When it comes to sniping during the Second World War, people usually think about Soviet snipers. Indeed, the scale of the sniper movement that was in the Soviet Army in those years was not seen in any other army, and the total number of enemy soldiers and officers destroyed by our shooters amounts to tens of thousands.

What do we know about German snipers, “opponents” of our shooters on the other side of the front? Previously, it was not officially accepted to objectively assess the merits and demerits of an enemy with whom Russia had to wage a difficult war for four years. Today, times have changed, but too much time has passed since those events, so much information is fragmentary and even doubtful. Nevertheless, we will 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 snipers specially trained in peacetime to destroy the most important targets - officers, messengers, machine gunners on duty, and 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 had neither rifles with optical sights nor trained shooters with these weapons.

German army instructions stated that “weapons with telescopic sights are very accurate 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 place and position. He can and must move and position himself so as to fire a shot at an important target. He must use an optical sight to observe the enemy, write down his observations and observation results, ammunition consumption and the results of his shots in a notebook. Snipers are relieved of additional duties.

They have the right to wear special insignia in the form of crossed oak leaves above the cockade of their headdress.”

German snipers played a special role during the positional period of the war. Even without attacking the enemy’s front line, the Entente troops suffered losses in manpower. As soon as a soldier or officer carelessly leaned out from behind the parapet of the trench, a sniper’s shot instantly clicked from the direction of the German trenches. The moral effect of such losses was extremely great. The mood of the Anglo-French units, which lost several dozen people killed and wounded per day, was depressed. There was only one way out: to release our “super-sharp shooters” to the front line. In the period from 1915 to 1918, snipers were actively used by both warring parties, thanks to which the concept of military sniping was basically formed, combat missions for “super marksmen” were defined, and basic tactics were developed.

It was the German experience in the practical use of sniping in 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 forces. 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.

However, during the interwar period, snipers were somehow forgotten in the German army. 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. The future war was seen by military theorists primarily as a war of motors, where motorized infantry would only follow the attack tank wedges, which, with the support of front-line aviation, would be able to break through the enemy front and quickly rush there with the aim of reaching the flank and operational rear of the enemy. In such conditions there was practically no real work left for snipers.

This concept of using motorized troops in the first experiments seemed to confirm its correctness: the German blitzkrieg swept across Europe with terrifying 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 quickly. Although the Red Army was retreating under the pressure of the Wehrmacht, it put up such fierce resistance that the Germans repeatedly had to go on the defensive to repel counterattacks. And when already in the winter of 1941-1942. snipers appeared in Russian positions and the sniper movement began to actively develop, supported by the political departments of the fronts, the German command remembered the need to train their “super-sharp shooters.” In the Wehrmacht, sniper schools and front-line courses began to be organized, and the “relative weight” of sniper rifles in relation to other types of small arms gradually began to increase.

A 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 had a telescopic sight mount, but throughout the war there was a shortage of sniper weapons among German troops. For example, in April 1944, the Wehrmacht received 164,525 carbines, but only 3,276 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 case meet the requirements of combat. 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 Wehrmacht soldiers.”

By the way, the ZF41 optical sight with a magnification of 1.5x was attached to a specially machined guide on the sighting block, so that the distance from the shooter’s eye to the eyepiece was about 22 cm. German optics experts believed that such an optical sight with a slight magnification, installed at a considerable distance from the shooter's eye to the eyepiece, should be quite effective, since it allows you to aim the crosshairs at the target without stopping monitoring the area. At the same time, the low magnification of the sight does not provide a significant discrepancy in scale between objects observed through the sight and on top of it. In addition, this type of optics placement 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 scope could not be used for shooting at long distances. 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.

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

Considering all these shortcomings in the weapons of German riflemen, as well as numerous shortcomings 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 former Wehrmacht lieutenant colonel Eike Middeldorff, author of the famous book “Tactics in the Russian Campaign,” that “the Russians were superior to the Germans in the art of night fighting, fighting in wooded and swampy areas and fighting in winter, in training snipers, as well as equipping the infantry with machine guns and mortars."

The famous duel between the Russian sniper Vasily Zaitsev and 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 marksmanship”, although the end of the war was still very far away and many more Russian soldiers would be carried to their graves 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 attacks by Anglo-American troops landing on the French coast.

After the Allied landings in Normandy, almost a whole month of bloody fighting passed before Wehrmacht units were forced to begin a retreat under the influence of ever-increasing enemy attacks. It was during this month that German snipers showed that they, too, were capable of something.

American war correspondent Ernie Pyle, describing the first days after the landing of the Allied forces, wrote: “Snipers are everywhere. Snipers in trees, in buildings, in piles of ruins, in the grass. But mostly they hide in the tall, thick hedges that line the Norman fields, and are found 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 forces, who were unable to quickly counteract sniper terror from the enemy. In addition, one cannot discount the purely psychological aspect: the British and especially the Americans for the most part subconsciously still perceive 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 at the front some invisible enemy who stubbornly refuses to comply with the gentlemanly “laws of war” and shoots from an ambush. The morale effect of sniper fire was indeed quite significant, since, according to some historians, in the first days of the fighting, up to fifty percent of all losses in American units were due 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’ panicky fear of snipers became a serious problem for officers of the Allied forces.

The tasks that the Wehrmacht command set for its “super-sharp marksmen” were standard for army sniping: the destruction of such categories of enemy military personnel as officers, sergeants, artillery observers, and signalmen. In addition, snipers were used as reconnaissance observers.

American veteran John Highton, who was 19 years old during the landing days, 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 attempted to set up their gun on the top of the hill. But every time another soldier tried to stand up to the gun sight, a shot clicked in the distance - and another gunner ended up with a bullet in his head. Note that, according to Highton, the distance to the German position was very significant - about eight hundred meters.

The number of German “high marksmanship” on the shores of Normandy is indicated by the following fact: when the 2nd battalion of the “Royal Ulster Fusiliers” moved to capture command heights near Periers-sur-les-Den, after a short battle they captured seventeen prisoners, seven of them turned out to be snipers.

Another unit of British infantry advanced from the coast to Cambrai, a small village surrounded by dense forest and stone walls. Since observation of the enemy was impossible, the British jumped to the conclusion that resistance should be insignificant. When one of the companies reached the edge of the forest, it came under heavy rifle and mortar fire. The effectiveness of the German rifle fire was strangely high: the orderlies of the medical department were killed while trying to carry the wounded from the battlefield, the captain was killed outright with a shot in the head, and 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 time 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 a well-fortified German position. When, after treating it with all types of artillery - from light mortars to naval guns - the village was finally taken, it turned out to be filled with dead German soldiers, many of whom had rifles with telescopic sights. One wounded sniper from the SS units was also captured.

Many of the marksmen the Allies encountered in Normandy had received extensive marksmanship training from the Hitler Youth. Before the start of the war, this youth organization strengthened the military training of its members: all of them were required to study the design of military weapons, practice shooting with small-caliber rifles, and the most capable of them were 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 "Hitlerjugend" that fought in Normandy was staffed with soldiers from 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 a baptism of fire.

In general, Cannes was an almost ideal place for sniper warfare. 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 truly cleared of enemy "cuckoos".

On June 26, an ordinary SS man named Peltzmann, from a well-chosen and carefully camouflaged position, destroyed Allied soldiers for several hours, holding back their advance in his sector. When the sniper ran out of cartridges, he got out of his “bed”, smashed his rifle against a tree and shouted to the British: “I finished off enough of yours, but I’m out of cartridges - you can shoot me!” He probably didn’t have to say this: the British infantrymen gladly complied with his last request. The German prisoners present at this scene were forced to collect all those killed in one place. One of these prisoners later claimed to have counted at least thirty dead Englishmen near Peltzmann's position.

