US Army Snipers in Normandy

[Michael Emrys]

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...

That might work. Whether BFC goes for the idea is up to them.

Michael

[JonS]

Not quite:

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

Do you also believe that every gun was an 88?

[Sixxkiller]

I think some of you may be a bit mistaken. Maybe it's movies, maybe you just want to believe...I dont know. But there wasnt intensive sniper training programs in the US military during WWII that i am aware of. Snipers are not born, they are made. They are made over literally years of training nowaday's. The US didnt really have years to even consider making men into machines during this time. And trust me, in modern training, that's exactly what you become....a thinking machine. You guys think making a guile suit and shooting someone at 1000m's makes a sniper. Well the school part is also the easy part. Doing complicated trig calculations in your head wouldnt have been a likely thing soldiers knew back then .

The game does not try to simulate them in this regard. It simulates them exactly as they most likely were, better than average shooters with scopes. It gives no stealth bonus, it gives mainly 2-300m of shooting accuracy, and they die just like any other soldier in your command. I believe this is the best way as if they were like they are today, all you guys would need to do is buy a whole bunch of them and change the course of battles with no problem. This wouldnt be that fun to play if this were the way the game treated them IMHO.

Now as we progress into the modules and games maybe they should be given better treatment (Stalingrad comes to mind) for the German and Russians, but as far as Normandy, its probably best to keep it as is.

[TrailApe]

It will be interesting to see if Commonwealth snipers are modelled in the next (hurry it up please) module.

There were German snipers at Normandy, but once again, it seems like they may have been concentrated in the 21st AG sector (or that's what my quick search found)

Caen was an excellent place for the German snipers. Together with artillery observers who directed artillery fire on exposed infantry the snipers totally dominated the grounds around Caen. The Brits and Canadians had to go through every square meter to make sure the terrain was secured from the stubborn snipers, a time consuming task. It was at Caen that snipers like Gefreiter Kurt Spengler distinguished themselves. Spengler was at the northeast of Caen, isolated in a big minefield. He shot down a notable number of British troops until he finally was killed by heavy artillery bombardment.

[slysniper]

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...

as for how rare a true sniper should be, yes. in the point structure, they should or could be very high. Not something for a QB battle normally.

But scenario design it is just a shame not to reflect what one good sniper can do to impact a battle.

as for German tactics during the time, they did work in teams, but as I recall, both were snipers, so that they could misdirect the focus from one, with a second firing from a new direction. Near the end of the war, they had lost most of their true snipers in the East. So as for how many were in the west. likely not many.

As for the game generally having markman, that is correct. but they should be called that, not snipers.

And even then, back to my sample test. I would still expect them to out perform a mp40 at 200 yards. That is just a joke.

[slysniper]

I think some of you may be a bit mistaken. Maybe it's movies, maybe you just want to believe...I dont know. But there wasnt intensive sniper training programs in the US military during WWII that i am aware of. Snipers are not born, they are made. They are made over literally years of training nowaday's. The US didnt really have years to even consider making men into machines during this time. And trust me, in modern training, that's exactly what you become....a thinking machine. You guys think making a guile suit and shooting someone at 1000m's makes a sniper. Well the school part is also the easy part. Doing complicated trig calculations in your head wouldnt have been a likely thing soldiers knew back then .

The game does not try to simulate them in this regard. It simulates them exactly as they most likely were, better than average shooters with scopes. It gives no stealth bonus, it gives mainly 2-300m of shooting accuracy, and they die just like any other soldier in your command. I believe this is the best way as if they were like they are today, all you guys would need to do is buy a whole bunch of them and change the course of battles with no problem. This wouldnt be that fun to play if this were the way the game treated them IMHO.

Now as we progress into the modules and games maybe they should be given better treatment (Stalingrad comes to mind) for the German and Russians, but as far as Normandy, its probably best to keep it as is.

I will and can disagree with this to some extent. It is not exactly true that snipers are made, yes training can and does make snipers. But the truely great snipers normally come into the unit with all the skills given. We had two in our unit that no one ever equalled with all the training we received. They could do from the first days within the unit things that many of us never could. Both grew up in rural areas and had been using guns from very young age. Did they improve, yes. As we all did. But they were the best of the best.

