Otto von senger the sniper who killed. Wehrmacht snipers. Highest scoring shooters

Many soldiers and officers of the Red Army became heroes of the Great Patriotic War. It is perhaps difficult to single out military specialties that would stand out especially when awarding military awards. Among the famous Heroes of the Soviet Union there are sappers, tankmen, pilots, sailors, infantrymen and military doctors.

But I would like to highlight one military specialty, which occupies a special place in the category of feat. These are snipers.

A sniper is a specially trained soldier who is fluent in the art of marksmanship, camouflage and observation, striking targets from the first shot. Its task is to defeat the command and communications personnel, to destroy camouflaged single targets.

At the front, when special military units (companies, regiments, divisions) act against the enemy, the sniper is an independent combat unit.

We will tell you about the hero snipers who made a significant contribution to the common cause of victory. You can read about female snipers who participated in the Great Patriotic War in our.

1. Passar Maxim Alexandrovich (08/30/1923 - 01/22/1943)

A participant in the Great Patriotic War, a Soviet sniper, killed 237 enemy soldiers and officers during the battles. Most of the enemies were eliminated by him during the Battle of Stalingrad. For the destruction of Passar, the German command appointed a reward of 100 thousand Reichsmarks. Hero of the Russian Federation (posthumously).

2. Surkov Mikhail Ilyich (1921-1953)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1st battalion of the 39th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 12th army, foreman, holder of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star.

3.Kovshova Natalia Venediktovna (11/26/1920 - 08/14/1942)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union.

On the personal account of the sniper Kovshova, 167 killed Nazi soldiers and officers. During the service, she taught the fighters the skill of marksmanship. On August 14, 1942, near the village of Sutoki, Novgorod Region, she died in an unequal battle with the Nazis.

4.Tulaev Zhambyl Yesheevich (02 (15) .05.1905 - 17.01.1961)

Member of the Great Patriotic War. The hero of the USSR.

Sniper of the 580th Infantry Regiment of the 188th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the North-Western Front. Petty officer Zhambyl Tulaev from May to November 1942 exterminated 262 Nazis. Prepared more than 30 snipers for the front.

5.Sidorenko Ivan Mikhailovich (09/12/1919 - 02/19/1994)

Assistant Chief of Staff of the 1122th Rifle Regiment, Captain Ivan Sidorenko, distinguished himself as the organizer of the sniper movement. By 1944, he personally destroyed about 500 Nazis from a sniper rifle.

Ivan Sidorenko trained more than 250 snipers for the front, most of whom were awarded orders and medals.

6. Okhlopkov Fedor Matveyevich (03/02/1908 - 05/28/1968)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union.

By June 23, 1944, Sergeant Okhlopkov destroyed 429 Nazi soldiers and officers from a sniper rifle. He was wounded 12 times. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin were awarded only in 1965.

7. Moldagulova Aliya Nurmukhambetovna (10/25/1925 - 01/14/1944)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), corporal.

Sniper of the 54th separate rifle brigade of the 22nd army of the 2nd Baltic front. Corporal Moldagulova in the first 2 months of participation in the battles destroyed several dozen enemies. On January 14, 1944, she took part in the battle for the village of Kazachikha, Pskov region, and drew the soldiers into the attack. Bursting into the enemy's defenses, she destroyed several soldiers and officers from a machine gun. She died in this battle.

8. Budenkov Mikhail Ivanovich (12/05/1919 - 08/02/1995)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, senior lieutenant.

By September 1944, Guard Senior Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov was a sniper of the 59th Guards Rifle Regiment of the 21st Guards Rifle Division of the 3rd Shock Army of the 2nd Baltic Front. By that time, he had 437 enemy soldiers and officers destroyed by sniper fire. He entered the top ten snipers of the Great Patriotic War.

9. Etobaev Arseny Mikhailovich (15.09.1903- 1987)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, the Civil War of 1917-1922 and the conflict on the Sino-Eastern Railway in 1929. Knight of the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Star, full knight of the Order of the Patriotic War.

The sniper destroyed 356 German invaders and shot down two planes.

10. Salbiev Vladimir Gavrilovich (1916- 1996)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, twice holder of the Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War, II degree.

Salbiev's sniper account includes 601 killed enemy soldiers and officers.

11. Pchelintsev Vladimir Nikolaevich (08/30/1919- 27.07.1997)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 11th Infantry Brigade of the 8th Army of the Leningrad Front, Hero of the Soviet Union, sergeant.

One of the most successful snipers of the Second World War. Destroyed 456 soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers of the enemy.

12.Kvachantiradze Vasily Shalvovich (1907- 1950)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, foreman.

Sniper of the 259th Infantry Regiment of the 179th Infantry Division of the 43rd Army of the 1st Baltic Front.