Despite the lesson learned by the Allied infantry in the first days after the Normandy landings, there were no effective means against the German “super sharpshooters”; they became a constant headache. The possible presence of invisible shooters, ready to shoot anyone at any moment, was nerve-wracking. Clearing the area of ​​snipers was very difficult, sometimes requiring a whole day to completely comb the area around the field camp, but without this no one could guarantee their safety.

The Allied soldiers gradually learned in practice the basic precautions against sniper fire that the Germans themselves had learned three years earlier, finding themselves in the same situation at the gunpoint of Soviet fighter shooters. In order not to tempt fate, the Americans and British began to move, bending low to the ground, dashing from cover to cover; the rank and file stopped greeting the officers, and the officers, in turn, began to wear a field uniform, very similar to a soldier's - everything was done in order to minimize the risk and not provoke the enemy sniper to shoot. Nevertheless, the feeling of danger became a constant companion for the soldiers in Normandy.

German snipers disappeared into the difficult landscape of Normandy. The fact is that most of this area is a real labyrinth of fields surrounded by hedges. These hedges appeared here during the Roman Empire and were used to mark the boundaries of land plots. The land here was divided into small fields by hedges of hawthorn, bramble and various creeping plants, much like a patchwork quilt. Some such enclosures were planted on high embankments, in front of which drainage ditches were dug. When it rained - and it rained often - mud stuck to the soldiers' boots, cars got stuck and had to be pulled out with the help of tanks, and all around there was only darkness, a dim sky and shaggy hedge walls.

It is not surprising that such terrain provided an ideal battlefield for sniper warfare. Moving into the depths of France, the units left many enemy riflemen in their tactical rear, who then began the systematic shooting of careless rear soldiers. The hedges made it possible to view the terrain at only two to three hundred meters, and from such a distance even a novice sniper could hit the head figure with a rifle with a telescopic sight. Dense vegetation not only limited visibility, but also allowed the “cuckoo” shooter to easily escape return fire after several shots.

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 there was an insidious trap. The terrain presented numerous opportunities for snipers to select positions and set up shooting cells, while their enemy was in exactly the opposite situation. Most often, in the hedges along the paths of the most likely movement of the enemy, Wehrmacht snipers set up numerous “beds” from which they fired harassing fire, and also covered machine-gun positions, laid surprise mines, etc. - in other words, there was a systematic and well-organized sniper terror. Single German riflemen, 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 enemy soldiers towards them, was quite a risky business.

However, not everyone wanted 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 strive to change their position after several shots, but, on the contrary, continued to fire continuously until they were destroyed. Such tactics, suicidal for the riflemen themselves, in many cases allowed them to inflict heavy losses on the Allied infantry units.

The Germans did not only set up ambushes among hedges and trees - road intersections, where important targets such as senior officers were often encountered, were also convenient places for ambushes. Here the Germans had to fire from fairly large distances, since the intersections were usually tightly guarded. Bridges were exceptionally convenient targets for shelling, since infantry were crowded here, and just a few shots could cause panic among the unfired reinforcements heading to the front. Isolated buildings were too obvious places to choose a position, so snipers usually camouflaged themselves away from them, but numerous ruins in villages became their favorite place - although here they had to change position more often than in normal field conditions, when it is difficult to determine the location of the shooter .

The natural desire of every sniper was to position himself in a place from which the entire area would be clearly visible, so water pumps, mills and bell towers were ideal positions, but it was these objects that were primarily subject to artillery and machine-gun fire. Despite this, some German “high marksmen” were still stationed there. Norman village churches destroyed by Allied guns became a symbol of German sniper terror.

Like snipers of any army, German riflemen tried to hit the most important targets first: officers, sergeants, observers, gun personnel, signalmen, tank commanders. One captured German, during interrogation, explained to 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 did not have insignia. He said, "We just shoot people with mustaches." The fact is that in the British army, officers and senior sergeants traditionally wore mustaches.

Unlike a machine gunner, a sniper did not reveal his position when shooting, therefore, under favorable circumstances, one competent “super marksman” could stop the advance of an infantry company, especially if it was a company of unfired soldiers: having come under fire, the infantrymen most often lay down and did not even try to shoot back . A former commanding officer in the US Army recalled that “one of the main mistakes that recruits constantly made was that under fire they simply lay down on the ground and did not move. On one occasion I ordered a platoon to advance from one hedge to another. While moving, the sniper killed one of the soldiers with his first shot. All the other soldiers immediately fell to the ground and were almost completely killed one after another by the same sniper.”

In general, 1944 was a turning point for sniper art in the German troops. 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 of “shooter plus observer,” and 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, and he approved a program of specialized in-depth training for fighter shooters.

In the same year, by order of the Luftwaffe command, educational films “Invisible Weapon: Sniper in Combat” and “Field Training of Snipers” were filmed for use in training ground units. Both films were shot quite competently and of very high quality, even from the heights of today: here are the main points of special sniper training, the most important recommendations for actions in the field, and all this in a popular form, with a combination of game elements.

A memo, widely circulated at the time, called “The Ten Commandments of the Sniper” read:

- Fight selflessly.

- Fire calmly and carefully, concentrate on each shot. Remember that rapid fire has no effect.

- Shoot only when you are sure that you will not be detected.

- Your main opponent is the enemy sniper, outsmart him.

— Don’t forget that a mining shovel prolongs your life.

— Constantly practice determining distances.

- Become a master of terrain and camouflage.

— Train constantly - on the front line and in the rear.

- Take care of your sniper rifle, don’t give it to anyone.

— Survival for a sniper has nine parts - camouflage and only one - shooting.

In the German army, snipers were used at various tactical levels. It was the experience of applying such a concept that allowed E. Middeldorff in his book to propose the following practice in the post-war period: “In no other issue related to infantry combat are there such great contradictions as in the issue of the use of snipers. Some consider it necessary to have a full-time platoon of snipers in each company, or at least in the battalion. Others predict that snipers operating in pairs will have the greatest success. We will try to find a solution that satisfies the requirements of both points of view. First of all, one should distinguish between “amateur snipers” and “professional snipers.” It is advisable that each squad have two non-staff amateur snipers. They need to be given a 4x optical sight for their assault rifle. They will remain regular shooters who have received additional sniper training. If using them as snipers is not possible, they will act as regular soldiers. As for professional snipers, there should be two of them in each company or six in the company control group. They must be armed with a special sniper rifle with a muzzle velocity of more than 1000 m/sec, with a 6-fold high-aperture optical sight. These snipers will typically "free hunt" the company area. If, depending on the situation and terrain conditions, the need arises to use a platoon of snipers, then this will be easily feasible, since the company has 24 snipers (18 amateur snipers and 6 professional snipers), who in this case can be united together.” . Note that this concept of sniping is considered one of the most promising.

Allied soldiers and lower-ranking officers, those who suffered most from sniper terror, developed various methods of dealing with enemy invisible shooters. 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 shots to kill a soldier. For snipers, the same number was on average 1.3-1.5.

Regarding the topic of the army of Nazi Germany, I can remind you of the history of such figures as

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 be especially prominent when awarding military awards. Among the famous Heroes of the Soviet Union there are sappers, tank crews, pilots, sailors, infantrymen and military doctors.

But I would like to highlight one military specialty that 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, hitting targets with the first shot. Its task is to defeat command and communications personnel and 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 sniper heroes 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 ours.

