8 of the Most Feared Fighters Who Ever Stepped Onto the Battlefield

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8 of the Most Feared Fighters Who Ever Stepped Onto the Battlefield

Being good at war has been a necessary skill in surviving as a people, and for that you need warriors.

Published 6 months ago in Wow

For as long as humanity has existed, we have fought wars. The victors have shaped history, society, and technology, and the losers have been forced to concede everything from land to slaves. Being good at war has been a necessary skill in surviving as a people, and for that you need warriors. These fighters are some of the most feared of all time, and whether generals or hand-to-hand combatants, you wouldn't want to face off against them on the battlefield.

The "white death" is a sinister name on its own, and any soldier with a nickname is usually a formidable opponent, but Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä took things to the next level. With the most confirmed sniper kills ever at 505, Simo helped Finland repel waves of Soviet soldiers during World War II, and legend has it his presence deterred entire platoons from advancing. He accomplished all of this using a rifle that didn't even have a scope.

Read about Simo Häyhä and seven of the other deadliest warriors of all time right here.

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Mike R. Vining is one of the first members of Delta Force, serving from 1978 to 1999. He was part of the first class of the Operator Training Course. His record might not stand up to the others on this list, but his photo has prompted the discussion of what a real warrior actually looks like. Like this tweet implies, it's not always what you might think.

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Alexander the Great was the king of Macedon, and by the age of 30 had conquered everything from Greece to northwestern India. It’s hard to be a more successful conqueror than him.

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Genghis Khan was a Mongolian lord who can claim to have resided over the largest empire in history at its peak. Spanning most of Asia and Europe, Khan was as dominant a military leader as there has ever been.

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Hannibal Barca was a Carthaginian general who is considered one of the greatest tactical minds of all time. Partaking in the second Punic war between Carthage and Rome, Barca famously marched his Elephants from Iberia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into northern Italy.

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Miyamoto Musashi was a Japanese swordsman and philosopher in the early 1600s, who was known for his double bladed techniques. He won all 61 duels he participated in.

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Simo Häyhä was a Finnish sniper known as the “White Death.” Using a rifle without a scope, he racked up the most confirmed sniper kills ever at around 505 while fighting against Soviet expansion during World War II.

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Erich Hartmann is considered to be the pilot with the most confirmed shoot downs of all time, at 352. Unfortunately he flew for the Germans during World War II.

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Joan of Arc was born a peasant girl. But, believing she was under divine guidance, she led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans in 1429 that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War.