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US Army Snipers in Normandy


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There were no formally trained snipers in the U.S. Army in Normandy. In general U.S. sniper training and doctrine lagged far behind that of the Germans and British.

Basically, you had a few guys in each Company considered "marksmen", who were handed a scoped Springfield rather than a Garand. Exactly who got the scoped rifles and how they were deployed was at the discretion of the Company commander and his subordinates. Nothing like modern sniper school training for these "marksmen" -- just some additional range time, and maybe some additional fieldcraft practicum.

It is true that the marksmen were often deployed forward -- they're often referred to as "scouts". But this was almost always in the context of platoon deployment; U.S. Marksmen did not generally operate as independent sniper units. The U.S. Army didnt really get this trick down until Vietnam.

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And as I have posted before, there are anecdotal cases of marksmen trading their Springfields for Garands the first chance they had. In their view, and it's a pretty safe bet their squad and platoon leaders agreed, the extra firepower trumped whatever extra long range accuracy the bolt action offered in the kind of combat they were faced with.

Michael

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I use dismounted US armored infantry exclusively for the scoped 1903. I split the teams and get the smallest unit with the 1903 and put them to work in a sniper/ recon role. I have had great success picking off men at 300-400m.

Scout teams are pretty good for this: they have (IIRC) a couple of Thompsons and a Springfield, plus some demo charges. Crank 'em up to Elite or Crack and give them +2 Leadership... I've not tried it, but if your common-or-garden platoon marksman gets good kill rations, they should be very effective and quite cheap.

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This thread does not understand how poor the snipers in the game are.

They are marksman, and poor ones at that. There is nothing about them that represent sniper skills in the game, they do not even outperform other troops in killing ability.

I ran a test using a German attached sniper team , elite, with the +2 modifier, fanatic moral and placed a enemy squad at 200 meters in open ground and them on a hill behind a bocage or in the church tower.

You could not ask for an easier range and target to kill.

The results, after about 30 sniper rounds expended each run and running the test 5 times, I saw the sniper would kill 2 to 3 guys each battle and his team mate with a MP40 kill 2- 3 also. So 4 or 5 kills, normally about 6 – 7 minutes to do it in and a partner with a sub-machine gun out of range doing as good.

That represents 1 hit in 10 shots.

The unit is so mis-modeled, it makes me cry. Being an ex-sniper in real life.

:mad:

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This thread does not understand how poor the snipers in the game are.

They are marksman, and poor ones at that. There is nothing about them that represent sniper skills in the game, they do not even outperform other troops in killing ability.

I ran a test using a German attached sniper team , elite, with the +2 modifier, fanatic moral and placed a enemy squad at 200 meters in open ground and them on a hill behind a bocage or in the church tower.

You could not ask for an easier range and target to kill.

The results, after about 30 sniper rounds expended each run and running the test 5 times, I saw the sniper would kill 2 to 3 guys each battle and his team mate with a MP40 kill 2- 3 also. So 4 or 5 kills, normally about 6 – 7 minutes to do it in and a partner with a sub-machine gun out of range doing as good.

That represents 1 hit in 10 shots.

The unit is so mis-modeled, it makes me cry. Being an ex-sniper in real life.

:mad:

I have already said my piece on this particular subject on the CMSF forum, and for the record, I couldn't agree with you more.

SLR (another ex sniper);)

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Well it looks like with SLR and slysniper Battlefront has the opportunity to get some real info from those who know what they're talking about. I look forward to the patch.

I sure would like to see what they are using to base their numbers on.

I can admit, things back at that time did not have the level of equipment that I had available.

But I would be more than willing to take any good bolt action hunting rifle with the shell and scope that is equal to what they had then and demostrate there is not "ANYWAY IN #### THAT AT THEM RANGES (200 yards) A SKILLED MARKSMAN IS NOT DEADLY WHEN COVER CANNOT BE FOUND."

And good snipers should be able to perform very well to 400 yards, then start to see a drastic drop in abilities every 100 yards past that. With maybe 800 being a extreme distance in th game, with little chance of a hit

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This thread does not understand how poor the snipers in the game are.

They are marksman, and poor ones at that. There is nothing about them that represent sniper skills in the game, they do not even outperform other troops in killing ability.