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 fighting. Most of the enemies were eliminated by him during the Battle of Stalingrad. For the destruction of Passar, the German command assigned a reward of 100 thousand Reichsmarks. Hero of the Russian Federation (posthumously).

2. Surkov Mikhail Ilyich (1921-1953)

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

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

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

On the personal account of sniper Kovshova there are 167 killed fascist soldiers and officers. During her service, she trained soldiers in 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)

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

Sniper of the 580th Infantry Regiment of the 188th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the North-Western Front. Sergeant Major Zhambyl Tulaev destroyed 262 Nazis from May to November 1942. Trained more than 30 snipers for the front.

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

The assistant chief of staff of the 1122nd Infantry Regiment, Captain Ivan Sidorenko, distinguished himself as the organizer of the sniper movement. By 1944, he personally killed about 500 Nazis with a sniper rifle.

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

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

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

By June 23, 1944, Sergeant Okhlopkov killed 429 Nazi soldiers and officers with a sniper rifle. 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 (25.10.1925 - 14.01.1944)

Participant in 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 destroyed several dozen enemies in the first 2 months of participation in battles. On January 14, 1944, she took part in the battle for the village of Kazachikha, Pskov Region, and led the soldiers into the attack. Having broken into the enemy’s defenses, she destroyed several soldiers and officers with a machine gun. She died in this battle.

8. Budenkov Mikhail Ivanovich (05.12.1919 - 02.08.1995)

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

By September 1944, Guard Senior Sergeant Mikhail Budenkov was a sniper in 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 killed by sniper fire. He entered the top ten best snipers of the Great Patriotic War.

9. Etobaev Arseny Mikhailovich (09/15/1903- 1987)

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

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

10. Salbiev Vladimir Gavrilovich (1916- 1996)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, twice holder of the Order 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 (30.08.1919- 27.07.1997)

Participant 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 World War II. Destroyed 456 enemy soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers.

12. Kvachantiradze Vasily Shalvovich (1907- 1950)

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

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

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

13. Goncharov Pyotr Alekseevich (01/15/1903- 31.01.1944)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, Guard Senior Sergeant.

He has more than 380 killed enemy soldiers and officers as a sniper. He died on January 31, 1944 while breaking through enemy defenses near the village of Vodyanoye.

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

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

He served in the 49th Infantry Regiment of the 50th Infantry Division. According to available information, he destroyed 418 German soldiers and officers, including 17 snipers, and also trained 148 soldiers in sniper work. After the war he was active in military-patriotic work.

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, commander of the 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 destroyed more than 3,500 fascists.

He died on August 16, 1943 at the height of the battles for the village of Dolgenkoye, Izyum district, Kharkov region.

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

Participant of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet-Japanese War, twice holder of the Order of the Red Star, Order of Lenin, 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 confirmed count is 368 enemy soldiers and officers.

17. Ilyin Nikolai Yakovlevich (1922 - 08/04/1943)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, sergeant major, 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 was killed by machine gun fire.

18. Antonov Ivan Petrovich (07/07/1920 - 03/22/1989)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, shooter of the 160th separate rifle company of the Leningrad naval base of the Baltic Fleet, Red Navy man, 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 destroyed 302 Nazis and trained 80 snipers in the art of accurate shooting at the enemy.

19. Dyachenko Fedor Trofimovich (06/16/1917 - 08/08/1995)

Participant 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)

Participant of the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1232nd Infantry Regiment of the 370th Infantry Division, senior sergeant, Hero of the Soviet Union.

By March 1944, he already had 349 fascists killed, 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 was covered with earth. His comrades dug him up and sent him to the hospital.

Tanya Baramzina

Tatyana Nikolaevna Baramzina was a kindergarten teacher before becoming a sniper in the 70th Infantry Division of the 33rd Army. Tanya fought on the Belarusian front and was parachuted behind enemy lines to carry out a secret mission. Before this, she already had 16 German soldiers on her account, and during this task she killed another 20 Nazis. She was eventually caught, tortured and executed. Tanya was posthumously awarded the Order of the Golden Star, and she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on March 24, 1945.

Nadezhda Kolesnikova

Nadezhda Kolesnikova was a volunteer sniper who served on the Volkhov Eastern Front in 1943. She is given credit for the destruction of 19 enemy soldiers. Like Kolesnikova, a total of 800 thousand female soldiers fought in the Red Army as snipers, tank gunners, privates, machine gunners and even pilots. Not many participants in the hostilities survived: out of 2,000 volunteers, only 500 could remain alive. For her service, Kolesnikova was awarded a medal for courage after the war.

Tanya Chernova

Not many people know this name, but Tanya became the prototype for the female sniper with the same name in the film Enemy at the Gates (her role was played by Rachel Weisz). Tanya was an American of Russian descent who came to Belarus to pick up her grandparents, but they had already been killed by the Germans. Then she becomes a sniper of the Red Army, joining the sniper group “Zaitsy”, formed by the famous Vasily Zaitsev, who is also represented in the film mentioned above. He's played by Jude Law. Tanya killed 24 enemy soldiers before being wounded in the stomach by a mine explosion. After that, she was sent to Tashkent, where she spent a long time recovering from her wound. Fortunately, Tanya survived the war.

Ziba Ganieva

Ziba Ganieva was one of the most charismatic figures of the Red Army, having been a Russian celebrity and Azerbaijani film actress in the pre-war era. Ganieva fought in the 3rd Moscow Communist Rifle Division of the Soviet Army. She was a brave woman who went behind the front lines as many as 16 times and killed 21 German soldiers. She took an active part in the battle for Moscow and was seriously wounded. Her injuries prevented her from returning to duty after 11 months in hospital. Ganieva was awarded the military orders of the Red Banner and the Red Star.

Rosa Shanina

Rosa Shanina, who was called the “Invisible Terror of East Prussia,” began fighting when she was not even 20 years old. She was born in the Russian village of Edma on April 3, 1924. She wrote to Stalin twice asking that she be allowed to serve in a battalion or reconnaissance company. She became the first female sniper to be awarded the Order of Glory and participated in the famous Battle of Vilnius. Rosa Shanina had 59 confirmed killed soldiers, but she did not live to see the end of the war. While trying to save a wounded Russian officer, she was seriously wounded by a shell fragment in the chest and died on the same day, January 27, 1945.

Lyuba Makarova

Guard Sergeant Lyuba Makarova was one of the lucky 500 who survived the war. Fighting in the 3rd Shock Army, she was known for her active service on the 2nd Baltic Front and the Kalinin Front. Makarova chalked up 84 enemy soldiers and returned to her native Perm as a military hero. For her services to the country, Makarova was awarded the Order of Glory, 2nd and 3rd degree.

Claudia Kalugina

Claudia Kalugina was one of the youngest soldiers and snipers of the Red Army. She started fighting when she was only 17 years old. She began her military career by working at a munitions factory, but she soon entered sniper school and was subsequently sent to the 3rd Belorussian Front. Kalugina fought in Poland and later took part in the Battle of Leningrad, helping to defend the city from the Germans. She was a very accurate sniper and chalked up as many as 257 enemy soldiers. Kalugina remained in Leningrad until the end of the war.

Nina Lobkovskaya

Nina Lobkovskaya joined the Red Army after her father died in the war in 1942. Nina fought in the 3rd Shock Army, where she rose to the rank of lieutenant. She survived the war and even took part in the Battle of Berlin in 1945. There she commanded an entire company of 100 female snipers. Nina had 89 enemy soldiers killed.