As for true snipers, There is no question that they should be represented. For the germans, they were part of the combat doctrine. For Russia, they had a lot of native people with the crafted skills and they did focus on some training. For the american, you are correct in that no Sniper program was there. But there was still plenty of farm boys with the skills, given the weapon, could do a decent job being a markman, which is where the game wants to leave it. I just do not think it reflects the level that even some of these men could adcheive.

[Juri_JS]

I guess many of you already know this film:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4521572679299554649

It shows the training and tactics of German snipers. Expecially the camouflage technics are very interesting, I wish we could simulate some of them in the game to give snipers an extra camouflage bonus.

[Statisoris]

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

I was speaking mostly about German snipers in my statement thats why I wrote (Atleast for Germans). I am aware that the US Army "snipers" did not have special training nor did they practice the true art of stalking/stealth.

[LemuelG]

2. Battalion 'Royal Ulster Rifles', part of the 9. Infantry Brigade of the 3. Infantry Division met snipers early. After the landing the Battalion was ordered to take the heights northeast of Periers sur le Dan. On the way to the heights they captured seventeen German soldiers, seven were reported to be snipers!

This must be erroneous, I thought every second German in Normandy was a sniper. A fine tactical compliment to the many hundreds of Tigers present.

[womble]

This must be erroneous, I thought every second German in Normandy was a sniper. A fine tactical compliment to the many hundreds of Tigers present.

And not to forget the "88" in every Wehrmacht's hip pocket...

[JonS]

As for true snipers, There is no question that they should be represented.

There's the rub. There is some question. Quite a lot of it, actually.

CM does not model the drip-drip-drip of casualties suffered by sniper fire and harassing artillery fire and guys doing stupid things and injuring themselves during all the so-called "quiet" times in between battles. But that is what snipers do. Drip. Drip. Drip. They don't - deliberately - get involved in the cut and thrust of force-on-force battles, which is what CM is about.

With all due respect to your experience, you - like me - have only the barest idea of what a battlefield with a defined front line over 130kms long, densely populated by thousands of battalions of infantry, artillery, armour, engineers and all the rest, featuring regular attacks conducted by battalions, brigades, divisions, corps, and even whole armies. Your experience - and mine - just has no relationship to that kind of intense, sustained tempo operations against a first class enemy.

[Tarquelne]

So you guys are saying that German snipers used "88"s? Sources, please.

[Sixxkiller]

So you guys are saying that German snipers used "88"s? Sources, please.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99749

[LongLeftFlank]

In case you aren't joking, 88s were allegedly used in hilly Italy to pick off individual men at very long range who thought they were safe. How widespread this tactic was against Corporal Kilroy out taking a crap is debatable, but I could certainly see value if the target is an OP. And the flat trajectory FlaK 41 was certainly capable of hitting man-sized targets at ranges exceeding 1000m.

[slysniper]

There's the rub. There is some question. Quite a lot of it, actually.

CM does not model the drip-drip-drip of casualties suffered by sniper fire and harassing artillery fire and guys doing stupid things and injuring themselves during all the so-called "quiet" times in between battles. But that is what snipers do. Drip. Drip. Drip. They don't - deliberately - get involved in the cut and thrust of force-on-force battles, which is what CM is about.

With all due respect to your experience, you - like me - have only the barest idea of what a battlefield with a defined front line over 130kms long, densely populated by thousands of battalions of infantry, artillery, armour, engineers and all the rest, featuring regular attacks conducted by battalions, brigades, divisions, corps, and even whole armies. Your experience - and mine - just has no relationship to that kind of intense, sustained tempo operations against a first class enemy.

I am not trying to say I have a great knowledge or magic ability to know how it was back then and what the real thing was like. To tell you the truth, I am glad I dont. But I have a least some knowledge to give my point of view, which you seem to not like.

