I'm going to try here and get most of the equipment used by the various combatants in the war. Naturally, I'll go into the rifles scopes, ammo and other gear. Now if any of you have any of these rifles and have experimented with them, for crying out loud, would you please chime in here! RIFLES: Pretty much every belligerent in the war that fielded snipers, used a variation of their standard service rifle. At this time no one was building a totally different rifle just for sniping. The British came the closest by taking their service rifle and totally rebuilding it. Otherwise, the most accurate rifles from the factory were usually tweaked and accurized, before adding a scope of 3 to 6 power. A word on accuracy here. WW2 sniping rifles generally didn't have near the accuracy of their present day counter-parts. While successful shots at around 1000 meters happened, they were by far the exception, not the rule. Most WW2 sniping was from about 600 meters on in, with most of it happening at under 400m. I suspect most of these rifles were good for about one minute of angle accuracy (with certain random exceptions.) That, plus the fact that every one of the standard military cartridges had an increasingly rainbow-like trajectory after 300 meters, with small hand-held range-finders being unheard of then, made long-range shooting very iffy. That being said, many a good sniper shot quickly and very accurately at under 400m and hit very small parts of bodies that were showing only briefly. Now let me go into this country by country. USSR: As stated before, the Soviets had embraced sniping whole-heartedly before the war. As such, they had real head-start when it came to equipment. Over 54,000 scope M91/30s were built between 1932 and 1938-with many more made between the latter date and the end of the war. I'm sure no other country came close to making that number of sniper rifles! They made so many in fact, that Soviet sniper rifles were often used by the Germans when their own sniper arms were unavailable.The Red Army also fielded a sniper version of the semi-auto models 1938 and 1940 Tokarevs. The Soviets deemed them unreliable and withdrew them but not before considerable number fell into German hands and were used against them. The Tokarev was probably the first try at a semi-auto sniping system and influenced the Germans to give the concept a try later in the war. The Red Army fielded scopes that were designed for sniper use. These were the 4X PE and the 3.5X PU. Both were excellent optically and well they should be since the USSR had bought optical equiptment from Zeiss before the war. Talk about being hoisted on your own Petard! When employed in pairs, snipers were issued a set of binoculars for spotting targets. GERMANY: Other than the captured equipment noted above, the Heer fielded three main sniper rifles. The first was the K98k, which was highly successful. The second was the G41, Germany's first attempt at a self-loading rifle, which was not a success. The last was the G/K43, the second attempt at an auto-loader. While fairly successful as an issue of general equipment, the K43 had problems as a sniper rifle. Even though most K43s were manufactured with an integral scope base, the accuracy of semi-autos during this time frame, for all countries, was nothing near the capabilities of a well-tuned bolt action. (Only lately has this changed.) The real interesting part of German sniping systems is the area of scopes and mounting equipment. Germany had many very good, small, optical companies that manufactured rifle scopes. Each of these manufacturers contracted with the Heer for their scopes. Each scope was different. Each mounting system was different! This led to a plethora of different scopes with absolutely no attempt at standardization until about 1943. Given Germany's war situation at that time until the rest of the war it isn't surprising that a cheap, easily made, durable scope wasn't issued. Some of the companies producing scopes are: Zeiss, Voigtlander, Kahles, Ajack, Gerard, Hesoldt and others. Then, of course we come to that "wonderful" oddity, the 1.5 X Zielfernrohr 41. This is the little scope one often sees in pictures mounted on and above the rear sight of a K98. I THINK the original idea was to come up with a single-plane sight for the aveage soldier. If this is what was the original intent then it was a good first effort but as a sniping scope...? As one German sniper said, "It was a very bad joke on our snipers". With almost no magnification, very little width of field and indifferent optics, not to mention a bizarre system of adjustment, it should have been pitched before any were issued. It should be noted that EVERY German sniper was issued a pair of binoculars. GREAT BRITAIN: In contrast to the Germans, the UK fielded only one sniper rifle. This was a version of the Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mark 1, the Mark 1(T). It started as a standard Mark 1 but was totally rebuilt from the ground up as a sniper's rifle. The No. 32 scope was mounted on it. These were packed into a case along with other accouterments and sent to the individual units. This combination was highly successful and was used long after the war, some being re-barrelled to 7.62 NATO. One unique accessory was the single barrel scout telescope of around 15X power. USA (Army): The U.S. Army came out with two sniper rifles. The first was the M1903A4 Springfield. For sniping the USA mounted a <3X power scope, the 330C Weaver. This low-power scope discarded much of the Springfield's legendary accuracy. When modifying the A4 for sniping purposes the iron sights were removed. This meant that if the scope was damaged then the rifle was essentially useless except as a club! The other sniper system was the M1 Garand that mounted an off-set Griffen and Howe, Lyman, or Weaver scope. I have no info on how, or if, these models were accurized. Perhaps some of you readers can help out here. As good as these rifle may or may not have been, they were further handicapped by the fact that the ordinance people refused to ship national match ammo overseas, saying it was too much effort. (Grrrrr!) USA (Marines): As anyone familiar with the USMC would expect, they chose a different route. They started out with a bull-barreled Winchester model 70 which mouned a 8X Unertl scope, an excellent system for long-range shooting. However, by the end of the war they switched over to the Springfield and Garand. JAPAN: Japan started out the war with a version of the 6.5mm Type 38 rifle. When adapted to the mounting of the 2.5X power scope it became the type 97. This rifle had a long, 31" barrel which burned all the powder and produced little smoke and no flash. Its long for caliber 6.5 bullet gave excellent penetration. Later Japanese snipers were issued the 7.7mm Type 99. Beyond caliber, the difference was in a 4X power scope and a folding monopod underneath the barrel. As usual, please give any constructive corrections or criticisms.