Nina Pavlovna Petrova

Nina Pavlovna Petrova is also known as "Mama Nina" and could well be the oldest female sniper of World War II. She was born in 1893, and by the beginning of the war she was already 48 years old. After she entered sniper school, Nina was assigned to the 21st Guards Rifle Division, where she actively performed her sniper duties. Petrova chalked up 122 enemy soldiers. She survived the war but died in a tragic road accident just a week after the end of the war at the age of 53.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

Lyudmila Pavlichenko, who was born in Ukraine in 1916, was the most famous Russian female sniper, nicknamed "Lady Death". Before the war, Pavlichenko was a university student and amateur shooter. After graduating from sniper school at the age of 24, she was sent to the 25th Chapaevskaya Rifle Division of the Red Army. Pavlichenko was probably the most successful female sniper in military history. She fought in Sevastopol and Odessa. She had 309 confirmed kills of enemy soldiers, including 29 enemy snipers. Pavlichenko survived the war after she was discharged from active service due to the injuries she sustained. She was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union, and her face was even depicted on a postage stamp.

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Is this what you were looking for? Perhaps this is something you couldn’t find for so long?

Everything mysterious gives rise to legends. The art of a combat sniper borders on mysticism. The effect of its work is terrible, and its ability to appear in the most unexpected place and disappear without a trace after being shot seems supernatural.

“Sniper” is an English word formed by an abbreviation of the phrase “snipe shooter,” that is, “snipe shooter.” Snipe is a small bird that flies along an unpredictable trajectory, so not every hunter could hit it. The word itself appeared in the eighteenth century - for example, in letters from British soldiers from India. Then, at the beginning of the First World War, “sniper” moves from newspaper publications into the official vocabulary of the military and receives its current, narrow and deadly meaning.

In those days, none of the countries provided for the massive use of snipers in combat, much less organized special training - sniper shooting remained the lot of gifted individuals. Snipers became a truly widespread phenomenon only during the Second World War. Almost all countries participating had soldiers in their armies trained in the use of scoped rifles and camouflage. Even against the general background of huge losses in that war, the “combat score” of snipers looks impressive. After all, the number of people killed by one sniper can be in the hundreds.

This is interesting: on average, 18,000 - 25,000 bullets were spent per killed enemy soldier in World War II. For snipers, this figure is 1.3-1.8 bullets.

"White death"

The winter sniper tactics developed by the Finns turned out to be so successful that they were subsequently used by both the Russians and the Germans. And even now there is practically nothing to add to it.

A. Potapov, “The Art of the Sniper”

Perhaps it was the Finns who became the pioneers in the successful use of sniper tactics during the winter campaign of 1939. Well-prepared and trained Finnish “cuckoo” snipers taught the Soviet army a cruel lesson that there are no prohibited techniques in war. Good knowledge of the area, adaptability to natural conditions, pre-prepared shelters and retreat routes allowed the “cuckoos” to successfully carry out combat missions and quietly retreat to new positions, disappearing without a trace in the snow-covered forests.

We have already told you about the most famous of all “cuckoos” - Simo Heihe nicknamed "White Death". But speaking of snipers, it’s difficult not to mention him again. The number of "confirmed kills" in this case is estimated at five hundred or higher. They were made in just one hundred days. According to some estimates, not a single World War II sniper achieved greater effectiveness.

If you try to imagine a fighter destroying a hundred enemy soldiers a day, your imagination will obediently draw a powerful figure with an aircraft six-barreled machine gun from Hollywood films. So, reality barely reaches the shoulder of the imaginary figure with the top of its head: the height of the “White Death” was only a little more than one and a half meters. And instead of a heavy and uncomfortable “minigun”, he preferred to use the Finnish shortened version of the Mosin-Nagant rifle, and giving up the optical sight. The glare of the sun on the lens of the optics could have given it away, just as it gave away the position of the Soviet snipers, which Hayha himself was not slow to take advantage of.

However, it is worth noting that the Soviet troops themselves represented a very tempting target. As one of the Finnish soldiers said: “I like to fight with the Russians, they go on the attack in full force.” The tactics of a massive offensive, the “human wave,” resulted in huge losses for the Soviet Union in that war.

On March 6, 1940, luck finally turned against the Finnish sniper - he received a bullet in the head. According to the recollections of his colleagues, his face was disfigured beyond recognition, and he fell into a coma for several days. Simo Hayha regained consciousness on March 11, the very day the war ended, and, despite being seriously wounded, lived for another 63 years, dying in 2002.

Another name that sometimes appears in articles about snipers of the Winter War is Sulo Kolkka. His count of "confirmed kills" is said to reach four hundred in one hundred and five days. However, his name does not appear in the archives of the Finnish army and is not mentioned in the press of that time, nor do his photographs exist.

Sulo Kolkka was the name of a military journalist who wrote about the successes of the “cuckoos”. If we compare what is attributed to Kolkka the sniper with what Kolkka the journalist wrote about Simo Heiche, much will coincide. It is likely that foreign journalists who reprinted Finnish articles confused the name of the sniper and the journalist, giving rise to another myth about that war.

Mosin 91/30

A rifle developed in 1891 by Russian army captain S.I. Mosin, can be considered a symbol of an entire era. With minor modifications, it existed in service with the army of the Russian Empire, and then the Soviet army until the very end of World War II.

The rifle was adapted to fire three-line cartridges. Three lines in the old system of measures were 7.62 millimeters. This is where the name “three-ruler” comes from.

Initially, there were three versions of this weapon: infantry (main) with a long barrel and bayonet, dragoon (cavalry) with a shortened barrel, and Cossack, which differed from cavalry in the absence of a bayonet.

In the twenties of the last century, the first Russian model of a sniper rifle was designed on the basis of the Mosin rifle. In those same years, of the three variants of the “three-line”, it was decided to leave only one in service - the dragoon one.

And finally, in 1930, the last pre-war modernization of the rifle took place - the bayonet mount was changed to reduce its looseness, which greatly impaired the accuracy of previous models. In addition, the rifle scope is now graduated in meters instead of arshins. It was the modification of the thirtieth year, or the “Mosin rifle 91/30” that became the main weapon of the Soviet army.

The sniper modification of the “three-line” was distinguished by the fact that it had mounts for an optical sight. Now, with the proliferation of self-loading repeating rifles, this phrase may seem trivial, but in fact it was a very significant difference. The Mosin rifle was loaded using a clip of five cartridges, which was inserted vertically from above. If a scope was attached to the rifle, loading the clip became impossible—which meant loading one cartridge at a time.

Despite all its shortcomings, the Mosin rifle was exactly the weapon that was needed in the early years of the war. The design, simple and cheap to manufacture, made it possible to quickly establish mass production of “three-line” models. In addition, according to ballistic data, this rifle was not behind, or even superior to, its German “enemy,” the Mauser 98 sniper rifle.

The Tokarev system (SVT) self-loading rifle was adopted by the Soviet army in 1938. In the forties, its lightweight modification, designated “SVT-40,” entered the army.

The ten-round magazine and automatic reloading increased the weapon's rate of fire and overall firepower. The use of cartridges from the Mosin rifle allowed the SVT to be equipped with clips from the “three-ruler”, for which special guides were provided in the receiver cover.

In the sniper version, the bracket for attaching the optical sight is located so as not to interfere with loading the rifle with clips. In addition, there is a hole in the bracket that allows you to use an open rifle sight with an optical sight installed.

The attitude towards “Svetka” - as the SVT soldiers were nicknamed - was quite ambiguous. The rifle was criticized for its shorter firing range and accuracy compared to the Mosin rifle. For excessive sensitivity to pollution and frost. For low reliability, finally.