I ran a test using a German attached sniper team , elite, with the +2 modifier, fanatic moral and placed a enemy squad at 200 meters in open ground and them on a hill behind a bocage or in the church tower.<snip>

I had been working on a test for snipers and this thread has spurred me to finish it. I do *not* have the real world experience that you have but when I read your test scenario it was so different than the way I use my sniper teams in a game I figured people might like to know about it. When I control sniper teams, once they are engaged at 300m or less I try to break contact with them and move them to a new location. I like to get my licks in against the enemy at 400m - 600m. I am quite happy with snipers used this way. Given that my regular troops don't bother shooting at those distances my snipers *are* better than regular troops - at that range.

I have a test scenario like this: One German platoon (three squads, two shrek teams and one HQ team) vs one US sniper team. I created an AI plan for the platoons to start at 1000m away from the sniper teams who are in a thicket of trees with deep forest cover. The AI plan is to simply close the distance starting at advance speed and then switching to max assault for the last 300m. I ran this test 15 times and here are the results:

Average casualties: German 38%, US 15%

Average distance first shot fired: 690m

Chance that a squad will be broken: 13%

Chance that a squad will be eliminated: 4%

I also ran the test the other way around - me controlling the platoon and the AI controlling the snipers. In that case I was able to always kill the sniper team but I still suffered an average of 29% casualties and I suffered one broken squad and one eliminated squad in the five times I ran the test.

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I had been working on a test for snipers and this thread has spurred me to finish it. I do *not* have the real world experience that you have but when I read your test scenario it was so different than the way I use my sniper teams in a game I figured people might like to know about it. When I control sniper teams, once they are engaged at 300m or less I try to break contact with them and move them to a new location. I like to get my licks in against the enemy at 400m - 600m. I am quite happy with snipers used this way. Given that my regular troops don't bother shooting at those distances my snipers *are* better than regular troops - at that range.

I have a test scenario like this: One German platoon (three squads, two shrek teams and one HQ team) vs one US sniper team. I created an AI plan for the platoons to start at 1000m away from the sniper teams who are in a thicket of trees with deep forest cover. The AI plan is to simply close the distance starting at advance speed and then switching to max assault for the last 300m. I ran this test 15 times and here are the results:

Average casualties: German 38%, US 15%

Average distance first shot fired: 690m

Chance that a squad will be broken: 13%

Chance that a squad will be eliminated: 4%

I also ran the test the other way around - me controlling the platoon and the AI controlling the snipers. In that case I was able to always kill the sniper team but I still suffered an average of 29% casualties and I suffered one broken squad and one eliminated squad in the five times I ran the test.

That is interesting. I had not bothered to go farther out because the hit ratio was so low where it should be much higher.

If the snipers were performing well, then you are correct in that a sniper would never want to engage at close range.

Their goal is to be as far as they are capable of and be able to hit a killing shot, I always felt convertable up to 700 yards. But with a normal rifle, I am sure 500 would be about the max.

Then as you pointed out, they want to take one or 2 shots relocate and re-engage, they select terrain that gives them a view but also leaves them a exit route that is safe.

The test was not to represent any real tactics, but I found with the cover I gave them they easily lasted 6 to 7 minutes without any losses. I did shift them slighty if I felt the AI squad had spotted them.

I also area fired the squad just to see ifthey could pin the sniper. But in general neither group was managing to suppress the other totally.

At times the squad would have men trying to take cover instead of fighting, but they would generally have 3 or 4 engaging the snipers.

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It wasn't on a test range, but this sniper seemed to do just great.

So I went to and read your account. that is great, was it Hto H, AI,

what was the condition of the unit you were up against.

I am not saying that at times they might be able to impact the game, but so could a MG or any other unit that might have been used for the same purpose.

But you are NOT expearencing snipers as they truely can impact a battle in real life.

Back to my test, I place the best sniper that the game allows at a good heigth advantage that the small lays of the land cannot help give cover. put 13 men 200 yards out in the open with no cover and this guy is not managing to hit more than 1 guy every two minutes. Whereas he should be taking head shots and only missing if by some bad chance the guy happens to move in the second it takes the bullit to get there.

now I am willing to imagine that these men are hiding in whatever they can find and are moving around much more than what is shown. but there is plenty accounts where snipers in these type of conditions would likely be hitting almost every shot and that unit would be broken or panic, Snipers did not make the enemy afraid of them by hitting 1 in 10 shots at 200 yards,

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H2H, and you'd have to ask Elvis about the US units. The full thread is here. The US thread is here.