As for the role of the Sniper, I hate to inform you of the fact that snipers are used in main battle engagements also. Not just the "what did you call it "The quiet in between battle times" German snipers would be used to cover defensive barriers, where they could stop advances with very little defensive force. They would be supporting fire, to front line units providing long range support, normally stationed a couple hundred yards back to avoid any arty strikes, they were also used as the eyes for arty spotters since they could read and estimate distances so well and view the battlefield without giving away their location. and they also would infiltrate enemy lines or allow lines to move over them and seek high ranking targets that were normally back in command and control areas. All these things can be represented in the level of play and tactics that the game uses.

And where might I get that info. from, from the manuals we were referencing when I was active. Since the US still did not have much material on the craft when they finially started creating sniper units in their branches, Much of what we had were WWII manuals from other countries and the training, skills and missions they were taught.

[sburke]

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=99749

Oh gawd, you didn't send him to The Cesspool did you?

[JonS]

my point of view, which you seem to not like.

Like has nothing to do with it. I'm well aware of the effect modern snipers with modern optics, weapons, and ammn can have. Really, there's not much to dislike about about your POV. What I'm not so keen on is the lack of perspective.

I hate to inform you

I bet you do.

they were also used as the eyes for arty spotters since they could read and estimate distances so well and view the battlefield without giving away their location.

That's interesting. I have not come across an example of anything even remotely like that. It has nothing to do with CM, of course, but I'd be very interested in any examples of that you could share.

and they also would infiltrate enemy lines or allow lines to move over them and seek high ranking targets that were normally back in command and control areas.

No kidding. But again it's nothing to do with CM. Or, to put that a slightly different way, I don't think it's the kind of scenario BFC had in mind when they were designing and building CM.

[Sixxkiller]

Oh gawd, you didn't send him to The Cesspool did you?

Well after 12 years of various Peng cesspoolistic conversational subject lines, if 88mm Sniper Tactical Employment proof exists, it will not only be contexted there, but also proven to exist without existing in a contextual existence.

[sburke]

Well after 12 years of various Peng cesspoolistic conversational subject lines, if 88mm Sniper Tactical Employment proof exists, it will not only be contexted there, but also proven to exist without existing in a contextual existence.

Hold on, I need a few more bong hits to grok that.

[Bigduke6]

It is worth remembering that the US population during the 1940s was far more rural than it is today, and so the pool of recruits that hunted routinely before jointing the service was, by modern standards, huge. If you got 100 - 150 American men together from that era there would pretty much always be 5 - 10 who had hunted all their lives. If you talk the infantry then the selection for those units weeded out the educated. And so probably increased the number of men who had 10 years or more experience as hunters.

Heck, the 1903 Springfield not only was quite close to rifles commonly used by US rural hunters of the day, it was a popular civilian hunting rifle. It was entirely possible a US infantry company commander would be able to find a man in his unit who not only had 10 years or more of hunting experience, but had done it with the M1903.

WW2 was a massive war and individual combatants by definition had very little effect on large scale combat. I submit that there was no point for the US to set up a sniper program because they had plenty of infantry recruits (not a majority, but a solid usable minority) that could do the job of company marksman perfectly adequately.

Further, once the US forces got into combat shortages of trained infantry became chronic. So it made good sense not to divert infantry training resources to a sniper program which would suck useful men out of the line units.

As to whether or not snipers are "effective enough" in CMN, I would say as a general thing they certainly are. This is because:

- CM assumes that the targeted troop is aware he is in a war and is trying to stay alive. This means he will seek cover as a matter of course, and that even if you the player don't see the spots where a single man might find cover on the mapboard the pixeltruppen can and what's more they will seek it. Normandy is not a pool table, and the simulation replicates soldiers' being able to get their heads down behind something under most circumstances.

Sure, one might expect a skilled rifleman with about 10 or so enemy some 200 meters away to pick them off in a couple of minutes if the world was a flat place without cover. But in the real world if you take 10 guys, put them in a conventional war, make sure their training and entire military experience (word of mouth) tells them "if you stick your head up you will die, maybe not the first time but sooner or later", and then put them in any terrain on Earth and a good shot 200 meters away, well, those 10 guys are going to find cover like their lives depend on it. Which of of course it does.

