1933 Soviet Sniper Manual and other things

[Surpmil]

Until the PE was produced, there were no issued scope or scopes in the Red Army. Only the NKVD had scopes and all of them were ordered from Germany.

Of course, AFAWK we're only talking about experimental work until the PE is settled on circa 1931

Re-check Skennerton. The British & Australians were removing scopes. We know the US Army was discarding their Warner & Swasey too. The cash strapped USMC didn't get rid of sh*t and pressed those Winchester A5 and Lyman 5As into service during WW II).

My copy is well-thumbed; no mention of scopes being sold in the 1930s that I can recall. Do you have a reference?

It's really a shame the US didn't do better for scopes in both wars and Korea: B&L had a fairly close relationship with Zeiss until the USA entered WWI and afterwards they produced good stuff. It wasn't like the basic design of a good straight tube scope was any great mystery, nor protected by patents etc. Noske was producing a good product that could have been brought up to milspec, and of course the Lymans could easily have been improved as well. Remember how the Ordnance Department approached Goerz in about 1915 asking permission to copy one of their designs, but when refused they seemed to lose all interest and just carried on with those bizarre W&S door-stops!? (Give them their due though: they fielded the first range-estimating reticule AFAIK)

I can only ascribe the neglect to cultural factors in the end; defects might be a better term, same as the U.K., though the No.32 had the great advantage over all competitors of positive indexing of the drums. Why the PE series never had that I don't know, but can only guess they felt it would not function well in extreme cold., though there is no evidence in the remaining early scopes of the idea ever being tried except for those silly little thumb screws copied from Zeiss. Maybe something in the Russian-language literature on that? The spring-loaded lever acting on the drum knurling that Busch used might have been the best: simple and easily defrosted being external; bit tricky to use one-handed though. Best might have been something that could have been disengaged completely if desired. The advantage of the No.32 no one else seemed to grasp at the time was putting the markings where they could be seen from the prone position! Did the Germans ever learn that lesson? Soviets got it for the PU, and indexing finally came with the PSO-1 circa 1960. But then the No32 never had to function at -30 with windchill either.

Yes. I happen to have a receiver where the scope was removed and a dovetail piece of metal installed in the space. It was re-proofed afterward. I'll check with Kareen & Steves if they say anything about it. It should be noted that like in the British and Canadian and American Marine Corps, there were survivors that were pressed into service in WW 2.

You mean a WWI fitting or a Reichswehr one?