One of the most effective snipers of the Great Patriotic War. Destroyed 534 enemy soldiers and officers.

13. Goncharov Pyotr Alekseevich (15.01.1903- 31.01.1944)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, Guard senior sergeant.

On his sniper account, more than 380 killed enemy soldiers and officers. Killed on January 31, 1944 while breaking through enemy defenses near the village of Vodyanoe.

14. Galushkin Nikolay Ivanovich (07/01/1917- 22.01.2007)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Russian Federation, lieutenant.

Served in the 49th Infantry Regiment of the 50th Infantry Division. Reportedly killed 418 German soldiers and officers, including 17 snipers, and trained 148 snipers. After the war, he carried out active military-patriotic work.

Member of the Great Patriotic War, commander of a sniper company of the 81st Guards Rifle Regiment, Guard Lieutenant.

By the end of June 1943, already the commander of a sniper company, Golosov personally destroyed about 420 Nazis, including 70 snipers. In his company, he trained 170 snipers, who in total killed more than 3,500 fascists.

He died on August 16, 1943 in the midst of battles for the village of Dolgenkoye, Izyumsky district, Kharkov region.

16. Nomokonov Semyon Danilovich (08/12/1900 - 07/15/1973)

Member of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet-Japanese War, twice holder of the Order of the Red Star, the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner.

During the Great Patriotic War, he destroyed 360 German soldiers and officers, including one major general. During the Soviet-Japanese War, he destroyed 8 soldiers and officers of the Kwantung Army. The total verified score is 368 enemy soldiers and officers.

17. Ilyin Nikolay Yakovlevich (1922 - 04.08.1943)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, foreman, deputy political instructor.

In total, the sniper had 494 killed enemies. On August 4, 1943, in a battle near the village of Yastrebovo, Nikolai Ilyin died, struck by a machine-gun burst.

18. Antonov Ivan Petrovich (07.07.1920 - 22.03.1989)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, shooter of the 160th separate rifle company of the Leningrad Naval Base of the Baltic Fleet, Red Navy, Hero of the Soviet Union.

Ivan Antonov became one of the founders of the sniper movement in the Baltic.

From December 28, 1941 to November 10, 1942, he killed 302 Nazis and taught the art of marksmanship at the enemy 80 snipers.

19. Dyachenko Fedor Trofimovich (06.16.1917 - 08.08.1995)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, major.

By February 1944, Dyachenko had destroyed 425 enemy soldiers and officers with sniper fire, including several snipers.

20. Idrisov Abukhadzhi (Abukhazhi) (05/17/1918- 22.10.1983)

Member of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1232th rifle regiment of the 370th rifle division, senior sergeant, Hero of the Soviet Union.

By March 1944, he had 349 killed Nazis on his account, and he was nominated for the title of Hero. In one of the battles in April 1944, Idrisov was wounded by a fragment of a mine that exploded nearby, and he was covered with earth. His comrades dug him up and sent him to the hospital.

After the start Great Patriotic War hundreds of thousands of women went to the front. Most of them became nurses, cooks, and more than 2000 - snipers... The Soviet Union was almost the only country that attracted women to carry out combat missions. Today I would like to recall the shooters who were considered the best during the war.

Rose Shanina

Rosa entered the school, but before the war, when education became paid, the girl was forced to go to work in a kindergarten as a teacher. Fortunately, then the employees of the institution were given housing. Rosa continued her studies at the evening department and successfully completed the 1941/42 academic year.

Three days after arriving at the location of the 338th Infantry Division, 20-year-old Rosa Shanina fired the first shot. In her diary, the girl described the sensations: "... her legs weakened, slipped into a trench, not remembering herself:" I killed a man, a man ... "Alarmed friends, running up to me, calmed me down:" You finished off the fascist! " Seven months later, the sniper girl wrote that she was killing enemies in cold blood, and now this is the whole meaning of her life.

Shanina's platoon was ordered to move in the second turn, behind the infantry detachments. However, the girl constantly rushed to the front line "to beat the enemy." Rosa was strictly cut off, because in the infantry any soldier could replace her, and no one in a sniper ambush.

Rosa Shanina took part in the Vilnius and Insterburg-Konigsberg operations. In European newspapers she was nicknamed "the invisible horror of East Prussia." Rose became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Glory.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

From the very first days of the war, Lyudmila went to the front as a volunteer. The girl refused to be a nurse and demanded to be recorded as a sniper. Then Lyudmila was given a rifle and ordered to shoot two prisoners. She coped with the task.

The Soviet sniper made many speeches at numerous congresses, but her performance in Chicago was most memorable. Lyudmila said: “Gentlemen, I am twenty-five years old. At the front, I have already managed to destroy three hundred and nine fascist invaders. Don't you feel, gentlemen, that you've been hiding behind my back for too long? " In the first seconds, everyone froze, and then a flurry of approving applause burst out.

