Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Unknown Target on December 14, 2006, 11:50:15 am
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List your favorite badasses amazing people, and individuals who just make you go "wow", - preferably include backgrounds/descriptions ;)
Hugh Glass:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Glass
Audie Murphy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy
Not a big fan of this guy, but definately a "wow":
William Walker:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_%28soldier%29
So post those people that make you say "wow" - from anywhere, anytime, and any country :)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan
Genghis Khan > Audie Murphy
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Francisco (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Francisco)
I only learned about him after reading an article in a military magazine. The guy hauled an 1100-pound cannon singlehandedly. Not only that, he fought with a five-foot-long sword. Doesn't get much more badass than that.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayrton_Senna)
Ayrton Senna died 1994 but helped motor racing no end for saftey standards. this guy made me realise that life can be so easily taken away. RIP Senna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Ratzenberger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Ratzenberger)
as well as Roland Ratzenberger. and just to show how bad saftey was back then. even a simple wing failure can result in death. poor guy.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_C._Summers
If we're handing out badass designations, taking on a couple of companies of Wehrmacht infantry pretty much singlehandly qualifies I think. All that and they didn't even give him a Medal of Honor. Sleezebags.
Alvin York was tempting too, but I don't know his story as well as I do that of Summers.
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Troy Hurtubise (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Hurtubise) - Any man who can intimidate a bear who has him pinned into leaving him alone when armed just with a knife deserves a place on the list.
Although I don't know if I believe some of his later claims the suit did look pretty good.
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Although this goes against the spirit of the thread I must give a collective award to the greek army in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae
where 300 spartans and 700 thespians held back a minimum of 200.000 persians! Also, see some of the quotes on the article.
That's badass!
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Simo Häyhä. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä)
Definitely the most successful sniper ever (although he scored several hundred confirmed kills with a SMG also).
Possibly the most successful soldier ever, but that's disputable.
Credited with 505 confirmed kills of Red Army soldiers. That's only the definitely confirmed sniper kills. Unconfirmed ones added, the amount of sniper kills rises to 542. He also scored more than 200 enemy kills with a 9.00 mm Suomi-SMG and he also used a rapid-fire rifle in some occasions, but I suppose those kills are negligible compared to his two main weapons. These kills are usually not counted into the official amount of kills, but they are definitely worth mentioning.
His main weapon, sniper rifle, was actually a slightly upgraded mainstay rifle of Finnish Army in Winter War: 7.62x54R Mosin-Nagant M28-30 (http://7.62x54r.net/MosinID/MosinM28.htm) with default iron sights. He preferred iron sights to optical sights because he felt that optical sights had too high profile, revealing too much of him, and also that they are effective tunnel-vision creators.
Moreover, he scored his kills during the time between 30th November 1939 and 6th March 1940. That makes an average of... 5,2 kills a day.
6th March he was seriously wounded when he was hit in the face by an exploding bullet. He fell into coma, and when he woke up in 13th March 1940 (the same day when the Moscow peace ended the Winter War), Marshall Mannerheim promoted him from Corporal to 2nd Lieutenant.
When he was asked what made him such a good shot, he always answered "Practice."
He died 1st April 2002.
I think that counts as badass...
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Very cool. One question though: how was the Mosin-Nagant the mainstay weapon of the Finnish Army during the Winter War? I though the Mosin was a Russian weapon, and if I remember correctly Finland was sort of at war with them. And they only fell into the Soviet shere after WW2. Was Finalnd friendly with Imperial Russia, and maybe that's how they got it?
Anyway, this goes a ways towards improving my stereotype of Finns as bland, polite, peaceful people.
edit:note to self, check Wikipedia before asking questions.
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Another sniper worthy of mention: Carlos Hathcock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock)
Most notable accomplishment: He put a bullet through the scope of another sniper, killing him. He also had a bounty of $50,000 put on his head by the Vietnamese. And he pulled seven Marines out of a burning APC.
Badass enough for you?
