British Sniper pictures

[PrinzEugen]

Was reading Tom Renouf's excellent book Black Watch: Liberating Europe and Catching Himmler - My Extraordinary WW2 with the Highland Division: Amazon.co.uk: Tom Renouf: Books and one of the images was of a Black Watch sniper in action which I'd never seen before so I thought I'd post it here. I also had a quick hunt to see if it had been posted here before and in the process came across a few more. Hopefully you'll find them as interesting as I did. Most are property of the Imperial War Museum and as such can be distributed non commercially.

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The images in order are:
1: A marksman of the 5th BN Black Watch hunts targets in Gennep, 1945.
2: Corporal G.E. Mallery covering other members of the Scout Platoon, Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, advancing towards Fort de Brasschaet. October 9, 1944.
3: Canadian sniper
4: [from book] Black Watch sniper Gennep.
5: Polish sniper from the 1st Armored Division commanded by gen.Stanisław Maczek.1944
6: The Royal Scots Fusiliers, dug in around 1945.
7: British Sniper rifle.
8: Snipers training at a sniper school in a French village, 27 July 1944. [With 3t's from the look of it!]

Let me know if any do infringe some copyright and I'll happily take them down.

Any more to add?

Information

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[teal]

Picture no8 , that appears to be a p14 rifle i always taught that the British army used the no4 model T as their sniper rifle during ww2,interesting pictures thanks for posting them.

[Roger Payne]

Looks like a Mk2/1 scope on the rifle in the penultimate photo.
Yes, they're No3 (T)'s in the last picture. The 4T didn't really start to come on stream till late 1941, & of course many Commonwealth troops used the No3 throughout WW2.

Nice photo's!

ATB

[jmoore]

Looks like a Mk2/1 scope on the rifle in the penultimate photo.

Good eye!

[Brian Dick]

Notice the screw in the forend as done by a British Armourer!

[Surpmil]

Notice the screw in the forend as done by a British Armourer!

Quite! Not to mention the Long Branch convex middle band, and missing sunshade on the ocular end of the scope. And of course the very nice fresh coat of black paint with no brass showing, in marked contrast to the originals above. Note also the careful way the sling is tucked under the rifle to protect it from that nasty piece of granite, as though a soldier would bother - well, one in a hundred maybe! (And the wrong sling to boot)

The point that stands out from most of the genuine looking photos, as opposed to staged in the rear areas, is the almost complete lack of camouflage. Most of these "snipers" were probably little more than platoon or company marksmen in fact, rather than the kind of free agents operating in their own autonomous section under a battalion sniping officer that were usual in WWI, AFAWK.

[Thunderbox]

I guess that pictures 1,2,4 and 5 are all posed for the camera in a safe area; can't imagine any sniper would either stick his rifle out of a building or aim around obvious cover...

Wonder if picture 7 is actually a contemporary British rifle, or someone's modern b&w photo of an Indian rifle? Looks like the sort of kit photo a re-enactor or hobbyist would do.

[Peter Laidler]

Photo 7 and 8 looks like it's got a webbing sling, preferred by snipers over the leather one. Photo 2, note the lens caps hanging over the scope. Probably tied on with string as they did.

[PrinzEugen]

Pars secunda:

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1: A British sniper takes aim through the telescopic sights of his rifle on the range at a sniper training school in France, 27 July 1944. [From the same shoot as in shot 8 post 1 above I presume - better image of the 3t though...] Interesting that they would be training the soldiers with different rifles to those they would use in the field - but I suppose you use whatever you can lay your hands on!
2: A sniper from the Seaforth Highlanders takes aim from behind a carrier as 15th (Scottish) Division troops deal with German resistance in Uelzen, 16 April 1945 [don't know what kind of rifle he's using - a hunting gun they've looted perhaps?]
3: A sniper in firing position during an exercise [this is a pre war shot]
4: Lance Corporal A P Proctor, a sniper with 56th Division, cleaning his rifle, 24 November 1943 [For the sniper connisseur this is possibly the most interesting as he appears to be using a trials sniper complete with cut off and disc on butt]
5: Private J Donald, a sniper with 'C' Company, 4th King's Own Scottish Borderers, Holland, 11 December 1944 [for some reason the Scottish regts seem to have had plenty of snipers - or at least were adept in getting in front of the photo lens!]. This guy looks exhausted just back from an op judging from the state of him and his rifle.
6: A Belgian commando inspects his rifle with sniper 'scope in a village at the foot of Mt Camino, 6 February 1944

All above are Imperial War Museum copyright.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

4: Lance Corporal A P Proctor, a sniper with 56th Division, cleaning his rifle, 24 November 1943

Was that bloke in a VERY hot zone?

"Cleaning" a rifle that is fully cocked would seem to be a good precursor to:

"March in the guilty Bastard"....left, right, left, right, HALT!!

"Well, Sir, I was cleaning my rifle and it went off".

SLAM, watch your fingers!