But in the hands of a good fighter - for example, Lyudmila Pavlichenko - the SVT sniper version showed its best side. The problem was not so much with the rifle itself, but with how it was used and how well it was maintained.

"Main Hare" and others

The art of sniper is the daring skill of the patient, the art of waiting for the right moment and using it instantly. The sniper tracks a target, like a hunter in a game, and organizes the course of events so as to make that target appear and expose itself to the shot.

A. Potapov, “The Art of the Sniper”

Almost sixty-four years have passed since the end of World War II. It seems like a short period of time for the history of mankind, but the events of those days have already acquired a huge number of legends, propaganda slogans, contradictory and outright false information. One of the sides sought to use successes at the front to inspire its soldiers, while the other tried to hide them so as not to undermine the notorious “fighting spirit.” Therefore, it is now difficult to say anything for sure if it concerns not general issues, but the destinies and actions of specific people.

Soviet and German sources are especially “different” here, information from which is sometimes mutually exclusive.

One striking example is history Vasily Grigorievich Zaitsev, sniper of the 1047th Infantry Regiment of the 284th Infantry Division of the 62nd Army of the Stalingrad Front.

Zaitsev was born in 1915 in the village of Elininsk, Agapovsky district, Chelyabinsk region. Since 1937 he served in the Pacific Fleet. The war found him in the position of head of the financial department in Preobrazhenye Bay. In September 1942, after five reports of transfer to the front, Vasily finally ended up in the active army. Between November 10 and December 17, 1942, in the battles for Stalingrad, Zaitsev destroyed 225 enemy soldiers and officers. He did not receive any special training, like most Soviet snipers of that time. The necessary skills were acquired on the spot, in battle.

This is interesting: In addition to sniper activities, Zaitsev was also involved in training snipers. On both sides of the front, his students were simply called “hares.”

Particularly famous was the case when the European champion in bullet shooting, the head of the Berlin sniper school, Major Koenig, flew to Stalingrad to counter Soviet snipers. His main task was to destroy the “main hare”. As Zaitsev writes in his memoirs, they could only judge the appearance of the German “super sniper” by the results of his activities - killed soldiers, most often “little bunnies” snipers. It was impossible to determine his location - the German fired several shots and disappeared without a trace. In the end, Zaitsev was able to approximately determine the section of the front where the enemy sniper was currently located.

The “games” continued for two days when Zaitsev’s assistant, Nikolai Kulikov, tried to attract the German’s attention so that he would give away his location with a shot. On the third day, the enemy sniper could not stand it - he knocked down the helmet that Kulikov was carefully lifting on a stick from the trench, and, apparently believing that he had defeated the Soviet shooter, looked out from behind the cover. It was here that the bullet of the “main hare” found him.

This is interesting: this sniper duel became the basis of the plot for the film Enemy at the Gates.

This version of events is set out in the memoirs of V.G. Zaitsev “There was no land for us beyond the Volga.” Other Russian-language sources also reprint it from there. But even in them one can find many inconsistencies: the major is called either König or Königs, then they write that “under the guise of Major König there was the undercover SS Standartenführer Torvald”... And this despite the fact that on the corpse of the “super sniper” were found his documents! In addition, König-Torvald is sometimes called the “chief of the Wehrmacht sniper school”, sometimes the sniper school - but already the SS. Either a European champion or an Olympic champion in bullet shooting...

The last statement can be verified simply: a champion of neither Europe, nor even more so the Olympic Games, named Erwin König or Heinz Thorwald, did not exist in reality. Just as there was no Berlin sniper school, of which he could have been the head.

Vasily Zaitsev. Stalingrad, October 1942.

What remains as a result? And the result is a beautiful heroic story about a three-day confrontation between two snipers who are masters of their craft. Could this happen? Not only could it, but it certainly took place more than once and not only in Stalingrad. But Major Koenig most likely did not exist. Unless, of course, the Germans took the trouble to remove references to him from all possible documents - lists of personnel, lists of awardees, and the like.

And the sniper Vasily Zaitsev really existed, but his main merit was not in the number of German soldiers killed or in his victory over the mythical “super sniper”. The main thing that Zaitsev did was to train thirty “bunnies”, many of whom later became sniper instructors. As a result, an entire sniper school was created! Until the second half of the war, there was no specialized training for snipers in the USSR. Only in 1942 did three-month courses begin to operate, the duration of training for which was increased to six months, but this was not enough. Snipers predominantly became those who grew up in families where hunting was the main occupation. It was the hunters, accustomed to reading tracks and tracking the animal, who could determine the location of the target by the slightest changes in the situation - trampled grass, broken tree branches.

One of these hereditary hunters was the foreman of the 4th Infantry Division of the 12th Army Mikhail Ilyich Surkov. According to Soviet sources, he accounted for more than seven hundred killed. If this figure is correct, then he is without a doubt the most prolific of the Soviet snipers.

Some doubts are raised by the fact that Sergeant Major Surkov was not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, unlike other snipers with much more modest results. It is possible that the number “700” appeared in wartime newspapers from the words of Surkov himself and it may take into account both enemies killed from a machine gun and unconfirmed hits.

Another story about a hunter who became one of the best snipers of the Soviet army in World War II is associated with the name of the sergeant of the 234th Infantry Regiment of the 179th Infantry Division of the 43rd Army of the 1st Baltic Front Fedor Matveevich Okhlopkov.

The future Hero of the Soviet Union was born in the village of Krest-Khaldzhay in Yakutia. He received only primary education and worked on a collective farm. At the age of thirty-three he went to the front with his cousin Vasily. For two weeks, while those drafted into the army traveled from Yakutsk to Moscow, the Okhlopkov brothers studied the design of a machine gun and then, already at the front, formed a machine gun crew.

In one of the battles, Vasily Okhlopkov was killed. Fyodor vowed to avenge his brother, which they did not fail to report to the command in a political report. This is how Okhlopkov’s name was first mentioned in military documents.

Soon after this, Fyodor Okhlopkov was sent to sniper courses, and in October he returned to the front in a new capacity, having replaced the machine gun with a rifle with an optical sight.

This is interesting: they say that Yakut snipers always tried to shoot the enemy in the head, explaining that “the game must be hit between the eyes.”

During his service, until 1944, he brought the number of killed enemies to 429. He was wounded twelve times and shell-shocked twice. For minor wounds, he preferred to be treated with traditional methods - herbs and tree resin - just so as not to leave the front. However, the perforating chest wound he received in the battles for Vitebsk could not be cured without hospitalization, and after it Fyodor Matveevich left the combat units.

The female face of war

During the war, time was compressed. Cruel necessity sharpened sensitivity and forced the human body to work on the verge of the impossible. What took years in peacetime took months and weeks in war.

A. Potapov, “The Art of the Sniper”

On September 1, 1939, the law “On General Military Duty” was adopted. From that moment on, military service in the USSR became an honorable duty for every citizen, regardless of gender. Article 13 stated that the People's Commissariats of Defense and the Navy were given the right to register and accept women into service in the army and navy, as well as to attract them to training camps. This is how something began in the Soviet Union that neither the opponents in that war nor the allies could understand. A German or an Englishman simply couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that a woman could go to the front line, that she could be a pilot, an anti-aircraft gunner or a sniper.

And yet, among the Soviet snipers there were more than a thousand women. During the war, he was credited with more than 12,000 killed Germans.