On October 25, 1943, the female sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Nina Petrova

Behind Nina Petrova's shoulders are 122 killed enemies during the war and training of snipers. The woman did not live to see the end of the war for only a few days: she died in a car accident.

Claudia Kalugina

After the war, Claudia shared her memories of how at first she missed the target in the sniper school. They threatened to leave her in the rear if she did not learn to shoot accurately. And not going to the front line was considered a real shame. For the first time, finding herself in a blizzard in a trench covered with snow, the girl got cold feet. But then she overpowered herself and began to make well-aimed shots one after another. The hardest thing was to drag a rifle with you, since the height of skinny Claudia was only 157 cm.But the sniper girl overcame all adversity, and over time she was described as the most well-aimed shooter.

Female snipers

During the Great Patriotic War, not only female snipers terrified the enemy. , because the radars did not detect them, the noise of the engines was practically inaudible, and the girls dropped the bombs with such pinpoint accuracy that the enemy was doomed.

Snipers in ambush. Far left - Senior Sergeant Ivan Petrovich Merkulov, sniper of the 1st rifle company of the 610th rifle regiment. Far right - Merkulov's apprentice Sergeant Zolotov

Aces snipers who killed 50 or more enemy soldiers

Sniper Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev. who destroyed 225 soldiers and officers of the German army and the armies of their allies from November 10 to December 17, 1942

Photo allegedly depicting Erwin Koenig

The best snipers of World War II were Russian snipers, and there is a very specific explanation for this fact: long before the start of the Great Patriotic War, in the Soviet Union, special attention was paid to mass shooting training of the population, the development of skills in handling and marksmanship. In 1932, when Osoaviakhim established the title of Voroshilov shooter, a wide movement for mastering shooting skills unfolded. About 9 million people were awarded the Voroshilovsky shooter badge. The result of this work was a reserve of well-trained shooters.

Even before the start of the Great Patriotic War, sniper squads were included in the staff of the NKPS Railroad Guard units.
The real accounts of the snipers are actually larger than the confirmed ones. For example, Fyodor Okhlopkov, according to estimates, killed more than a thousand Germans in total, using also a machine gun. In 1943, there were over 1,000 women among Soviet snipers; during the war, more than 12,000 Germans were credited to them. The first ten Soviet snipers killed (confirmed) 4200 soldiers and officers, and the first twenty - 7400. Sniper of the 82nd Infantry Division Mikhail Lysov in October 1941 from an automatic rifle with a sniper scope shot down a Ju-87. Unfortunately, there is no data on the number of infantrymen killed by him. A sniper of the 796th rifle division Sergeant Major Antonov Vasily Antonovich in July 1942 near Voronezh shot down a twin-engined Ju-88 with four rifle shots. Data on the number of infantrymen killed by him also did not survive.

The weapon for our snipers was mainly the Mosin sniper rifle. However, the SVT sniper version was also used.

The training of snipers in the Wehrmacht began to be engaged only by the end of 1942, and not only Soviet captured sniper rifles were used, but also Soviet educational films and manuals. Therefore, the Germans managed to reach the required level only in 1944. It is believed that Erwin Koenig, who was killed by Vasily Zaitsev in Stalingrad, was engaged in the training of snipers in Germany. It is also alleged that the head of the school of snipers in Zossen was SS Standartenfuehrer Heinz Torvald, whose existence, like the school itself, is also in doubt - German snipers were trained not in schools, but directly in the troops. Many believe that Koenig was invented by the writer William Craig, who wrote the book "Enemy at the Gates" in 1973. However, the sight removed by Zaitsev from the Koenig sniper rifle was exhibited at the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. in Moscow, which, however, was removed from the exposition some time ago.

Most likely, Koenig was just a good sniper and was among those 11 snipers who were killed by Vasily Zaitsev, and inflating the importance of his person is only aimed at making the layman think that the Germans also had aces snipers.

Mosin sniper rifle

SVT with sniper scope

Lyudmila Pavlichenko is the most productive female sniper, having destroyed 309 enemies.

The most productive of our snipers was the sergeant major from the 1st battalion of the 39th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 12th army Mikhail Ilyich Surkov. Of the female snipers, the most effective was a sniper from the 54th rifle regiment of the 25th Chapaevskaya rifle division, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko. among the best snipers there were many hunters who had been hunting since childhood. The hunters were Vasily Zaitsev, Yakut sniper Fedor Matveyevich Okhlopkov and Mikhail Surkov. Evenk snipers Semyon Danilovich also became famous.

