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SNIPING RIFLES ON THE
EASTERN FRONT 1939–45
MARTIN PEGLER
SNIPING RIFLES ON THE
EASTERN FRONT 1939–45
MARTIN PEGLER
Illustrated by Johnny Shumate & Alan Gilliland
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
DEVELOPMENT
Adaptation and innovation
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8
38
67
76
78
79
80
USE
Sniping rifles in combat
IMPACT
The verdict of history
CONCLUSION
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
If a benchmark exists for sheer brutality during World War II, it must
surely be found in the fighting that erupted on 22 June 1941 with the
commencement of Operation
Barbarossa.
The Axis invasion of the Soviet
Union reignited hostilities – the Continuation War (July 1941–September
1944) – between Soviet and Finnish forces, which had already fought one
another during the Winter War (November 1939–March 1940). Snipers
would play a key role on both sides as the struggle on the Eastern Front
developed, with Germany, the Soviet Union and Finland fielding a wide
variety of sniping rifles as sniping techniques and capabilities evolved.
The battlefields of World War I had increasingly become dominated
by new technologies, and many commentators noted that the infantryman’s
traditional small arms had become ineffectual. While Britain and the
United States fielded shorter-barrelled service rifles such as the Short,
Magazine Lee-Enfield (1,132mm total length) and the M1903 Springfield
(1,097mm), the long-barrelled rifles issued by many powers in 1914, such
as Russia’s Mosin-Nagant M1891 (7.62×54mmR; 1,308mm) and
Germany’s Gewehr 98 (7.92×57mm; 1,250mm), had given way to shorter-
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These Soviet snipers carry Mosin-
Nagant M1891/30 bolt-action rifles
fitted with PEM scopes. Chambered
for the 7.62×54mmR cartridge, the
standard Mosin-Nagant M1891 rifle
had a five-round internal magazine
with a latched floorplate which
could be either charger-loaded or
individually filled. The leaf-pattern
rear sight was graduated in
arshins,
the
arshin
being a traditional unit of
measurement equating to 71.12cm.
Mosin-Nagant rifles produced after
World War I were based on the
original Dragoon pattern, with a
barrel 70mm shorter than the
standard M1891. To simplify
production, from 1930 the original
hexagonal breech was superseded
by a cylindrical type and metric
range graduations were marked on
the rear sight, which was changed
to a tangent-leaf type; a distinctive
hood was fitted over the front sight.
This model was designated the
M1891/30. (Author’s collection)
barrelled variants during the war such as the Mauser Kar 98AZ
(7.92×57mm; 1,090mm), as rifles capable of accurate shooting out to
2,000m had proven unnecessary. The average distance for combat on the
Western Front was generally estimated to be under 200m and much of the
fighting was at ranges no greater than 50m; accordingly, more compact
carbine-sized arms had become widely adopted by the mid-1930s.
Despite this, there was a consensus that for sniping purposes some
highly accurate rifles were still required. The use of snipers during World
War I had steadily evolved and by 1918 they were employed as scouts and
observers, providing vital intelligence as well as dealing not only with
enemy snipers but machine-gunners and artillery observers. In the lean
years of the 1920s and 1930s, however, virtually no government wished
to devote time or resources to building up and re-arming its armed forces.
If there was an exception to this disinclination to re-arm, it was the
Soviet Union. During World War I Russia had not employed any dedicated
snipers at all, and as a result its soldiers suffered grievously at the hands
of German and Austro-Hungarian snipers. In the early 1930s the Soviet
Union embarked on a massive modernization of its armed forces, an effort
that included the introduction of a sniper-training programme. Since its
introduction in 1891, Russian and Soviet forces had used the sturdy
Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifle. The early-model rifles were upgraded to
become the M1891/30 of the same calibre but with a shortened barrel
(730mm rather than 800mm).
It is a curious irony that the first Mosin-Nagant sniping variants came
to fruition as part of a series of technology exchanges between the Soviets
and the new Nazi regime in Germany. Hitler’s forces did not fight in any
major wars before the invasion of Poland in September 1939, although
both Germany and the Soviet Union gained some indirect experience of
Pictured during the battles of July
1944 towards the end of the
Continuation War (1941–44), this
Finnish sniper is armed with an
m/39-43 bolt-action rifle
chambered for the 7.62×53mmR
cartridge; it was the best Finnish
sniping rifle issued during the
war, but only 500 were produced.
The earlier Winter War (1939–40)
was crucially important from both
the Soviet and Finnish
perspectives as far as sniping
was concerned. Soviet snipers
found themselves outshot and
tactically outmanoeuvred by
Finnish snipers, who were
equipped with their own Mosin-
Nagant variants, the m/27 and
m/28-30 bolt-action rifles, also
chambering the 7.62×53mmR
round. Although the Winter War
ended with a treaty in March
1940, the Soviets had paid a
terrible price, losing around
390,000 men but learning a great
deal about the employment of
snipers in winter conditions,
which was to prove indispensable
after June 1941. (SA-kuva)
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