German snipers - in their own words

[Dave Olie]

I found this rather interesting interview with three German snipers in another forum. One of the interviewees is the man who was credited with the most kills of any German sniper during WWII. What I found most interesting is that they are unanimous that they never fought at night, in spite of the fact that ASL makes SAN higher at night. We know that SAN represents much more than actual sniper activity, but these interviews tend, in my view, to make the ASL rules a bit questionable.

http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/veteranen/sniper.htm

 

[bos]

9. 1.76 MISTAKEN FIRE: Being fired on by friendly troops was an all-too-frequent occurrence at night. Hence, the use of captured MG at night was discouraged since their use invariably drew fire from friendly units who mistakenly thought they were shooting at the enemy. Increasing the chances of an effective Sniper attack in this situation is the simplest way to show the increased risk of such use without prohibiting it altogether. Similarly, use of a Sniper attack to reflect Mistaken Fire is also a simple abstraction to reflect the average damage done to one 's own troops during a night action. It does not reflect increased enemy Sniper activity, nor does it necessarily represent fire from a specific friendly unit. The Mistaken Fire DR is just a convenient, artificial mechanism to trigger random errant fire which might be occurring anywhere on the board.

 

[JRKrejsa]

Very interesting, thank you.

 

[M.Koch]

I read the book about sniper "B"...it´s details are ultra brutal and the style it´s written in is more like a thrashy novel than that of a serious book...

not my cup of tea...

 

[Rob Purdon]

It would have been nice if the interviewer had asked about the alleged sniper duel between Zaitsev and "Koenig" described in "Enemy at the Gates". I have yet to see this collaborated by any reputable sources and it was the focus of much research by Anthony Beevor for his book - he essentially concluded that the duel never took place.

I think that this duel, if it took place, would have been much talked about in the German sniper community (which would not have been that large a group).

 

[Michael Dorosh]

It would have been nice if the interviewer had asked about the alleged sniper duel between Zaitsev and "Koenig" described in "Enemy at the Gates". I have yet to see this collaborated by any reputable sources and it was the focus of much research by Anthony Beevor for his book - he essentially concluded that the duel never took place.

I think that this duel, if it took place, would have been much talked about in the German sniper community (which would not have been that large a group).

You think they all gathered for ice cream on weekends or somefink? Text messaged in their off hours?

Koenig is usually cited as being an instructor so I gather they had a centralized school of instruction, but outside of that, I doubt that Army snipers had much contact with other snipers except coincidentally. Psychologically, snipers have tended to be "loners" to begin with...

 

[Rob Purdon]

I find it unlikely that word of the "head" of the German sniper school (as the nebulous Koenig has been described) was killed in action in Stalingrad would fail to circulate through sniper circles. They are a small community to be sure but in any military organization this kind of news spreads faster than newspapers or wire service. Additionally, despite the fact that snipers were loners, they operate mostly in pairs and were attached at the battalion level as groups:

"All of them belonged to the snipergroup of the Btl.; C was the commander of it. It was up to 22 men strong of which six were permanent with the Btl., the rest was attached to the companies. observation results, use of ammo and kills were reported daily to the Btl.HQ."

So, while they would not have gathered for ice cream, there would be ample time for off duty snipers to discuss tactics, combat actions and losses.