"But you are NOT experiencing snipers as they truely can impact a battle in real life"

That may be true, but the same could be said of tanks, artillery, air power, engineers, everything. Actually, pretty much everyone that's had any military experience whines about the way 'their' thing is modelled in CM ;) Besides - that pair single handedly destroyed the equivalent of a whole platoon. Just how much more 'impact' do you want a sniper pair to have?

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H2H, and you'd have to ask Elvis about the US units. The full thread is here. The US thread is here.

"But you are NOT experiencing snipers as they truely can impact a battle in real life"

That may be true, but the same could be said of tanks, artillery, air power, engineers, everything. Actually, pretty much everyone that's had any military experience whines about the way 'their' thing is modelled in CM ;) Besides - that pair single handedly destroyed the equivalent of a whole platoon. Just how much more 'impact' do you want a sniper pair to have?

when I cannot stop a veteran squad in the open I have a hard time thinking your story about handleing a platoon is normal. Actually, I had started a test with 3 squads at 400 yards with shell holes to run leap frog tactacs moving up on different units to see how well units would perform in pinning the platoon, I was doing this for mg's really, but tested other things to see how well they would do. lets just say, snipers were pretty good at getting themselves killed. not normally able to pin down more than one or two fire teams and receiving return fire from 2 squads in return. now maybe at the magic distance of 600 where they will fire and the enemy cannot unless they have MG's which most do! could I see snipers in this game stop a fit platoon

with decent troops and not already broken or something.

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Also the commment about other things not performing as real life either. True,

but pointing it out does make changes. For the arty guys did that for years and now look what we have, Arty heaven, so if this thread goes on long enough, maybe in 5 years I can actually have a sniper that can infiltrate the lines and take out that arty spotter at 500 yards and vanish just like he should instead of the comments battlefront gives."Their not really snipers, just markman and sharpshooter", like calling them that makes it all better, the game sniper is not a real sniper even to them.

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I wonder why Battlefront decided to not implement a true sniper unit. Was there some technical reason that an accurate and stealthy(for germans atleast) sniper could not be implemented? Maybe they settled on marksman/sharpshooters because they feared that actual snipers would be used as uber weapons in unhistorical numbers.

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Proably because snipers have nothing to do with the kind of thing CM is meant to be about.

Not quite:

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=2031

"There are snipers everywhere. There are snipers in trees, in buildings, in piles of wreckage, in the grass. But mainly they are in the high, bushy hedgerows that form the fences of all the Norman fields and line every roadside and lane."
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I wonder why Battlefront decided to not implement a true sniper unit.

Maybe because the US army at this stage of the war didn't have any? All they had were a few guys who were handy with a gun and might or might not have had experience with stalking game. There was no serious attempt at specialized training.

Now, the Germans did have that, but the number that they turned out was limited. Does anybody have any figures on how many were sent to the western front during the period covered by the game? I have yet to see them mentioned in historical documents. My impression is that there wouldn't have been enough for, say, every battalion to get one, which is probably the minimum needed to justify them showing up in CM.

Michael

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Now, the Germans did have that, but the number that they turned out was limited. Does anybody have any figures on how many were sent to the western front during the period covered by the game? I have yet to see them mentioned in historical documents. My impression is that there wouldn't have been enough for, say, every battalion to get one, which is probably the minimum needed to justify them showing up in CM.

Michael

There are quite a number of units available that weren't dished out in any great number to the German forces the Americans fought in the 3 months after Overlord... They are ket restricted by Rarity settings. If there was a proper "sniper" unit available with stealth bonuses and high chances to hit at long range, it could be given a high rarity setting to reflect the infequency of deployment. And if it's likely to be incredibly effective, it would be given a cost proportionate. If they can rack up 15 kills in a large game, they should probably cost as much as a Sherman.

I can imagine the shock when people spotted a one (or is it two? I'm not up on German sniper doctrine) man unit comes in at a couple hundred points, with a x10 rarity multiplier :) And then further dismay that the US don't get an equivalent unit...

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Okay, that's interesting. But remember, all through the war, any enemy soldier taking potshots was called a sniper, and there were quite a lot of them. Just calling them snipers does not necessarily imply that they had specialized training of true snipers. And believe me, even ordinary soldiers taking a random potshot at you when you may have thought an area secured is enough to erode morale, whether they cause actual casualties or not.

Michael

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