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Very cool. One question though: how was the Mosin-Nagant the mainstay weapon of the Finnish Army during the Winter War? I though the Mosin was a Russian weapon, and if I remember correctly Finland was sort of at war with them. And they only fell into the Soviet shere after WW2. Was Finalnd friendly with Imperial Russia, and maybe that's how they got it?
Anyway, this goes a ways towards improving my stereotype of Finns as bland, polite, peaceful people.
edit:note to self, check Wikipedia before asking questions.
Yeah... They purchaced loads and loads of them before the war, some were remnants of Russian Army, and some were manufactured by us ourselves. Actually, the M28-30 was probably not the most common, that was my mistake; that honour I think falls to other Mosin-Nagant, namely a 1891 model called Lotta. M28-30 was, however, common throughout the wars.
Prior to 1917, Finland was part of the Russian Empire, and military units were equipped with the various models of the Russian-made M1891 Mosin-Nagant bolt-action service rifle. After gaining independence, Finland purchased many more Mosin rifles abroad, primarily Austrian- and German-captured Russian rifles from World War I. These older rifles were usually refurbished; this process could be as minimal as a Finnish Army property stamp and a new sling or as drastic as a complete redesign, with new stocks, fittings, sights, triggers, and more accurate barrels. The Finnish army and Civil Guard designed and manufactured several new models of Mosin-Nagants, using original French, Russian, and American receivers. Finland never manufactured receivers, relying instead on existing receivers from its stockpiles of purchased and captured Soviet rifles. During the Winter War of 1939-40, and the Continuation War of 1941-44, Finland captured additional Mosin-Nagant rifles from the Soviets in huge quantities. Finland also purchased these rifles from Spain, left over from the Spanish Civil War, and from Nazi Germany's stockpile of captured arms. Many of these rifles were simply reissued for use.
The Finnish army continued refurbishing and reissuing Mosin-Nagants well after its wars with the USSR were over. There are Finnish M1939s with barrel dating into the early 1970s, when they were issued as officer training rifles. Finland still issues the 7.62 TaK 85, a substantially modified and modernized sniper rifle built on the Mosin-Nagant action.
Models of Finnish Mosin-Nagant rifles were identified by numbers: M/91-M24 Lotta rifle, M27, M28 and M28-30 Pystykorva, and M39 Ukko-Pekka. It is worth noting that Finnish rifles M27, 28, 28-30, and 39 were issued with knife bayonets instead of the standard Soviet quadangular socket bayonet.
Finnish Mosin-Nagants are known for their accuracy and dependability. The famous Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä is widely considered to be the most successful in history, and used the M28 Pystykorva rifle.
So there were both old originally Russian M-N's in the country as well as weapons that were kind of "reverse-engineered", made in Finnish weapon factories by slightly modified designs. By the time of Winter War, I think the newer M27's, M28's and M28-30's were phasing out the older M91 models, but I don't know the proportions of them in the troops in 1939. It is certain, though, that as the war cought us partially with our pants down I suppose almost all the weapons they could muster were sent to the frontlines, including the older rifles.
Another one, not quite as badass as Häyhä but almost:
Ilmari Juutilainen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilmari_Juutilainen).
Finnish WW2 fighter pilot. Generally considered higest-scoring non-German fighter pilot ever. Whopping 437 sorties, 94 confirmed kills, not a single hit from enemy guns. Once he had to return to base after being hit by friendly AAA. He also never lost his wingman in battle. :nervous:
I don't think theres any chance in hell that it was mere luck... I mean, 437 sorties and nearly hundred kills without ever being hit by enemy.
If you don't think this qualifies as badassery, try doing the samy in IL-2 Sturmovik FB, preferably by the same planes Juutilainen flew - unfortunatley Fokker DXXI is not available, but Brewster B-239 and Messerschmitt Bf-109 G-6 and G-10 are. Try it. With all realism settings on. You wont manage it even with easier realism settings.
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Arthur Miller. He wrote Death of a Salesman, but also had sex with Marilyn Monroe. That's like curing AIDS, but also stopping an asteroid from destroying the world.