An interesting fact: from January 18 to January 28, 1943, a rally of NKVD snipers from all fronts was held in Moscow. It was attended by 309 people. After a four-day instructor-methodological seminar, a combat training took place. During it, a combined battalion of snipers from the rally participants destroyed 2,375 Wehrmacht servicemen in ten days.

Among the German snipers, Matthias Hetzenauer distinguished himself - 345 confirmed killed, Josef Allerberger - 257 confirmed killed and the Lithuanian Bruno Sutkus who fought for the Germans - 209 killed. The Finn Simo Häyhä also became famous, who is credited with 504 killed Red Army soldiers, of which 219 were documented.

List of the most productive Soviet snipers

The best snipers of World War II. German, Soviet, Finnish riflemen played a rather important role in wartime. And in this review, an attempt will be made to consider those of them that have become the most effective.

The emergence of sniper art

In the 19th century, there was a modernization of weapons. The tactics have changed accordingly. This was facilitated by the appearance of an optical sight. During the First World War, snipers were part of a separate cohort of saboteurs. Their goal was to quickly and effectively defeat the enemy's manpower. At the very beginning of the war, snipers were mainly used by the Germans. However, over time, special schools began to appear in other countries. In conditions of protracted conflicts, this "profession" has become quite popular.

Finnish snipers

So who exactly owe the best snipers of WWII? The most famous "cuckoo" was considered to be Simo Hayhe. He was nicknamed "the white death". The number of confirmed murders committed by him exceeded the mark of 500 killed soldiers of the Red Army. In some sources, his indicators were equal to 700. He was seriously injured. But Simo was able to recover. He died in 2002.

Propaganda played its part

The famous domestic sniper Vasily Zaitsev was able to destroy about 240 enemy soldiers. This figure was the average for effective riflemen of that war. But due to propaganda, he was made the most famous Red Army sniper. At the present stage, historians seriously doubt the existence of Major Koenig, Zaitsev's main opponent in Stalingrad. The main merits of the domestic shooter include the development of a sniper training program. He personally took part in their preparation. In addition, he formed a full-fledged sniper school. Its graduates were called "bunnies".

Highest scoring shooters

The best snipers of the USSR during World War II were not only men. In those years, women also actively joined the ranks of the Red Army. Some of them later became quite effective shooters. Soviet women killed about 12 thousand enemy soldiers. And the most productive was Lyudmila Pavlichenkova, on whose account there were 309 killed soldiers.

The best snipers of the USSR in the Second World War, of which there were quite a lot, have to their credit a large number of effective shots. More than 400 soldiers were killed by about fifteen riflemen. 25 snipers killed over 300 enemy soldiers. 36 shooters killed more than 200 Germans.

Little information about enemy shooters

Most likely, the most productive was Mathias Hetzenauer. He killed about 345 soldiers. The third sniper to be awarded the order was Joseph Ollerberg. He left a memoir in which a lot was written about the activities of German riflemen during the war. The sniper himself killed about 257 soldiers.

Sniper terror

Thus, the Finnish "cuckoos" taught a good lesson in their time. Thanks to them, the best snipers of the Second World War served in the Red Army.

Women fought on a par with men

The chronicle contains a lot of information about women who received military awards. And the best snipers of the war among them were also present. Our girls were able to destroy more than 12 thousand enemy soldiers. Six of them received the high title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And one girl became a full Knight of the Soldier's Order of Glory.

Legendary girl

In June 1942, the girl was wounded. After that, she no longer took part in hostilities. The wounded Lyudmila was carried off the battlefield by Alexei Kitsenko, with whom she fell in love. They decided to submit a marriage registration report. However, the happiness did not last too long. In March 1942, the lieutenant was seriously wounded and died in the arms of his wife.

In the same year, Lyudmila became a member of the delegation of Soviet youth and left for America. There she made a splash. After returning, Lyudmila became an instructor at the sniper school. Several dozen good shooters were trained under her leadership. Here they were - the best snipers of the USSR in World War II.

Creation of a special school

There was a cruel attitude towards girls from the side of enemies

Only time has changed attitudes towards women shooters

For a long time they did not tell anyone that they were at war. They hid their awards. And only after 20 years the attitude towards them began to change. And it was at this time that the girls began to open up, talking about their many exploits.

Conclusion

When it comes to sniping during World War II, they usually think of Soviet snipers. Indeed, such a scale of the sniper movement, which was in the Soviet Army in those years, was not in any other army, and the total number of enemy soldiers and officers destroyed by our riflemen is in the tens of thousands.
And what do we know about German snipers, "opponents" of our riflemen on the other side of the front? Previously, it was not officially accepted to objectively assess the merits and demerits of the enemy, with whom Russia had to wage a difficult war for four years. Times have changed today, but too much time has passed since those events, so much information is fragmentary and even dubious. Nevertheless, let's try to bring together the little information available to us.