The most effective of them was Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, sniper of the 25th Chapaevskaya Rifle Division. She was in the army from the very first days of the war, the beginning of which found her in Odessa. In the battles in Moldova, the defense of Odessa and Sevastopol, she brought her personal count of those killed to 309. Of these three hundred German soldiers and officers, thirty-six were enemy snipers.

In June 1942, Lyudmila was wounded and recalled from the front line. After treatment, she wanted to return, but she had a completely different assignment: Sergeant Pavlichenko went to the USA. The Soviet delegation was received personally by President Roosevelt.

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.

This is interesting: At a press conference, American journalists bombarded Lyudmila Mikhailovna with questions: does she use powder, blush and nail polish? Does it curl your hair? Why does she wear a uniform that makes her look so fat? Pavlichenko’s answer was brief: “Do you know that we have a war there?”

After returning, Lyudmila no longer went to the front: she was left as an instructor at the Vystrel sniper school.

When the war ended, a student at the Faculty of History at Kyiv State University named after T.G. Shevchenko Lyudmila Pavlichenko was finally able to finish her thesis, which the war prevented her from writing in 1941.

Natalya Kovshova and Maria Polivanova Before the war, they worked together at one of the research institutes in Moscow. We went to sniper courses together and went to the front together. Completely different in character - modest Maria and Natalya, active in public affairs - the friends made a good sniper couple. By August 1942, their “total count” was approaching three hundred enemy killed.

On the fourteenth of August, the battalion, which was assigned a platoon of snipers, which included Natalya and Maria, repelled attacks by German infantry near the village of Sutoki in the Novgorod region. In total they withstood fifteen attacks. There was already a shortage of ammunition, the platoon commander was killed, and Natalya took his place, stopping the soldiers who were ready to retreat. They held out until the end, until the last bullet, until only two remained alive - Kovshova and Polivanova. The girls got closer, shooting back, until they came together back to back.

When they only had two grenades left, the girls made up their minds. The explosion claimed the lives of not only two Soviet snipers, but also those Germans who were already hoping to take them prisoner.

Natalya Kovshova.

Maria Polivanova.

Lidia Semenovna Gudovantseva, a graduate of the central Podolsk sniper training school, reached almost Berlin. The only thing that could stop her was her injury in a duel with a German sniper, which she would later describe as follows:

“In the morning a German appeared and headed towards the trees. But why no sniper rifle, no weapons at all? My thoughts worked: it means that he has equipped himself with a place in the tree, goes to his own people for the night, and in the morning he returns and clicks on our fighters. I decided to take my time and observe. He actually climbed the tree, but strangely, not a single shot was fired. And in the evening, already at dusk, he got down and went home. Some kind of mystery.

I conducted intensive surveillance for three days. Everything was repeated as scheduled. On the fourth day, tired, and my nerves weren’t the same, I decided: “Today I’ll take it off.” As soon as the Fritz appeared, I took him at gunpoint and was about to fire a shot. There was a dull click, and I felt the taste of blood in my mouth, and blood began to drip onto the butt of the rifle. She pressed her chin to the collar of her overcoat to somehow stop the bleeding. And there’s an alarming thought in my head: “Is it really the end?!” But she drove her away, mobilized her will: “I must take revenge on him, and then I can die.” She froze at the sight. At times I felt like I was about to lose consciousness. I don’t know where the strength came from.

The second half of the day has arrived. A little more, and it’s twilight. Anxiety began to overcome me. Suddenly, to the left of the tree where that fascist had been climbing for three days in a row, a German jumped from one of the trees, and in his hands was a sniper rifle. This turns out to be where he was! He pressed himself against a tree and looked in my direction. That's when I pulled the trigger. I see a Nazi man settling down the tree trunk.

Thus my mortal duel ended in victory. She lay until dark, at times in a kind of oblivion. A scout crawled up to me and helped me get to my people.”

Another story told by Lidia Semenova in 1998 became the basis for one of the questions at the Brain Ring games in Kyiv. The question sounded like this: “While observing the enemy’s defense, snipers Lidiya Gudovantseva and Alexandra Kuzmina noticed a structure, the upper part of which was made up of fir trees tied on top. The next morning, noticing a German heading there, Kuzmina ran up to this building and burst in with the words: “Hende hoch!” The German officer who was there did not resist and was safely delivered to the location of our troops. Attention, question: what kind of building was this?”

The answer is simple: it was a toilet. But the German officer was unable to use his pistol for obvious reasons...

Scharfschutzen

The sniper is a long knife into the enemy's heart; too long and too cruel to be ignored.

A. Potapov, “The Art of the Sniper”

If you think about it, it’s quite understandable why there is an order of magnitude, or even two, less information about German snipers of the Second World War than about Soviet ones. After all, “Nazi sniper” is a label that few survivors of the war would like to wear after defeat.

German sniper. Pay attention to the placement of the sight.

Another German shooter, but with normally positioned optics.

And yet, even taking this into account, the situation remains quite strange. Historians on both sides claim that the sniper movement in their armies arose after they faced massive attacks by enemy snipers.

The German version looks like this: in its plans, the command of the German army relied primarily on tank strikes and rapid advances deep into enemy territory. In this situation, there was simply no place left for the sniper in the army - he was already considered a “relic of the trench battles of the First World War.” And only in the winter of forty-one, after it became clear that the “lightning war” had failed and German units were increasingly forced to move from attack to defense, and snipers began to appear in the positions of Soviet troops, the command “remembered” the need for training and their “super sharp shooters”.

There is only one question for this version: where did those German snipers come from that Vasily Zaitsev, Lyudmila Pavlichenko and other Soviet soldiers had to face at the beginning of the war?

In fact, it can be said with reasonable certainty that German snipers were on the Eastern Front from the very beginning. Yes, their use was not as widespread as that of the Finns in the Winter War or later by the Soviet troops. Nevertheless, even armed with a Mauser rifle with a 1.5-fold scope, a sniper is capable of performing combat missions to suppress (especially psychologically) enemy troops. But for some reasons that are not always clear, history has not preserved their names, much less the number of “confirmed murders” they committed.

About whom we know for sure are three snipers who were awarded knight's crosses, and all three received this award already in 1945.

The first was Friedrich Payne, awarded in February of that year, after he had brought his combat tally to two hundred. The war ended for him with three wounds and captivity.

The second to receive the Knight's Cross Matthias Hetzenauer, perhaps the most prolific German sniper of World War II, apart from the semi-mythical Major Koenig. The number of “confirmed kills” on his account is 345. Awarded in April 1945 for “repeatedly performing one’s tasks under artillery fire or during enemy attacks,” Matthias was captured in May and was a prisoner in the USSR for five years.

Josef "Sepp" Ollerberg. Autographed photo as a keepsake.

Germany's best sniper, Matthias Hetzenauer.

And finally, the third of the snipers who received the knight's cross - Josef Ollerberg. There are no documents surviving about his nomination for the award, but at that time this was not so unusual. Of all the former Wehrmacht snipers, Ollerberg is perhaps the most talkative. According to him, during the war he was initially a machine gunner, but after being wounded in the hospital, out of boredom, he decided to experiment with a captured Soviet rifle. The experiments were so successful that Joseph, after he shot twenty-seven people, was sent to sniper school. So the machine gunner became a sniper.

German snipers achieved much greater success on the second European front in Normandy. The British and American military could do little to oppose the well-trained Wehrmacht riflemen. The German scharfschutzen knew the terrain well, camouflaged their positions and carried out real “sniper terror”.

Hedgerows became a favorite hiding place for the Germans. Snipers dug in near them, mined the approaches, and set traps in the bushes. The best method of dealing with them remained mortar and artillery strikes on the intended position.

