Ross Sniper Scopes

[XM21]

I read the book A Rifleman Went To War. I think he had a Ross Sniper with a Warner Swasey scope. Were Ross Sniper Rifles fitted with other scopes?

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[Ax.303]

Some Mk III Rosses were also fitted with the Winchester A5 scope.

Get a copy of "In the Trenches" by Glenn Iriam, if you are interested in Ross Snipers and the Canadian experience in WW I .

[Surpmil]

Get it here

[Promo]

Russia also experimented with Ross rifles as snipers post WWI, but that might be another topic...

[Simon]

In Clive Law's "Without Warning" there's a photograph of a Ross set up with an offset PP Co scope which he credits to one of the Canadian Museum collections although I can't recall which one.

[Promo]

Well, this was the Russian experiment. Poor pic I once found on the internet.

[Simon]

Georg,

I've never seen that before, in fact until now I didn't even know Russia had experimented with a Ross Sniper.

I wonder if it was rechambered for the 7.62 x 54mm?

[Warren]

Russia had a very large number of Canadian 1910 Mk. III Ross rifles, many of which they sold to Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
Many were converted to 7.62 X54 for use in the Olympics at one time. The year escapes me.
The rifles must have come from WW I stocks and how has been a mystery.
The CSE (Canadian Siberian Expedition) which was researched extensively by Jack (John) Skuce in his privately published book states that ALL the Ross rifles came back to Canada and it appears that none were given to the Russians.
If you are a student of Canadian military intrigue and mystery the book by Skuce is a goldmine, if you can find a copy.
The question remains: "Where is Henderson" :-)##

[Surpmil]

Perhaps some of the Rosses sent to India in WWI found their way to Russia? The "Sniper" movie made in the USSR in 1931 which was discussed here, shows both MkIII and P14 rifles set up with scopes. Obviously this was before the stocks of both from the Baltic Republics were captured in 1940, so they came from somewhere else.

It appears to be the same scope on both rifles, suggesting either creative prop work or a number of the same scopes probably purchased in Germany in the 1920s.

The Soviets and the Reichswehr were collaborating closely at that time with secret German training bases for aircraft, tanks, gas warfare etc in southern Russia & Ukraine. These allowed the Reichswehr to circumvent the Versailles Treaty restrictions.

Of course most of the knowledge gained in WWI and perpetuated in Russia found its way to the Red Army also, primarily compliments of Gen. von Seeckt and the Reichswehr. Whatever appealed to the Soviets was put into effect promptly without the usual bureaucratic hemming & hawing. Sniping obviously appeal as the student certainly exceeded the master (and everyone else) in WWII. Astute western observers might not have been so complacent and neglectful of the lessons of South Africa and WWI in regard to marksmanship if they had paid attention to what the OSOAVIAKhIM and the Red Army were doing in the 1930s. But automatic weapons were in fashion in the West at that time and marksmanship was neglected. The power of machine guns was certainly a lesson of WWI, for those who had missed the first lesson in the Russo-Japanese War, but the enthusiasts for automatic weapons, in their reaction against "the spirit of the bayonet" and similar stuff, threw out the baby of individual marksmanship with the bathwater. In much the same way, some of the advocates of tanks were made bitter and fanatical by the apathy and stupid obstruction they met and convinced themselves that the tank was supreme in all things. Likewise the advocates of air power, and the heavy bomber in particular, convinced themselves they could do it all alone. The commonality is emotionalism over rationalism, but then that is the prevailing human commonality!

[Promo]

I think it was the Ross Rifles which were said to had been sent to Latvia, Lithuania, etc. which ended up in Russian hands.