As you know, during the First World War, it was the German army that was the first to actively use accurate rifle fire from specially trained snipers in peacetime to destroy the most important targets - officers, messengers, machine gunners on duty, artillery servants. Note that already at the end of the war, the German infantry had at its disposal up to six sniper rifles per company - for comparison, it must be said that the Russian army of that time did not have any rifles with optical sights at all, nor trained shooters from these weapons.
The German army instruction stated that “a weapon with a telescopic sight works very accurately at a distance of up to 300 meters. It should be issued only to trained shooters who are able to eliminate the enemy in his trenches, mainly at dusk and at night. ... The sniper is not assigned to a specific location and position. He can and should move and position himself so as to fire a shot at an important target. He must use a telescopic sight to observe the enemy, write down his remarks and observation results, ammunition consumption and the results of his shots in a notebook. Snipers are exempt from additional duties.

They have the right to wear special insignia in the form of crossed oak leaves over the cockade of their headdress. "
German snipers played a special role precisely during the positional period of the war. Even without attacking the leading edge of the enemy, the Entente troops suffered losses in manpower. As soon as a soldier or officer inadvertently leaned out from behind the breastwork of the trench, a sniper shot instantly snapped from the side of the German trenches. The moral effect of such losses was enormous. The mood of the Anglo-French units, which lost several dozen people in killed and wounded during the day, was depressed. There was only one way out: to release their "super-sharp shooters" to the leading edge. In the period from 1915 to 1918, snipers were actively used by both belligerents, due to which the concept of military sniping was basically formed, combat missions for "super-sharp shooters" were defined, and basic tactics were worked out.

It was the German experience of the practical application of sniping in the conditions of established long-term positions that served as the impetus for the emergence and development of this type of military art in the Allied troops. By the way, when in 1923 the then German army - the Reichswehr began to be equipped with new Mauser carbines of the 98K version, each company received 12 units of such weapons, equipped with optical sights.

Nevertheless, in the interwar period, snipers in the German army were somehow forgotten. However, there is nothing unusual in this fact: in almost all European armies (with the exception of the Red Army), sniper art was considered simply an interesting, but insignificant experiment of the positional period of the Great War. Military theorists saw the future war primarily as a war of engines, where motorized infantry would only follow shock tank wedges, which, with the support of front-line aviation, would be able to break through the enemy front and rush there swiftly in order to reach the flank and operational rear of the enemy. In such conditions, there was practically no real work for snipers.

This concept of using motorized troops in the first experiments seemed to confirm its correctness: the German blitzkrieg swept across Europe with frightening speed, sweeping away armies and fortifications. However, with the beginning of the invasion of Nazi troops into the territory of the Soviet Union, the situation began to change rapidly. Although the Red Army was retreating under the onslaught of the Wehrmacht, it offered such fierce resistance that the Germans repeatedly had to go over to the defensive in order to repulse counterattacks. And when already in the winter of 1941-1942. snipers appeared on the Russian positions and the sniper movement, supported by the political administrations of the fronts, began to develop actively, the German command remembered the need to train its "super-sharp shooters" as well. Sniper schools and front-line courses began to be organized in the Wehrmacht, and the "share" of sniper rifles in relation to other types of small arms gradually began to grow.

The sniper version of the 7.92-mm Mauser 98K carbine was tested back in 1939, but this version began to be mass-produced only after the attack on the USSR. Since 1942, 6% of all carbines produced have had a telescopic sight bracket, but throughout the war, there was a shortage of sniper weapons in the German troops. For example, in April 1944, the Wehrmacht received 164,525 carbines, but only 3276 of them had optical sights, i.e. about 2%. However, according to the post-war assessment of German military experts, “Type 98 carbines equipped with standard optics could in no way meet the requirements of the battle. Compared to Soviet sniper rifles ... they were significantly different for the worse. Therefore, every Soviet sniper rifle captured as a trophy was immediately used by the Wehrmacht soldiers. "

By the way, the ZF41 optical sight with a magnification of 1.5x was attached to a guide specially carved on the aiming block, so that the distance from the shooter's eye to the eyepiece was about 22 cm.German opticians believed that such an optical sight with a small magnification, installed at a considerable distance from the shooter's eye to the eyepiece, it should be quite effective, since it allows you to direct the crosshair to the target without stopping the observation of the terrain. At the same time, the small magnification of the sight does not give a significant discrepancy in scale between objects observed through the sight and over it. In addition, this option for the placement of optics allows you to load the rifle using clips, without losing sight of the target and the muzzle of the barrel. But naturally, a sniper rifle with such a low-power sight could not be used for long-range shooting. However, such a device was still not popular among Wehrmacht snipers - often such rifles were simply thrown onto the battlefield in the hope of finding something better for themselves.

