Question - Sharpshooter Doctrine in WW2

[btm]

I am looking for information on the employment of sharpshooters by the U.S. and Germany during WW2.

Specifically, I am trying to determine:

1) How sharpshooters were chosen and/or designated

2) How sharpshooters were allocated to units (both in theory and in practice, if there is a conflict)

CMBO treats sharpshooters as if they were "freelance", or totally independent of the organic composition of infantry units. Is this accurate?

[Chad Harrison]

From my understanding, they are 'sharpshooters' and 'snipers'. 'Sharpshooters' are the person who is the best shot in the platoon/company and is given a better weapon for long range shooting (not necessarily with a scope). He may or may not be separated from his unit.

A 'sniper' is a professionally trained sniper with a scope and is an independant unit, at times operating alone and isolated from any friendly troops. It is assumed that 'sharpshooters' in CMBO are in fact 'snipers' because of their ability to operate alone, IIRC.

As to training, I have no idea!

Chad

[Michael Dorosh]

I have a bit of info on Commonwealth snipers if that is of interest to you; I get the feeling it is not - I will add, though, that there have been some lengthy discussions of this on the board, and the search feature may yield you some results. It may be hard to seperate the flyguano from the pepper since a lot of debate occurred simply on the definitions of sniper and sharpshooter, as alluded to by Chad.

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

It may be hard to seperate the flyguano from the pepper since a lot of debate occurred simply on the definitions of sniper and sharpshooter, as alluded to by Chad.

The good old days of arguing about a what defines a sharpshooter and what defines a sniper . . . *sigh*

Atleast when CMBB comes out we will have a whole new set of subjects to 'talk' about!

btm, just do a search in this combat mission forum with the keywords sniper and you will get a plethora of debates!

chad

[btm]

Thank you for your recommendations.

I did search the forum and the 175 threads that contain either the word "sniper" or the word "sharpshooter."

Unfortunately, while I did find the thread you mentioned regarding the semantics of these terms, I did not find any references to historical documents that might be of use.

If anyone knows of resources that may be of use, please let me know.

I appreciate it.

[JasonC]

The US army did not even have an official scoped rifle at the begining of WW II. The USMC did - the WW I era 1903 Springfield with various adjustments. Some US soldiers in WW I had received formal sniper training at British schools, but there was no US facility of the kind in existence.

The M-1 was still under development, with changes still being made, sufficient to prevent a sniper version of the M-1 from being settled on. The M1-C was officially designated in June of 1944, but very few made it to the front by the end of the war. It used a 2.5x power hunting scope, and was effective out to around 500 yards. They served extensively in Korea, but basically weren't out yet.

The first formal US army sniper school was a course run by the army marksmenship training unit after the Korean war. Formally designated snipers did not see combat until Vietnam. And early training of this role was largely restricted to marksmenship and use of scoped rifles, not focusing on fieldcraft, two man teams, independent ops etc - until much later, Nam at the earliest.

There was however an independent tradition in such things in the USMC. It grew out of not a sniper course, but the "scout" course. Scouts were specially trained in fieldcraft and meant to act as recon "eyes" for their units. The usefulness of high marksmenship and stealthy, ranged weapons in the hands of scouts ought to have been pretty obvious, but wasn't really.

And the military as a whole was thinking along quite different lines. Army studies after WW II showed that most firefights by infantry occurred at 300 yards or less due to terrain, with most actual kills occuring at 100 yards or less. It was known that accurate fire out to 1200 yards had occurred during static WW I fighting, but that was thought to be an exceptional result of forces in fixed positions, knowing about each other for long periods without the front lines moving, etc. The army focused on increasing volume of fire at shorter ranges, not on accuracy at longer ones.

During most of WW II and outside of the USMC, there was nevertheless a high demand for scoped rifles and sharpshooter roles. Rather indifferently met. The 1903 Springfield was the weapon used, in two varieties. The better but rarer type mounted an 8 power scope. No "match" quality ammo was available for designated sniper shooters, however. At 600 yards with ball ammo, 7.5 inch shot groups were achieved with the high power scope, and some successful shots out of 1000 yards are recorded. But the more common scope was a 2.5x hunting scope, which effectively limited the range to 500-600 yards.

Who was using these? Men who had scored "expert" on their individual marksmenship qualifications. Only a portion of them, as there were fewer scope rifles than that. They received little additional training. They were good shots, they were given a hunting scope on a bolt action rifle, and they remained with the company they were assigned to. They then acted as "sharpshooters". As the US was usually attacking, one high priority for them was eliminating German snipers, acting as a sort of "overwatch" counter. The USMC also practiced flushing individual enemies with BARs or MGs and getting them with a sniper.

The Germans, in contrast, had developed formal sniper training back in WW I, and continued it into WW II. They stressed marksmenship and use of the scope as well. They had excellent quality (coated, decent sight reticules, well aligned, etc) 4 power scopes for the most part, though the tendency to multiple types the Germans showed in other areas also appeared here. They also taught fieldcraft, including the use of special camo nets meant to cover the head and hide reflections from the glass (though not full "gilla" suits). These were for specially designated snipers.