This is interesting: to the question: “How do you distinguish officers if they wear ordinary field uniforms without insignia and are armed with rifles, like ordinary soldiers?” - the captured German sniper replied: “We shoot at people with mustaches.” Indeed, in the British Army, traditionally only officers and senior sergeants wore mustaches.

A common sniper tactic is to fire a shot, rarely two, and change position to avoid enemy return fire. But in Normandy, the British and Americans were faced with a completely different phenomenon - German snipers fired continuously, without even trying to move. Naturally, in the end they were destroyed, but before that such a “suicide” managed to cause serious damage.

Mauser Kar. 98k

In 1898, the German army adopted a new rifle developed by the Mauser brothers arms company. This weapon was to undergo more than one modification and survive in the active army until the very end of World War II.

The most popular of its variants was the Karabiner 98 kurz, a short carbine released in 1935, which was then adopted by the Wehrmacht. It was he who became the most common weapon of the German army, contrary to the opinion that it was provided with automatic weapons.

The K98 magazine held five rounds of 7.92 Mauser caliber and was loaded using a clip inserted vertically from the top. Starting with the K98a modification, the bolt handle was bent down to provide greater convenience when reloading the carbine.

The K98 sniper modifications produced were initially equipped with a 1.5x optical sight - it was assumed that a small increase should be enough to perform combat missions. In addition, the design was designed for the sniper to simultaneously observe both the target and the surrounding environment. To do this, the sight was located at a sufficiently large distance from the shooter's eye. Experience with the use of such rifles showed the fallacy of this decision, so later versions were already equipped with four- or six-fold optics.

Self-loading rifles appeared in the German army only in 1941. These were developments by Mauser and Carl Walther Waffenfabrik, designated “G41”. Both of them were not very successful - unreliable, too heavy, too sensitive to contamination.

The Walter rifle was later modified. The G41 gas exhaust system was replaced, borrowing a solution from SVT-40. The rifle has a detachable magazine with a capacity of ten rounds. The changes made were considered so significant that the name of the weapon was changed - now it was called the “rifle of the 43rd year”, Gewehr 43. In the forty-fourth year it was renamed again - it became the K43 carbine. The design, however, was not affected by this renaming.

Production of this rifle - including modifications with an optical sight - continued until the end of the war. Often G43s had the simplest of finishes and their exterior surfaces were roughly machined.

After the end of the war, a small number of carbines were used by the Czechoslovak army as a sniper weapon.

Snipers of the second front

A sniper is not just a shooter with a sniper rifle. This is a super accurate long-range shooter.

A. Potapov, “The Art of the Sniper”

It so happened that the Americans did not have a Winter War like the USSR, and they did not have to face such fierce resistance from skilled snipers as the Soviet troops in Finland. And, although their command generally understood the tasks that a “super marksman” must perform, too little attention was paid to special training. The main and sufficient quality of a sniper was considered to be the ability to shoot well. The experience of encountering Japanese snipers on the Pacific Front changed little: the Japanese predominantly chose positions in the treetops, from where they could be easily knocked out.

Only after the landing in Normandy were American troops fully able to feel what real “sniper terror” was. They had to quickly master the tactics of countering the accurate fire of the Germans. Learn, as the Soviet army once did in Finland, not to move even in seemingly safe places at full height, pay more attention to observing possible hiding places of enemy snipers, and organize your own sniper squads.

English sniper in position.

And here, as on the eastern front, hunters and trackers moved into the first ranks - for the Americans they were Indians. Sniper Sergeant John Fulcher, a Sioux Indian, wrote that “half the guys in the sniper squad were Indians, including two Sioux from the Black Hills. I have heard others call us savages. And when they said, “They went for scalps again,” they said it with admiration, and we perceived these words exactly like that.”

This is interesting: Fulcher and his Indians actually scalped dead Germans from time to time, leaving them in plain sight as a warning to others. Some time later, they learned that the Germans had decided to kill captured snipers or Indians on the spot.

But nevertheless, in the American troops, snipers were mainly used to cover their positions, when sniper squads did not move away from the main forces, providing fire superiority. The main task was to suppress the enemy's machine gun and mortar crews, as well as his snipers. The destruction of soldiers and even officers of the enemy army was a secondary task.

The situation with the training of snipers in the British Army was better. English snipers were taught to correctly select and camouflage a firing position. For camouflage, both available materials were used - branches, bricks - and specially made mobile sniper posts, for the creation of which engineers and artists were specially involved.

But when the English marksmen were finally able to test their skills, the war was already drawing to a close. Therefore, there are no British people on the lists of the best snipers of World War II...

Game embodiment

In almost any game where firearms are used, there is a place for sniper rifles in one form or another. The sniper specialty is quite popular in online action films. But the vast majority of game snipers are fictional characters in fictional circumstances.

Only Vasily Zaitsev’s fight with the German “super sniper” was relatively “lucky” here. After the release of the film “Enemy at the Gates,” this episode of the Battle of Stalingrad gained worldwide fame, enough for some of its details to “leak” into computer games.

First task in the game Commandos 3: Destination Berlin is that the player in Stalingrad needs to destroy a German sniper.

In Game Call of Duty 2 the mission, set in Stalingrad, includes a movie moment - luring out an enemy sniper with an empty helmet.

IN Call of Duty: World at War the player will have to help Sergeant Reznov destroy the German General Amsel in Stalingrad. During the mission, you need to withstand a duel with a German sniper hiding in the house.

Highly skilled snipers were worth their weight in gold during World War II. Fighting on the Eastern Front, the Soviets positioned their snipers as skilled marksmen, noticeably dominant in many ways. The Soviet Union was the only one that trained snipers for ten years, preparing for war. Their superiority is confirmed by their “death lists.” Experienced snipers killed many people and, undoubtedly, were of great value. For example, Vasily Zaitsev killed 225 enemy soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad.

Maxim Alexandrovich Passar(1923-1943) - Soviet, during the Great Patriotic War he destroyed 237 enemy soldiers and officers.
In February 1942, he volunteered to go to the front. In May 1942, he underwent sniper training in units of the North-Western Front. Killed 21 Wehrmacht soldiers. Joined the CPSU(b).
Since July 1942, he served in the 117th Infantry Regiment of the 23rd Infantry Division, which fought as part of the 21st Army of the Stalingrad Front and the 65th Army of the Don Front.
He was one of the most effective snipers of the Battle of Stalingrad, during which he destroyed more than two hundred enemy soldiers and officers. For the liquidation of M.A. Passar, the German command assigned a reward of 100 thousand Reichsmarks.

He made a great contribution to the development of the sniper movement in the Red Army and took an active part in the practical training of shooters. The snipers of the 117th Infantry Regiment trained by him destroyed 775 Germans. His speeches on sniper tactics were repeatedly published in the large-circulation newspaper of the 23rd Infantry Division.
On December 8, 1942, M. A. Passar received a shell shock, but remained in service.

On January 22, 1943, in a battle near the village of Peschanka, Gorodishchensky district, Stalingrad region, he ensured the success of the offensive of the regiment's units, which was stopped by enemy flank machine-gun fire from camouflaged fortified positions. Secretly approaching to a distance of about 100 meters, Senior Sergeant Passar destroyed the crews of two heavy machine guns, which decided the outcome of the attack, during which the sniper died.
M.A. Passar was buried in a mass grave on the Square of Fallen Fighters in the workers' village of Gorodishche, Volgograd Region.