The 7.92-mm self-loading rifle G43 (or K43), produced since 1943, also had its own sniper version with a 4x telescopic sight. The German military leadership required all G43 rifles to have a telescopic sight, but this was no longer possible to accomplish. Nevertheless, out of 402,703 issued before March 1945, almost 50 thousand had an already installed telescopic sight. In addition, all rifles had a bracket for mounting optics, so in theory any rifle could be used as a sniper weapon.

Given all these shortcomings of the weapons of German shooters, as well as the numerous flaws in the organization of the sniper training system, it is hardly possible to dispute the fact that the German army lost the sniper war on the Eastern Front. This is confirmed by the words of the former Wehrmacht Lieutenant Colonel Eike Middeldorf, the author of the famous book "Tactics in the Russian Campaign," that "the Russians were superior to the Germans in the art of night combat, combat in wooded and swampy terrain and combat in winter, in training snipers, and equipping the infantry with machine guns and mortars ”.
The famous duel of the Russian sniper Vasily Zaitsev with the head of the Berlin sniper school Connings, which took place during the Battle of Stalingrad, became a symbol of the complete moral superiority of our "super-sharp shooters", although it was still very far before the end of the war and many more Russian soldiers will be carried to the grave by German bullets shooters.

At the same time, on the other side of Europe, in Normandy, German snipers were able to achieve much greater success, repelling the attacks of the Anglo-American troops landing on the French coast.
After the Allied landings in Normandy, almost a month of bloody battles passed before the Wehrmacht units were forced to start retreating under the influence of the ever-increasing enemy attacks. It was during this month that German snipers showed that they, too, are capable of something.

American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, describing the early days after the landing of the Allied forces, wrote: “Snipers are everywhere. Snipers in trees, in buildings, in heaps of ruins, in the grass. But mostly they hide in the tall, dense hedges that stretch along the Norman fields, and are on every roadside, in every alley. " First of all, such a high activity and combat effectiveness of German riflemen can be explained by the extremely small number of snipers in the Allied troops, who were unable to provide quick resistance to sniper terror from the enemy. In addition, a purely psychological moment cannot be disregarded: the British and especially the Americans, for the most part, subconsciously still perceive the war as a kind of risky sport, so it is not surprising that many Allied soldiers were severely amazed and morally depressed by the very fact of being on the front some invisible enemy, stubbornly unwilling to abide by the gentleman's "laws of war" and shooting from an ambush. The morale effect of sniper fire was indeed quite significant, since, according to some historians, in the early days of fighting, up to fifty percent of all losses in American units were attributed to enemy snipers. A natural consequence of this was the lightning-fast spread of legends about the combat capabilities of enemy shooters through the "soldier's telegraph", and soon the soldiers' panic fear of snipers became a serious problem for the officers of the allied forces.

The tasks that the Wehrmacht command set for their "super-sharp shooters" were standard for army sniping: the destruction of such categories of enemy servicemen as officers, sergeants, artillery observers, signalmen. In addition, snipers were used as scout observers.

American veteran John Hayton, who was 19 years old during the landing, recalls his meeting with a German sniper. When his unit was able to move away from the landing point and reached the enemy fortifications, the gun crew tried to install their gun on the top of the hill. But every time, when another soldier tried to get up to the sight, a shot snapped in the distance - and the next gunner settled with a bullet in his head. Note that, according to Hayton, the distance to the German's position was very significant - about eight hundred meters.

The number of German "super-sharp shooters" on the shores of Normandy is evidenced by the following fact: when the 2nd battalion of the "Royal Ulster Riflemen" moved to capture the command heights near Perrier-sur-le-Dens, after a short battle it captured seventeen prisoners, seven of them turned out to be snipers.

Another British infantry unit moved from the coast towards Cambrai, a small hamlet surrounded by dense forest and stone walls. Since it was impossible to observe the enemy, the British made a hasty conclusion that the resistance should be negligible. When one of the companies reached the edge of the forest, it came under heavy rifle and mortar fire. The effectiveness of the rifle fire of the Germans was strangely high: the orderlies of the medical department were killed while trying to remove the wounded from the battlefield, the captain was killed on the spot by a shot in the head, one of the platoon commanders was seriously wounded. The tanks supporting the unit's attack were powerless to do anything due to the high wall surrounding the village. The battalion command was forced to stop the offensive, but by this moment the company commander and fourteen other people were killed, one officer and eleven soldiers were wounded, and four people were missing. In fact, Cambrai turned out to be an excellently fortified German position. When, after processing it with all kinds of artillery - from light mortars to naval guns - the village was still taken, it turned out to be filled with dead German soldiers, many of whom had rifles with telescopic sights. One wounded SS sniper was also captured.

