Are you a young Wehrmacht soldier, a rookie sent as part of a replenishment to an infantry division near Stalingrad? If so, your boyfriend is screwed up. There are a lot of Soviet snipers here. However, thanks to our pocket guide, you might be able to lift your head up.
Remember one thing right away. Thank God that you are not an SS man. With them, Ivan definitely doesn't stick around. It even got to the point where the guys from the SS had to take off their insignia and braids in order not to stand out too much. If one of them targets a Russian sniper, he has no mercy and is eliminated first. The soldiers of the Wehrmacht Ivan are taken prisoner, those of the Waffen-SS never . They will shoot them on the spot.
Conceal that you are an officer
If you are an officer, you must know that in the area of combat operations it is definitely better not to be visible. Hide your distinctions. Don't stand with your arms crossed while the rest are working, because that's when you stand out too much. If you are all standing in a group and the rest of the soldiers are looking in your direction, then you become the number one target at this moment.
Vasily Zaitsev (first from the left) is one of the most famous marksmen of the Second World War. During the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 soldiers, including 11 snipers (photo:public domain).
Ivan is not stupid and you can be sure that he is watching and analyzing everything. For this reason, do not require your subordinates to honor you. And if you get under their skin too much, your men may salute to point you at the sniper.
You can also hide the gun holster under the jacket. Do the same with binoculars and a map holder. If you are in the front line, don't stand too long or too often next to your radio operator. The radio's antenna might get Ivan's attention, he'll guess you're an officer, and misfortune is done.
And this is not just idle talk, but science paid with the blood of German officers. According to Antony Beevor in "Stalingrad", for example, in the area of the Mamayev Mound, the 295th Infantry Division suffered high (...) losses among officers, mostly from shots by Russian snipers. After less than two weeks at the front, one company from Colonel Korfes' regiment (...) had the third in turn commander, this time a young lieutenant .
Don't stick your nose out of the trench
Good advice for privates. You have to assume that the trench you are in is under the constant observation of sharpshooters. Before the war, Russians boasted that they had as many as 6 million. Even if it's just propaganda and there are 600,000 of them, it's still enough to send you to the sand. Therefore, avoid any schematicity. If you have to stick your head out, don't keep it in one place all the time.
Women were also snipers in the Red Army. The photo shows a graduate of the Central Women's Sniper School in Moscow before going to the front (photo:RIA Novosti archive, image # 58861 / B. Krasuckij / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Your friends are sending you for water because you are new? Know that this is a risky task. But you are reasonably safe when carrying the empty container. Ivan is a sadist and will prefer to send you a bullet when you return with a full tank. Just so that the rest of your team suffers from thirst.
If you value your own skin, you can use the help of Stalingrad kids. Even if Ivan beats one, there will always be another in his place.
Know that you will not be the only one to do this. As already mentioned Antony Beevor wrote in "Stalingrad":
The German soldiers themselves served as Stalingrad orphans. Daily activities, such as filling water bottles with water, were dangerous with Russian snipers waiting for any movement. So, for the promised bread crust, Russian boys and girls took canteens to the Volga and filled them. When the Russian side realized what was happening, Red Army soldiers started shooting at children who were obeying these orders.
Sniper Magicians
If you survived and the bullet knocked your friend down, you should avenge him. First of all, you need to locate the enemy sniper's position. We can assure you that it is not an easy thing.
Sniper? I don't see any sni… (photo:public domain).
Ivan is inventive and cunning. Thanks to camouflage clothes, it is almost invisible. He can adjust the camouflage to the season and terrain conditions. In winter, for example, he uses white overalls, the effect of a lesson he learned from the Finns during the Winter War. His ally is also the shadow cast by trees, hills and ruins. She can use it perfectly.
By the way, remember that Soviet snipers are real specialists in their profession . Sometimes they use various tricks thanks to which they can take advantage of the naivety of our soldiers. We find it disgusting and has nothing to do with military craftsmanship, but unfortunately terrifyingly effective at it.
In "Stalingrad", Antony Beevor gives excellent examples of such "professionals":
In the 64th Army, Kowbasa's sniper ("sausage" in Ukrainian) operated from a network of interconnected at least three trenches, one for sleeping and two for shooting. In addition, he dug false positions in the ground, running sideways in front of the adjacent platoons. He attached white pennants connected to the lever, which he could move from a distance with strings. Kowbasa, proud of himself, said that as soon as a German noticed a small white pennant waving, he could not stand it, leaning out of the trench to get a better look and shouting:Rus, komm, komm! Then Kowbasa was pointing sidelong at him.
Another sniper was no less inventive:
Danielov of the 161st Infantry Regiment also dug a fake trench and made figures of Red Army soldiers with parts of their equipment like a scarecrow. Then he looked for inexperienced German soldiers and aimed at them. He scored four of them .
It won't be easy to spot them… (photo:RIA Novosti archive, image # 450 / Gieorgij Zelma / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Unimportant details and shit method
When you want to detect an enemy sniper, keep an eye on. Sometimes a completely trivial thing can give him away, even a shiny, badly disguised uniform button. In September 1941, one of our armored units suffered heavy losses from the fire of a single sniper. Ivan had been harassing them for five days and in no way could he be detected.
Finally, one day our observer detected what looked like a plume of smoke above the wreckage of the T-34. It turned out that the sniper had set up a position there, and the "smoke" that had betrayed him was in fact vapor from his breath.
Don't miss a single detail (Photo:Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-297-1728-12 / Kurth / CC-BY-SA).
At the same time, our snipers also have good ideas. To silence the Soviet sniper, one of the NCOs used the "shit" method . It is known that dealing with physiological needs in a trench is a burdensome thing:going to the latrine is dangerous, and it is not appropriate to do it underneath. That is why our boys shuffled down to tin cans and threw them in the foreground, risking a bullet in not very glorious circumstances.
Our sniper took advantage of the moment of throwing out cans with foul-smelling contents and provoked Ivan to fire. Thanks to this, he was able to approximate the position of the enemy shooter and scare him away with mortar fire. Sending a customs bullet to the escaping enemy was just a completion of the formalities.
The Germans were also full of snipers (photo:Bild 101I-297-1728-37 / Kurth / CC-BY-SA).
Such victories also give us the appropriate propaganda tone and undermine the enemy's morale. In the Red Army, snipers are worshiped, and names such as Zaitsev or Pavlichenko are known to almost every Soviet kolkhoznik, even in a sunken hole somewhere beyond the Urals.
They are for them what Luftwaffe aces or the most famous U-boat commanders are for us. So if you've read our tips enough, let's go. And remember, be vigilant and keep your head down for Ivan is watching. Good luck, soldier!