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Clemens Forell. He escaped from an russian prison camp in eastern siberia and walked 14000 km back to germany.
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Erich Hartmann: The highest scoring fighter ace ever. 352 kills, all with a Bf-109.
http://www.acepilots.com/misc_hartmann.html
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Ted Bundy.
On June 7, 1977, in preparation for a hearing in the Caryn Campbell murder trial, Bundy was transported to the Garfield County, Colorado, courthouse. During a court recess, he was allowed to visit the courthouse's law library. Bundy then jumped out of the building from a second-story window and escaped. The two-story fall injured Bundy's ankle, which caused him to remain in the area, and he was recaptured a week later. Back in jail awaiting the start of his trial, Bundy escaped again. He somehow acquired a hacksaw and, over time, sawed a square hole in the ceiling of his cell in the Glenwood Springs, Colorado, lockup. On the night of December 30, 1977, Bundy climbed out of the hole, managed to walk right out of the jail's front door (the jailor was out for the evening) and reach the main hallway. Bundy stole a car in the car park and drove off.
He raped, sodomised and killed a ****ing police chief's daughter.
You don't get much more ****in' ballsy than that.
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Mario Visintini
He and his wing leader were strafing an English airport in Northern Africa, when his leader's CR.42 was hit and crash landed. Visintini landed, under heavy enemy fire, near his leader's plane, rescued him, threw his parachute out of the cockpit to make room for him, sat on his knees and took off. Before heading back home, he strafed his leader's plane to prevent its capture by English troops. He died crashing with his fighter in a similar occasion, looking for another downed pilot in bad weather.
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There was a guy who did that in the Vietnam war too. I don't know his name, though. He was flying a Skyraider on a rescue mission to locate and extract a downed pilot. When the enemy gunfire proved to be too much for the helicopters to land, he landed his Skyraider, got the pilot (all still while under heavy gunfire), and flew out. IIRC he won a Medal of Honor for it.
It's in one of those mini-books on the Vietnam war, I think it was entitled "Skyraider".
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I think my guy and an0n's get extra points for having more fun, though.
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Please don't get this thread locked with that sort of stuff - mostly looking at you an0n.
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He raped, sodomised and killed a ****ing police chief's daughter.
You don't get much more ****in' ballsy than that.
I believe that's referred to as "outright stupidity" by that point.
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Not to mention, you know, "horrific".
But am I the only one who ascribes that adjective to that sort of stuff here?
Anyway, moving back to the topic please?
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Why is that not on-topic? I'm not even joking-- since when did "badass" have a wholesome, family-friendly component to it? Nobody's gone off-topic as far as I can see.
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I was making sure that the discussion didn't discourse to having the entire thread discuss an0n's post.
Which is what it's doing now.
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Oooh, am I allowed fictional characters?
C'z Tommy Gavin from Rescue Me is just the ****ing King of everything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_i3E_OmKVs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgaUn9wqdeI
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No, fictional characters don't count :p
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Royce Gracie. Can't be bothered to find any links :P
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All hail the female badasses of this world Dame Ellen Macarthur (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Macarthur) and Amelia Earhart (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart)
You don't have to be a man to be a badass! Much respect to these two!
Oh and a link for IPAndrews Royce Gracie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royce_Gracie) ;)
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The prisoners of the Kengir Uprising (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kengir_uprising).
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In a similar vein Lieutenant H. N. Fowler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oflag_IV-C#From_Colditz_Castle_and_Grounds) who with 3 others (who have quite impressive skills of their own (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damiaen_Joan_van_Doorninck)) not only managed to escape from Colditz castle by dressing as German officers but who actually had the sheer balls to castigate one of the soldiers who didn't salute him fast enough.
Honourable mentions to the other escapees and the guys who managed to build a glider in the attic of the POW camp.
EDIT : Hmmmm. It might have been Airey Neave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airey_Neave) not Fowler who did it. Both escaped together with a dutchman by walking straight through a guardhouse in German uniform.