Many of the shooters the Allies encountered in Normandy received good shooting training in the Hitler Youth. Before the start of the war, this youth organization strengthened the military training of its members: they all studied the device of military weapons without fail, trained in shooting from small-caliber rifles, and the most capable of them purposefully trained in the art of sniper. When these "children of Hitler" later entered the army, they received full-fledged sniper training. In particular, the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth", which fought in Normandy, was staffed with soldiers from among the members of this organization, and officers from the SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler", notorious for its atrocities. In the battles in the Cannes region, these teenagers received the baptism of fire.

In general, Cannes was almost an ideal place for a sniper war. Working together with artillery spotters, German snipers completely controlled the area around this city, British and Canadian soldiers were forced to carefully check literally every meter of the territory to make sure that the area was really cleared of enemy "cuckoos".
On June 26, an SS soldier named Pelzmann, from a well-chosen and carefully disguised position, destroyed allied soldiers for several hours, restraining their advance in his sector. When the sniper ran out of cartridges, he got out of his "prone", smashed a rifle on a tree and shouted to the British: "I finished off enough of yours, but I ran out of cartridges - you can shoot me!" Probably, he could not have said this: the British infantrymen gladly complied with his last request. The German prisoners who were present at this scene were forced to gather all those killed in one place. One of these prisoners later claimed that he counted at least thirty dead Englishmen near Pelzmann's position.

Despite the lesson learned by the allied infantry in the very first days after the landing in Normandy, there were no effective means against the German "super-sharp riflemen", they became a constant headache. The possible presence of invisible shooters, ready to shoot a bullet at anyone every minute, was exhausting. Clearing the area from snipers was very difficult, sometimes it took a whole day to completely comb the area around the field camp, but without that no one could vouch for their safety.

Allied soldiers gradually learned in practice the basics of precautions against sniper fire, which the Germans themselves learned three years ago, finding themselves in the same situation under the gun of Soviet fighter shooters. In order not to tempt fate, the Americans and the British began to move, bending low to the ground, dashing from cover to cover; the privates stopped greeting the officers, and the officers, in turn, began to wear a field uniform, very similar to the soldier's - everything was done in order to minimize the risk and not provoke an enemy sniper to shoot. Nevertheless, the sense of danger became a constant companion of the soldiers in Normandy.

German snipers disappeared into the complex landscape of Normandy. The fact is that most of this area is a real labyrinth of fields fenced with hedges. These hedges date back to Roman times and were used to mark the boundaries of land parcels. The land here was divided by hedges of hawthorn, blackberry and various creepers into small fields, which strongly resembled a patchwork quilt. Some of these fences were planted on high embankments, in front of which drainage ditches were dug. When it rained - and it did often - the dirt stuck to the soldiers' boots, the cars got stuck, and they had to be pulled out with the help of tanks, and all around was darkness, a dull sky and shaggy walls of hedges.

Unsurprisingly, such a terrain provided an ideal battlefield for sniper warfare. Moving deep into France, the units left in their tactical rear a lot of enemy riflemen, who then began the systematic shooting of careless rear soldiers. Hedges made it possible to view the terrain for only two or three hundred meters, and from such a distance even a novice sniper is capable of hitting the head figure from a rifle with a telescopic sight. The dense vegetation not only limited the view, but also allowed the cuckoo shooter, after several shots, to easily escape from the return fire.

The battles among the hedges were reminiscent of Theseus' wanderings in the labyrinth of the Minotaur. Tall, dense bushes along the roads made the Allied soldiers feel like they were in a tunnel, in the depths of which an insidious trap was arranged. The terrain presented numerous opportunities for snipers to choose "lays" and equip rifle cells, while their enemy was in exactly the opposite situation. Most often, in the hedges on the paths of the most likely movement of the enemy, Wehrmacht snipers arranged numerous "prisons" from which they fired harassing fire, and also covered machine-gun positions, set up surprise mines, etc. - in other words, there was a systematic and well-organized sniper terror. Single German shooters, finding themselves deep in the rear of the allies, hunted enemy soldiers and officers until they ran out of ammunition and food, and then ... simply surrendered, which, given the attitude of the enemy's military personnel towards them, was a rather risky business.

However, not everyone was eager to surrender. It was in Normandy that the so-called "suicide boys" appeared, who, contrary to all the canons of sniper tactics, did not at all seek to change their position after several shots, but, on the contrary, continued to conduct continuous fire until they were destroyed. Such tactics, which were suicidal for the shooters themselves, in many cases allowed them to manage to inflict heavy losses on the infantry units of the allies.