Mikhail Ilyich Surkov(1921-1953) - participant in the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 1st battalion of the 39th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 12th army, sergeant major.
Before the war, he lived in the village of Bolshaya Salyr, now the Achinsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. He was a taiga hunter.
In the Red Army since 1941 - drafted by the Achinsky (in the award list - Atchevsky) RVC. Candidate for the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) since 1942. At the end of the war he was transferred to the rear to train snipers.
After the war, Mikhail Ilyich returned to his native village. Died in 1953.

The best Soviet sniper of the Great Patriotic War, the number of destroyed enemies according to Soviet sources is 702. A number of Western historians question this figure, believing that it was fabricated by Soviet propaganda in order to neutralize the result of the Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä, which he achieved during the Soviet-Finnish War wars of 1939-1940. However, Simo Häyhä became known in the USSR only after 1990.

Natalya Venediiktovna Kovshova(November 26, 1920 - August 14, 1942) - Hero of the Soviet Union, sniper during the Great Patriotic War.

Natalya Venediktovna Kovshova was born on November 26, 1920 in Ufa. Subsequently, the family moved to Moscow. In 1940, she graduated from Moscow school No. 281 in Ulansky Lane (now No. 1284) and went to work at the Orgaviaprom aviation industry trust, created in the late autumn of the same year. She worked as an inspector in the HR department. In 1941, she was preparing to enter the Moscow Aviation Institute. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, she volunteered for the Red Army. Completed sniper courses. At the front since October 1941.
In the battle of Moscow she fought in the ranks of the 3rd Moscow Communist Rifle Division. (The division was formed in the critical days for Moscow in the fall of 1941 from volunteer battalions, which included students, professors, elderly workers, and schoolchildren). Since January 1942, a sniper in the 528th Infantry Regiment (130th Infantry Division, 1st Shock Army, Northwestern Front). On the personal account of sniper Kovshova there are 167 exterminated fascist soldiers and officers. (According to the testimony of her fellow soldier Georgy Balovnev, at least 200; the award sheet specifically mentions that among Kovshova’s hit targets were “cuckoos” - enemy snipers and enemy machine gun crews). During her service, she trained soldiers in marksmanship.

On August 14, 1942, near the village of Sutoki, Parfinsky district, Novgorod region, together with her friend Maria Polivanova, she entered into battle with the Nazis. In an unequal battle, both were wounded, but did not stop fighting. Having shot through the entire supply of ammunition, they blew themselves up with grenades along with the enemy soldiers who surrounded them.
She was buried in the village of Korovitchino, Starorussky district, Novgorod region. At the Novodevichy cemetery there is a cenotaph in the grave of her father.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously on February 14, 1943 (together with M. S. Polivanova) for dedication and heroism shown in battle.

Zhambyl Yesheevich Tulaev(May 2 (15), 1905, Tagarkhai ulus now Tunkinsky district, Buryatia - January 17, 1961) - participant in the Great Patriotic War, sniper of the 580th Infantry Regiment of the 188th Infantry Division of the 27th Army of the North-Western Front, sergeant major

Born on May 2 (15), 1905 in the Tagarkhai ulus, now a village in the Tunkinsky district of Buryatia, in a peasant family. Buryat. Graduated from 4th grade. Lived in the city of Irkutsk. Worked as manager of a container depot. In the Red Army since 1942. In the active army since March 1942. Member of the CPSU(b) since 1942. Sniper of the 580th Infantry Regiment (188th Infantry Division, 27th Army, Northwestern Front), Sergeant Major Zhambyl Tulaev, killed two hundred and sixty-two Nazis from May to November 1942. He trained three dozen snipers for the front.
By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated February 14, 1943, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the German invaders and the courage and heroism shown at the same time, Sergeant Major Tulaev Zhambyl Yesheevich was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal (No. 847).
Since 1946, Lieutenant Zh. E. Tulaev has been in reserve. Returned to his native Buryatia. He worked as chairman of a collective farm and secretary of the local village council. Died on January 17, 1961.

Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko September 12, 1919, Chantsovo village, Smolensk province - February 19, 1994, Kizlyar - Soviet sniper who destroyed about 500 enemy soldiers and officers during the Great Patriotic War. Hero of the Soviet Union

Participant of the Great Patriotic War since November 1941. He fought as part of the 4th Shock Army of the Kalinin Front. He was a mortarman. In the winter counter-offensive of 1942, Lieutenant Sidorenko’s mortar company fought from the Ostashkovo bridgehead to the city of Velizh, Smolensk region. Here Ivan Sidorenko became a sniper. In battles with the Nazi invaders he was seriously wounded three times, but returned to duty each time.
Assistant Chief of Staff of the 1122nd Infantry Regiment (334th Infantry Division, 4th Shock Army, 1st Baltic Front), Captain Ivan Sidorenko, distinguished himself as the organizer of the sniper movement. By 1944, he killed about 500 Nazis with a sniper rifle.

Ivan Sidorenko trained more than 250 snipers for the front, most of whom were awarded orders and medals.
By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 4, 1944, for the exemplary performance of combat missions of the command on the front of the fight against the Nazi invaders and the courage and heroism displayed, Captain Ivan Mikhailovich Sidorenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal. "(No. 3688).
I. M. Sidorenko finished his combat career in Estonia. At the end of 1944, the command sent him to preparatory courses at the military academy. But he didn’t have to study: old wounds opened up, and Ivan Sidorenko had to go to the hospital for a long time.
Since 1946, Major I.M. Sidorenko has been in reserve. Lived in the city of Korkino, Chelyabinsk region. He worked as a mining foreman at a mine. Then he worked in various cities of the Soviet Union. Since 1974 he lived in the city of Kizlyar (Dagestan), where he died on February 19, 1994.

Fedor Matveevich Okhlopkov(March 2, 1908, village of Krest-Khaldzhay, Bayagantaisky ulus, Yakut region, Russian Empire - May 28, 1968, village of Krest-Khaldzhay, Tomponsky district, YASSR), RSFSR, USSR - sniper of the 234th rifle regiment, Hero of the Soviet Union .

Born on March 2, 1908 in the village of Krest-Khaldzhay (now located in the Tomponsky ulus of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)) in the family of a poor peasant. Yakut. Primary education. He worked as a miner hauling gold-bearing rocks at the Orochon mine in the Aldan region, and before the war as a hunter and machine operator in his native village.
In the Red Army since September 1941. From December 12 of the same year at the front. He was a machine gunner, a squad commander of a company of machine gunners of the 1243rd Infantry Regiment of the 375th Division of the 30th Army, and from October 1942 - a sniper of the 234th Infantry Regiment of the 179th Division. By June 23, 1944, Sergeant Okhlopkov killed 429 Nazi soldiers and officers with a sniper rifle. Was wounded 12 times.
On June 24, 1945, he took part in the Victory Parade over Nazi Germany on Red Square in Moscow.
The title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin were awarded only in 1965.

After the war he was demobilized. Returned to his homeland. From 1945 to 1949 - head of the military department of the Tattinsky RK CPSU. On February 10, 1946, he was elected as a deputy of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. From 1949 to 1951 - director of the Tattinsky procurement office for the extraction and procurement of furs. From 1951 to 1954 - manager of the Tattinsky district office of the Yakut meat trust. In 1954-1960 - collective farmer, state farm worker. Since 1960 - retired. Died on May 28, 1968. He was buried in the cemetery of his native village.

It should be noted that in the list of the 200 best snipers of the Second World War there are 192 Soviet snipers, the first twenty snipers of the Red Army destroyed about 8,400 enemy soldiers and officers, and the first hundred accounted for about 25,500. Thanks to our grandfathers for the Victory!