However, in addition, the Germans had the idea of issuing scoped rifles in much larger numbers to the line infantry. They wanted every platoon to have an accurrized and scoped K98 or G43 in the hands of a good natural shot. In practice, they did not provide enough scoped rifles for that, but they came close. Not all of the men so equipped could be given formal sniper training, however. They lacked the special fieldcraft training. They just got a little familiarization with the characteristics of their scopes and were expected to work with their parent unit on its particular tactical tasks.

The Russians, incidentally, went beyond these levels of specialization. They were the first to form special 2 man sniper teams, to organize them as a seperate branch, and then field them in large numbers. There are long lists of Russian snipers with enourmous kill scores, against handfuls of Germans with similar records.

The Brits and Canadians had long traditions of trained sharpshooters. Gilla suits were developed by British hunters. Canadian sniper schools date from WW I, and Brits had recognized the importance of the skill as early as the Boer war, when Boer hunters proved far more accurate on the open Veldt with their Mausers than British regulars. The standard British sniper weapon of WW II was a Lee Enfield with 3 power scope - a bit underpowered optically speaking.

Overall, Russian snipers are recognizably snipers in the modern (overly, IMHO) technical sense of the term. So were the most schooled German ones. The US variety of WW II, along with many more Germans without the formal fieldcraft training, were simply good shots with 2.5 or 4 power scopes attached a few to a company or one to a platoon.

As for CMBOs portrayal of them, I think they are distinctly undermodeled as to their actual ability to hit things. 40% hit rates against pop up targets at 400 meters or more were perfectly ordinary, and experts sometimes approached 90% hit rates even at longer ranges. In CMBO, a sniper can fire all 10 shots at units in open ground and only scare people, and rarely hits 4 times out of 10.

If you saw the typical result of a sniper shot not as a "shaken" target unit, but half the time a down man and most of the time at least a pin result, the effect of well aimed rifle fire on the battlefield would be much more accurately represented. The effect should depend somewhat on target exposure, to be sure.

[Michael Dorosh]

Excellent analysis Jason - I think you mean "ghillie" suit rather than gilla suit, unless this is a variation I'm not aware of.

The Canadians had some very good snipers in World War One; it was something Native soldiers seemed to aspire to for some reason. I guess the feeling of the lone, individual warrior - sort of like the apocryphal American "rugged individualist" - appealed to them. Bucky Norwest, a Cree, gotover 100 kills before a German sniper got him.

In WW II, snipers were trained not just as marksmen, but as recce specialists as well and were used in a scout and sniper platoon, 1 platoon per infantry battalion. They did more than just hide in trees and shoot people.

[OG_Gleep]

Yep good post Jason. History channel had a really good program covering this subject, except for the Americains, they concentrated on the Pacific Theater, countering Japanese snipers.

The US Military has a history of shutting down effective programs, only to find out they made a huge mistake in the next war. Atleast until Vietnam. They seemed to have learned a lot of lessons after that particular war.

Anyhow, I can't point you to any specific articles, but I know the history channel has a program covering this subject, and you can normally purchase a lot of their series.

[Chad Harrison]

Great post Jason, as always we appreciate your analysis.

[btm]

JasonC -

Thank you for your reply. Your information confirms my own findings to date. I have all the information I need regarding the weapons of the sharpshooter. (Here I must insert my strong recommendation of Bruce Canfield's U.S. Infantry Weapons of WW2 )

Do you recall any of the sources that you might have used in gathering your data?

Thanks again,

[lcm1947]

Good post Jason. Enjoyed all the good info.

[Epée]

We all know that the better sharpshooter were snipers, and the übersnipers were ninjas. They totally flip out and explode peoples heads with one shot. Very common in Stalingrad. I hope this is modelled correctly in CMBB.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Epée:

We all know that the better sharpshooter were snipers, and the übersnipers were ninjas. They totally flip out and explode peoples heads with one shot. Very common in Stalingrad. I hope this is modelled correctly in CMBB.

That would be awesome, and by awesome I mean cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet!

[Steve McClaire]

Sharpshooters were completely suicidal individuals, a fact widely (and ruthlessly) taken advantage of by commanders in all armed forces of WW2.

The sharpshooter would be equipped with a long range rifle and camo gear -- but instead of standing off to shoot individual soldiers at long range, they were sent forward in 'waves' of 3-4 in front of every attack. Each man was (somehow) equipped with a radio and could thus relay immediate and precise spotting reports to all friendly units. Given their suicidal nature and the ruthless drive of their commanders, most snipers would dash right into the enemy forward (or even MLR) positions without a second thought, even going right into friendly artillery fire.

The sharpshooter charge revealed enemy positions without undue risk to other friendly troops, and if the sharpshooter somehow survived first contact, he would plunge into the enemy rear area looking for more targets, until he inevitably became a casualty.

The only notable exception to this practice that I know of was the preference of some Allied commanders for using waves of unarmed jeeps instead of sharpshooters.