The Germans did not only ambush among the hedges and trees - the crossroads, where such important targets as senior officers were often encountered, were also convenient ambush spots. Here the Germans had to fire from fairly large distances, since it was the intersections that were usually closely guarded. Bridges were exceptionally convenient targets for shelling, since the infantry was crowded here, and just a few shots could cause panic among the still unfired reinforcements heading to the front. Detached buildings were too obvious places to select a position, so snipers were usually camouflaged to the side of them, but the numerous ruins in the villages became their favorite place - however, here they had to change positions more often than in normal field conditions, when it is difficult to locate the shooter ...

The natural desire of every sniper was to be located in a place from which the whole area would be clearly visible, so water pumps, mills and bell towers were ideal positions, but it was these objects that were primarily subjected to artillery and machine-gun fire. Despite this, some German "super-sharp shooters" were still stationed there. Destroyed by the guns of the Allies, Norman village churches became a symbol of the German sniper terror.

Like snipers of any army, German shooters tried to hit the most important targets in the first place: officers, sergeants, observers, gun servants, signalmen, tank commanders. One captured German during interrogation explained to the interested British how he could distinguish officers at a great distance - after all, British officers had long worn the same field uniform as privates and had no insignia. He said, "We're just shooting people with mustaches." The fact is that in the British army, officers and senior sergeants traditionally wore mustaches.
Unlike the machine gunner, the sniper did not reveal his position when firing, therefore, under favorable circumstances, one competent "super-sharp shooter" could stop the advance of an infantry company, especially if it was a company of non-fired soldiers: once under fire, the infantrymen often lay down and did not even try to shoot back ... A former commander of the US Army recalled that “one of the biggest mistakes recruits consistently made was that they just lay down on the ground under fire and didn’t move. Once I ordered the platoon to advance from one hedge to another. During the movement, the sniper killed one of the soldiers with the first shot. All the other soldiers immediately fell to the ground and were almost completely killed one by one by the same sniper. "

In general, 1944 was a turning point for the art of sniper in the German army. The role of sniping was finally appreciated by the high command: numerous orders emphasized the need for the competent use of snipers, preferably in pairs "shooter plus observer", various types of camouflage and special equipment were developed. It was assumed that during the second half of 1944 the number of sniper pairs in the grenadier and people's grenadier units would be doubled. The head of the "black order" Heinrich Himmler also became interested in sniping in the SS troops, he approved a program of specialized in-depth training of fighter shooters.

In the same year, by order of the Luftwaffe command, the training films "Invisible weapons: a sniper in battle" and "Field training of snipers" were filmed for use in training ground units. Both films were shot quite competently and very high quality, even from the height of today: here are given the main points of special sniper training, the most important recommendations for action in the field, and all this in a popular form, with a combination of game elements.

The memo, widely circulated at this time, entitled "The Ten Commandments of the Sniper" read:
- Fight selflessly.
- Fire calmly and carefully, concentrate on each shot. Remember that fast firing has no effect.
- Shoot only when you are sure you will not be detected.
- Your main enemy is an enemy sniper, outsmart him.
- Do not forget that the sapper shovel prolongs your life.
- Practice measuring distances constantly.
- Become a master of terrain and camouflage.
- Train constantly - on the front line and in the rear.
- Take care of your sniper rifle, do not give it to anyone in the hands.
- Survival for a sniper in nine parts - camouflage and only one - shooting.

In the German army, snipers were used at various tactical levels. It was the experience of applying this concept that allowed E. Middeldorf in his book to propose the following practice in the post-war period: “There are no other issues related to infantry combat operations as big as the issue of the use of snipers. Some consider it necessary to have a regular platoon of snipers in each company, or at least in the battalion. Others predict that snipers in pairs will be most successful. We will try to find a solution that satisfies both points of view. First of all, one should distinguish between "amateur snipers" and "professional snipers". It is desirable that each squad has two non-standard amateur snipers. They need to be given a 4x magnification telescopic sight to the assault rifle. They will remain regular shooters with additional sniper training. If using them as snipers is not possible, then they will act like regular soldiers. As for professional snipers, there should be two in each company or six in the company command group. They must be armed with a special sniper rifle with a muzzle velocity of more than 1000 m / sec., With a 6x high aperture optical sight. These snipers, as a rule, will conduct "free hunting" in the company area. If, depending on the situation and terrain conditions, the need to use a platoon of snipers arises, it will be easy to implement, since the company has 24 snipers (18 amateur snipers and 6 professional snipers), which in this case can be combined together " ... Note that this concept of sniping is considered one of the most promising.

Allied soldiers and lower-level officers, who suffer most from sniper terror, have developed various methods of dealing with enemy invisible riflemen. And yet the most effective way was still to use their snipers.

According to statistics, during the Second World War it usually took 25,000 rounds to kill a soldier. For snipers, the same number averaged 1.3-1.5.

As for the theme of the army of fascist Germany, I can remind you of the history of such its leaders as The original article is on the site InfoGlaz.rf The link to the article this copy was made from is