Does anyone know if the Italians used sniper rifles in Western Desert Campaign in WWI

[gwahlert]

I have heard that at least the Bersaglieri employed snipers, but I've found no evidence of this. Did the Italians even have a sniper rifle early in the war?
Glenn

Information

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[vintage hunter]

Most likely. Don't know where this was taken but here's a WWI photo of an Italian sniper w/scoped Carcano

[jmoore]

My understanding is that Italian snipers were selected by their shooting skills and given accuracy selected but standard iron sighted rifles (denoted by the crossed rifles marking near the breech) for sniping duties.


A "Crossed Rifles" marked M38 short rifle. (The marking is the rather indistinct business just above the wood line on the barrel's reinforce area.)


The scoped rifle in Post #2 above was used specifically for elimination of enemy artillery crew and was not used for general sniping. These scoped rifles were assigned additional "handlers" whose duty was to prevent it's capture! (Most of this info comes from the old Richard Hobbs book.)

[vintage hunter]

You may well be right JM, not a lot of information out there on the subject. Afterall it's not often that you see the words Italian and sniper used in the same sentence.