- CM does not simulate a firing range, but war. The snipers' targets can shoot back. What's more, in almost all cases the targets have the ability to get their friends to help. This means that a single rifleman in a conventional war, no matter how spiffy his training and ghillie suit, cannot, in most cases, just set up and knock off the bad guys like tenpins. The bad guys might very well retaliate. Pretty much by definition, if the shooter is a sniper, the bad guys have far more firepower than a single rifleman.

Sure, it is possible to find accounts of single riflemen shooting up squads or even platoons during WW2. All I would say ask is, how many times did that probably happen, and how many times did a marksman get off a shot or two, and then the other side pours indirect and direct in the marksman's general direction? My reading of the history is, individual riflemen taking a shot attracted so much fire it was in almost all cases foolhardy to take that shot.

CMN's pixeltruppen are almost certainly far braver than real humans, but still, if you are talking about a single rifleman he also wants to stay alive and he is not just motivated to shoot the enemy. He has to worry about giving away his position, making sure if he does open fire he won't waxed, overcome fear and indeed human instinct to try and kill other people, etc.

So if you're talking a sniper and a buddy taking aim at a squad about 200 meters away, I would say that generally speaking 2-3 hits on the squad over 5 minutes is a reasonable outcome. The thing to keep in mind is, the main thing infantry did, almost all the time, was hide. On both sides. Specifically, hide at the expense of taking a chance and firing a at the enemy. Both sides had far too much capacity to put flying metal into the air for a guy with a rifle to have any other priority than that.

The main point of infantry training was, and for that matter remains, convincing young men that it makes sense to risk death just to have a chance of harming another human being. True young human males are more willing than any other part of humanity to do just that, but unless you can convince them they can kill with impunity, or the sides in the war are really lopsided, even the great majority of young men once they become actual participants of a conventional war will quickly opt for survival not killing.

This behavior pattern is of course reinforced by war itself, which, if conventional, kills off the risk-takers with extreme efficiency.

So, if we return to the example of the CMN "sniper" shooting at a squad 200 meters away, it is of course possible to argue there might well have been marksmen who would have been able to shoot dead the members of that enemy squad pretty much as the members of that squad exposed themselves, in a couple of minutes or maybe even a minute.

However, in WW2, a sniper willing to accept that level of personal risk would probably have lasted an hour, I would say pretty much in all cases a day in combat. For the purposes of CMN, individual soldiers like that do not exist. Either they are dead or personal or acquired experience demonstrated that kind of behavior to be not just moronic, but suicidal.

There is of course a school of thought that snipers have a major influence on battlefields and therefore, it makes sense to commit substantial resources to training skilled snipers.

As a general thing, I do not subscribe to that school. If it is pure infantry on infantry combat, and for whatever reason substantial automatic weapons or indirect fire is not possible, then ok, I can see how snipers would be useful. If for some non-combat reason - you don't want to trash buildings or there is a political restriction on using high explosives - then sure, a sniper can be useful. I call those isolated cases.

The moment HE and automatic weapons fire are possible candidates for an engagement, snipers to my mind become very cost-ineffective. There is very little in a war that a sniper can do, that a machine gun or indirect fire cannot do better, and at lower cost in resources and with far more flexibility.

[LukeFF]

Interview with 3 German snipers:

http://wethearmed.com/index.php?topic=8603.0

A. Matthais Hetzenauer of Tyrol fought at the Eastern Front from 1943 to the end of the war, and with 345 certified hits is the most successful German sniper.

B. Sepp Allerberger of Salzburg fought at the Eastern Front from December 1942, to the end of the war, and with 257 certified hits is the second-best German sniper.

C. Helmut Wirnsberger of Styria fought at the Eastern Front from September 1942, to the end of the war and scored 64 certified hits (after being wounded he served for some time as instructor on a sniper training course).

At what range could you hit the following targets without fail?

A. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 600 meters. Standing Man up to 700-800 meters.

B. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 400 meters. Standing up to 600 meters.

C. Head up to 400 meters. Breast up to 400 meters. Standing Man up to 600 meters.

5. Do the ranges indicated by you apply only to you, i.e. the best snipers, or also to the majority of snipers?

A. & B. Only to the best snipers.

C. To me personally as well as to the majority of snipers. A few outstanding snipers could hit also at longer ranges.

B added: Absolutely positive hitting is possible only up to about 600 meters.

6. What was the range of the furthest target you ever fired at, and what kind of target, size?

A. About 1,000 meters. Standing soldier. Positive hitting not possible, but necessary under the circumstances in order to show enemy that he is not safe even at that distance! Or superior wanted to satisfy himself about capability.

B. 400 to 700 meters.

C. About 600 meters, rarely more. I usually waited until target approached further for better chance of hitting. Also confirmation of successful hit was easier. Used G43 only to about 500 meters because of poor ballistics.

[altipueri]

There's a wikipedia article on snipers which gives some background. Basically I think German snipers should be more numerous or effective than allied.

I once met a guy who was a British sniper in WW2. The thing he liked was that he was basically independent - e.g. he didn't have to conform to uniform requirements and the one thing in particular I remember him saying was that he wore plimsolls (gym shoes) because they were light and quiet, unlike army boots.

[YankeeDog]

It is worth remembering that the US population during the 1940s was far more rural than it is today, and so the pool of recruits that hunted routinely before jointing the service was, by modern standards, huge. If you got 100 - 150 American men together from that era there would pretty much always be 5 - 10 who had hunted all their lives. If you talk the infantry then the selection for those units weeded out the educated. And so probably increased the number of men who had 10 years or more experience as hunters....

As I have noted before, while it is true that the U.S. population was significantly more rural in 1941 than it is now, counterintuitively, the proportion of U.S. Army front-line straight-leg infantry from rural backgrounds was actually significantly lower than in the overall population. And a disproportionately high percentage of the front-line rifle infantry came from urban areas. Something like 10% of front-line riflemen in the U.S. Army came from the greater New York City area alone.

The reason was that, in the 1940s rural draftees were much more likely to have other skills the Army saw as particularly valuable, especially experience driving and maintaining vehicles, and especially heavy vehicles like tractors and trucks. Most lower and middle class urban residents didn't own or even have a driver's license in the 1930s and 40s. A few, like city bus and delivery truck drivers, but not many.

The Army specifically looked for draftees with Internal Combustion Engine experience, so farm boys were much more likely to end driving and/or maintaining tanks, servicing aircraft engines, serving as a mechanic in a division motor pool, etc. And middle to lower class urban draftees, with relatively few skills which the Army saw as high priority, got dumped into the infantry.

In contrast, the Army had very little in the way of programs that evaluated shooting experience in raw recruits. Generally the "sure shots" weren't differentiated until *after* draftees had been put through basic training and shunted into the infantry, at which point the better shooters were tossed a scoped Springfield by their Company commander.

[Vanir Ausf B]

If you talk the infantry then the selection for those units weeded out the educated. And so probably increased the number of men who had 10 years or more experience as hunters.

I stopped reading right there.

[slysniper]

Quote by JonS

and they also would infiltrate enemy lines or allow lines to move over them and seek high ranking targets that were normally back in command and control areas.

"No kidding. But again it's nothing to do with CM. Or, to put that a slightly different way, I don't think it's the kind of scenario BFC had in mind when they were designing and building CM."

???

reply:

And why should it be their decision to say they not allowed. They provide a game that allows us to create battles we find an interest in. Hopefully with the tools to do most anything that is realistic.

They also seem to not want to design tools for the beach head portion of the campaign either. But designers work around the limited tools and still come up with pretty good stuff. Omaha beach looks pretty good in the scenario I saw.

So I want Snipers that act like snipers so that they can be placed in scenario’s. The problem is, there is no work around.

That is the only perspective that I am really trying to voice here – you can think it is twisted as much as you like.