1933 Soviet Sniper Manual and other things

[Surpmil]

Rather ridiculous that the Allenberger book has 2500+ reviews on Amazon and the "Voices of Russian Snipers" has precisely one. Allenberger is useful for the window it provides into the typical mentality of the type. Apparently he took up sniping as a sport with a captured Soviet rifle at the outset.

The Shanina book is poorly reviewed as being mostly a recounting of personal relationships and that of only about six months total coverage.

[ssgross]

recounting of personal relationships

yes. it read like a petty juvenile's love diary more suitable as a romance novel than a historical reference...but it was interspersed with valuable details of how such a co-ed army functioned in the reality of the times.

with a captured Soviet rifle at the outset.

The regular use of exploding ammunition by the soviets and german's alike, the latter in retaliation with captured ammunition whenever available and the former as a seemingly SOP (grain of salt here given the bias of the author) I found a worthwhile detail that I hadn't read in any of the more meta-level historical account.

[Lee Enfield]

Other than the cinematic evidence I have not seen any documentation on the White Russians being supplied with scoped rifles; but I find it hard to believe that the Soviets would resort to providing a film producer with a dummied-up scoped M91/30 when foreign scoped rifles were readily available. The Soviets certainly had machinists who could make mounts or prop makers who could fabricate a prop mount & scope (and glue it on) for non close-up views. If prototypes were being developed at th time of the filming, it is unlikely that the Soviets would allow it to be have a cinematic debut. Second, would the Soviets spend time and money to make German style mounts for a foreign rifle? Limited resources in the Soviet Union mandates that any skills would have been used to develop mount prototypes for a M91/30 and besides, they had German mounts that could have reverse engineered. I'm certain those scoped Ross rifles were real. 1931 predated the unsuccessful Soviet primsatic PT scope's debut and before the PE was developed. In the typical Soviet pechant for secrecy, use the Ross and keep any potential foe in the dark about Soviet sniper rifle development.

Ross rifles were very accurate, but why send a SMLE with scope when the jam prone (when dirty) Ross would do? I doubt if the Canadian War Ministry would allow top line SMLEs to go to Russia instead of the Ross. Recall that Canada like the US supported the White Russians. I already mentioned the other German equipment and mounts the Soviets bought before Timoshenko's film, but it is highly unlikely that the secretive NKVD would share with a film production.

By 1942, there is no need for Gen. Morozoff to be deceptive about sniping. The Soviets were already making grandiose & unsubstantiated claims of one shot, one dead nazi and bragging how effective their snipers were. They asserted that a sniper killed "Field Marshal" von Kleist in 1942 (never mind that von Kleist wasn't a field marshal yet & he died post-war in Soviet capivity). Also in 1942 two snipers and political organizer Nikolai Krasvachenko were sent to represent the oviet Union at the International Student Conference. One sniper was Lt. Vladimir Pchelintsev (156 kills) and the other was Jr. Lt. Lyudmila Pavlichenko (309 kills).

There is one scene in that film that puzzles me. Check out the P14 at 11:20. Scope seems offset and what is that band behind the distance dial? Prop? Your thoughts please?

I just fast forwarded thru that movie.

The P14 and Ross MkIII sniper rifles are great.

I believe the apparent off set of the P14 may be an optical illusion.

There are at least 2 Ross MkIII snipers used (1 with fore stock cut at mid band, several full length stocks).

What I noticed were several shots of non-sniper Ross Mk3B rifles.

I attempted to see the front sights on the "optically sighted" Ross rifles to ascertain whether they were Canadian or British contract rifles, but all the scenes were too quick or cut off .

What was amazing was that the machine gun used was the (little known & extremely rare today) Maxim-Tokarev M1925 Light Machine Gun Maxim-Tokarev M1925 Light Machine Gun - Axis History Forum

[Riter]

Allerberger's book has been out for a while and Voices of Russian Snipers is relatively new. Hence the lack of reviews. As it is fresh new material, I liked it better than Voices of Snipers (released earlier in 2022). I went through the bibliography of the latter and virtually everything cited was read before. Allerberger's book has the advantage (over Shanina's) of it being written for him by Whacker who could ask questions, arrange it and present it in an interesting narrative. Shanina's diary doesn't have that and it's hardly any different from other diaries. If she had survived and used that as a basis of a book, that would be a different story.

As such, it reminds me of many Civil War diaries I read with many, many useless entries (marched 10 miles. Hardtack, salt horse and coffee for dinner or it rained all day and we struggled in the mud). There was utility in it if you knew how to interpret it. Take Civil War's 2nd USSS William Greene's Letters of a Sharpshooter. One notable Civil War historian remarked that it was nothing but a bunch o' whining letters. He's mostly right but there was one valuable tidbit. In one late 1864 letter Greene wrote, "Tell Marl to get me a telescope rifle. If I have one I can stay out of the charges." That statement made the book worthwhille because it showed a change in tactics in 1864 that recognized the utility of long range riflemen armed with specialized equipment. That wasn't the case from 1862-3 and early 1864. At Mine Run, one telescope armed sharpshooter company was ordered to charge the Confederate line. The officer who gave the command was ignorant about their nature and their equipment. They suffered some casualties from their charge. So, it's a matter of having enough knowledge to know how to interpret what is said and then to place it into the context. I tried to do this in my book WW II Snipers (not the WW II Sniper's Pocket Manual).

Regarding the use of explosive ammunition, the first incident was in 1939 when an explosive bullet hit Simo Hayha's face and disfigured him. It is strongly likely that the Soviets used them first and the Germans followed suit. Hitler's authorization to use explosive bullets was limited to the Eastern Front and the Germans made their own too. Here's a link with some good cutaway images of the German version.

https://americanshootingjournal.com/exploding-bullets/

War is hell.

[Surpmil]

I suspect the reports of explosive bullets are somewhat exaggerated as the German 7.92x57 S Patrone was often mistaken for an explosive or dum-dum round in WWI due to the "explosive" nature of the wounds it caused by its high velocity.