According to Hart, only about 10% of the soldiers in combat fire anything.
Unlike normal troops, who fire in the general direction of the enemy, the sniper shoots at a specific person.
He must not only be an exceptional shot, but must be able to take a bead on another human and shoot him dead and do it without excitement or passion. In other words, this odd duck must be a cold blooded killer.
In Stalingrad, the war actually stopped for a couple days while a famous German sniper and an equally famous Soveit sniper stalked each other.
In Italy, a German sniper pinned the advancing American Army for two days. The Americans called several artillery stikes and even carpet bombed the mountain side, before the sniper ran out of ammunition and left a number of American soldiers dead on the road.
In World War II, the USA line company had 1 scoped rifle per company in the table of equipment. There was no billet as "sniper". If any one was a good enough shot and was a loner type, he became the sniper. They were an uncommon breed.Originally posted by O de B:
I would think at last one per section, maybe on per group. I know it's high but when i made my military service a few years ago, each sergeant was designating an 'Elite firer' (as we say in french, i guess this would be translated by 'sniper' in english/american) under his command. But it was still equipped with the standard FAMAS. Never seen a scoped rifle through my whole military service. No more used ?
The point is : in WW2 were there enough good scoped rifles to equip so many people ?
We may adjust the cost for these creatures in the orders of battle.
Bye...
Michael Wood
No Way.
