it would be a difficult fight in the  dark though, so his plan was to wait for daybreak. By now, they must have known how this would  end.

There was nobody coming to rescue them, and surely the Americans were already bringing  forces in to destroy them. The NVA were right on both counts- intelligence would later confirm  that this company sized element was being sent to reinforce a local NVA battalion already  desperately low on men, and said battalion had opted not to send a rescue force after the  pinned down company failed to report on time. Hathcock and Burke were nearly out of food, water,  and most importantly, ammo.

Their time in elephant valley was done, and as the sun rose on the third  day of the siege, they had six hours to get to their rendezvous point and meet up with the Marine  patrol that would bring them home. After receiving no fire for the last hour, a curious head peered  up from the dyke- Hathcock put a round straight into the exposed top of the skull plate, showering  nearby NVA with gore. They had purposefully held their fire long enough to make them wonder if  the Marines had finally left.

It would be a while before they got curious again, and this was  Hathcock and Burke's cue to beat feet. But first, they would leave a parting present. A radio call back to command put the helicopters into action, a Marine force 84  strong was in the air in minutes.

Hathcock and Burke moved fast, exfiltrating out of the  valley but not before placing one last call. 132 seconds later, the first of a massive  volley of 105mm artillery fire splashed nearly dead center into the huts that the NVA  had been so desperate to reach. Another set of huts on the opposite end of the valley had also  been sighted in, and rounds fell here too.

Then the artillery fire moved from west to east and  east to west, meeting in the middle where the NVA forces huddled behind their low earthen dyke. Hathcock had been right not to call in the artillery earlier, the cannon jockeys had gotten  so excited to catch an entire enemy unit out in the open that they plastered the valley as  predicted. Minutes after the final round landed, the three Sea King helicopters crested the  horizon, the Marines in their belly gearing up to sweep the valley clear of NVA survivors.

They wouldn't find many. Stay tuned for our next chapter in the story  of America's deadliest Vietnam War Sniper, and in the meantime check out The White  Death – Deadliest Sniper In History!