The best Finnish (World's) sniper Simo Häyhä used an ordinary Finnish military rifle in the Winter War. "Häyhä used a Finnish militia variant of the Russian-made Mosin-Nagant rifle, the White Guard M/28 early variant "Pystykorva" (literally Spitz, due to the front sight's resemblance to the head of a spitz-type dog) chambered in 7.62x54R, the Finnish Mosin-Nagant cartridge, because it suited his small frame (1.6 m (5 ft 3 in)). He preferred to use iron sights rather than telescopic sights to present a smaller target for the enemy (a sniper must raise his head higher when using a telescopic sight), to increase accuracy (a telescopic sight's glass can fog up easily in cold weather), and to aid in concealment (sunlight glare in telescopic sight lenses can reveal a sniper's position). A "Swedish donation rifle" Simo later received as gift was a Finnish model M/28-30 but he did not use it in battle." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4 "Finnish troops had acute shortage of sniper rifles all the time and captured sniper rifles were typically immediately taken to own use." "Mere 213 Soviet rifles ended up being delivered to official channels during Winter War and during Continuation War situation just got worse. " " Everything suggests that soldiers of Finnish Army had large number of captured M/91-30 sniper rifles in their use during early Continuation War, but only very small minority of these rifles were reported and even less handed over to official channels." "The most common captured Soviet sniper rifle in Finnish inventory seems to have been M/91-30 with top mounted PE or PEM scope, with grand majority of the Finnish-issued captured sniper rifles probably being this type. Also M/91-30 with side-mounted PE and PEM scopes were captured, but in notably smaller numbers and M/91-30 with PU scope seems to have at least equally rare. Finnish Army inventory referred M/91-30 sniper rifle with PE or PEM scope as "sniper rifle m/30", while M/91-30 with PU scope was referred as "sniper rifle m/42". Also small number of captured SVT-40 sniper rifles saw Finnish use and even some AVS-36 sniper rifles seem to have been captured, but probably just a few." http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/RIFLES7.htm Lots of additional info about the Finnish sniper rifles on that link.
Karjala, Thank you for your post! That was the type of thing I was looking for. Any other Finnish snipers besides Hayha whose stories we can access?
You are welcome! "Second Lieutenant in Reserve, Kalle Moilanen has fought with KrhK/JR 37 at Uuksu, Syskyjärvi, Ruhtinaanmäki and "mottis". He was wounded at Lemet on 26th February 1940 and became an invalid. He has received the golden Grand Master medal donated by the leader of 13th Division, chief Nuora, as a best man in the division. Few achievements: As a champion level marksman he has got over 200 kills with rifle. This number is even greater when uncertain kills are counted. During a battle he shot 12 russians behind a machine gun nest with shooting distance of circa 500 meters. Aforesaid cases could be list more to "Group Moilanen". As excellent marksman, brave and skillful soldier the "Group Moilanen" was well known at our and neighbour side." http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=117190
harolds, you might look at the site egun.de. I use to buy classic German 10M airguns off of it. They have a section on optics and on rare occasion a WW2 German or Russian scope will come up for auction as does militaria , mostly German. Unfortunately Copy and Paste does not work for me here. I bought a nice Khales 4X sport scope off Egun about 10 years ago , not military but a nice optic, delivered to the US for 90 USD. It currently sits on a Ruger 77-22.But sniper scopes from WW2 do show up. Look under shooting accessories and put say Hensoldt in search. there is also a reenactment section. WW2 material use to be fairly common there but not so anymore. Still fun to look. Gaines
On a related note, when you get your collection going learn how to actually shoot a bolt action rifle. It's a lost skill. Most people, today, break their shoulder and cheek weld when working the bolt. Doing that in 1940 would have had your drill instructor (in any nation) sticking his boot so far up your behind that you'd have had the taste of shoe polish in your throat for days. The rifle is welded to your shoulder. Your cheek is welded to the stock. The bolt is slapped up and drawn back towards your right eye, but it will not hit your eye because you are welded correctly to the stock. The sling is adjusted so that you can drop your left elbow through it and then by lifting your arm slightly you take all the tension out and create another point of contact to steady the rifle.
Kodiak, I've been shooting bolt-action rifles since I was eight. I hunt with them exclusively and so am fairly experienced in their use. However, I have never shot an actual WW2 sniper's rifle. I was hoping that some of the posters here would have some examples and contribute their experience. Given the going price of actual WW2 sniping equipment, I doubt I would be able to afford getting an example of all the rifles listed above. Besides, just having one example of say a K98k would only give me an idea of what that particular rifle is capable of. To get an idea of how accurate, say the K98 sniper rifles were generally, one would have to shoot several to get a general idea. The more the better.
